STUDENT CAUCUS
Monday, February 23, 2015 3
5 Things Every Osgoode Student Should Know
About the Potential Parkdale Closure
The Impact of the Vision Report on Experiential Education
darcel bullen › 3l student caucus rep,
former pcls student caseworker
O
sgoode students weren’t just worried about exams and papers at the end of
the Fall 2014 term. Almost one hundred
students completed a Student Caucus
survey about the impact of the Vision Report on
Parkdale Community Legal Services (PCLS), clinical education at Osgoode, and the community-based
legal clinic system in Toronto. The Vision Report,
released in August 2014, proposes an entirely new
model for community legal aid clinics, which were
introduced in the 1970s. The hotly debated future of
poverty law services remains a pressing news issue
in the Law Times, Huffington Post, Toronto Star, Now
Toronto, Toronto Media Co-op, and Inside Toronto.
The survey was drafted by a sub-committee
struck by Student Caucus to ensure we captured student opinions about the Vision Report’s proposed
closure of Toronto’s fourteen independent community legal clinics in favour of three mega-centres.
Student Caucus representatives Abigail Cheung,
Allison Williams, and I analyzed the survey findings
and delivered a report to Student Caucus in January
2015.
While the residents of the Parkdale neighbourhood clearly have the most to lose from any pending
closures, the historic relationship between Osgoode
and PCLS means that we, as Osgoode students, have
much to lose as well. The intensive in Poverty Law
at PCLS is the largest employer of Osgoode summer
students, providing twenty jobs each summer. But
PCLS offers more than jobs. PCLS is the biggest and
oldest experiential education program at Osgoode.
Students have, for four decades, been given the
opportunity to practice a model of community lawyering instructed by inspiring staff lawyers and
clients.
What do students need to know to inform how
they engage with this issue? Here are five things
every Ozzie should know about the potential closure
of PCLS.
Mossman, and Frederick Zemans, the claims about
a more efficient and effective model of service via
three mega-centres doesn’t ring true when the
asserted gain in front-line staff is the equivalent of
less than one person per clinic. This is the equivalent
of adding less than one person to each of the existing
fourteen clinics after all clinic staff are moved out of
each community. Before the community-based legal
clinic system in Canada’s most populated province
is replaced with an economy legal services model of
one-size fits all, more research and empirical evidence is needed.
#4: Even If Poverty Law Is Not Their Future
Career, Students Can Benefit From More
Information and Consultation About the
Vision Report
Students identified the absen