Quixote's Horse: Workfare - Who Watches the Watchers? (part 2)

Who Watches the Watchers? (part 2)

In part 1 we documented the barriers, the stonewalling and ultimately the refusal to act by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. While that brazenly illegal denial of your basic human rights was playing itself out, the Social Benefits Tribunal Appeal was also proceeding ahead. This time we turn the spotlight on John Done, Director of the local Kingston Community Legal Clinic. If you are unable to afford a lawyer in Kingston, you are likely going to have to turn to the Legal Clinic for help.

The following mandate, appears on the Volunteer & Information Kingston website:

Kingston Community Legal Clinic promotes justice, equality, rights and independence for low-income people by:

* providing legal services in matters relating to poverty
* housing, income support, human rights, health, employment and education
* pursuing law reform activities
* providing community legal education
* engaging in community development

Community Legal Clinics are funded by Legal Aid Ontario. Here is how LAO defines the purpose and responsibilities of Legal Clinics on their web site:

Community legal clinics are independent, non-profit organizations that are governed by locally elected Boards of Directors, and receive funding from Legal Aid Ontario.

Community legal clinics provide services to address the unique legal needs of low-income people and communities. The local board tries to match its services to meet the priority needs of the community it serves. Although no two clinics are exactly alike, the types of issues they may provide help with include:

Tenant Rights
Ontario Works and Welfare
Ontario Disability Support Program
Government Pensions
Immigration
Employment Insurance
Workplace Safety and Insurance
Workers' Compensation
Employment Rights
Criminal Injuries Compensation
Human Rights

Lawyers and legal workers provide information, legal advice, and represent people. In addition, clinics also can engage in test cases, public legal education, community organizing, and other law reform initiatives.

"Ontario Works and Welfare". "Human Rights". It sounded to me as if I had come to the right place. It did not take long to discover that not all Community Legal Clinics are as the glowing mandates might suggest.

The Executive Director of the Kingston Community Legal Clinic is John Done. Alert readers will recall that Mr. Done was the lawyer who smirked and advised me that it was impossible to force the Ontario Human Rights Commission to accept my formal Complaint as written. He was wrong, of course. It was not to be the first time, nor the last, that I was to receive such expressions of non-support from John Done. Worse yet, the unethical behaviours and outright legal incompetence demonstrated by this Kingston lawyer will surely leave most of you shaking your heads in utter disbelief. Rightly so - but trust me - I would not dare publish anything that was not the absolute truth in this affair. The following incidents actually happened. Draw your own conclusions, folks.

John Done met with me after I approached the Legal Clinic to handle my Tribunal case. He told me flat out that he was of the opinion that the case had no legal merit. He refused to take the case but did offer the resources of the Clinic library and the guidance of an intern (the name of this angel was lost when I was made homeless, losing most of my possessions in the process). The legal case that I eventually prepared was rock solid and contained the same legal arguments that the Sudbury Community Legal Clinic later took all the way to the Supreme Court on behalf of two of their clients. Sudbury won that case (Tranchemontagne v. Ontario (Director, Disability Support Program), [2006] 1 S.C.R. 513, 2006 SCC 14) in April of 2006. As a result, all Tribunals in Ontario are now required to consider arguments based upon the Ontario Human Rights Code... just as I told John Done that they were required to do.

Meanwhile, I asked the local activist community to pressure the Legal Clinic to at least represent me at the yet to be scheduled SBT Appeal hearing. I learned at the very last minute (literally) that John Done had agreed to represent me. However when I arrived at the Hearing, John Done was nowhere to be found! I kid you not.

"This is like deja vu all over again.", Yogi Berra

In a state of complete shock, I mutely nodded when the OW Director requested an adjournment! I don't recall what the reason was but it was a most welcome miracle. The Legal Clinic later indicated that John Done was simply "unavailable". Nobody had bothered to give me the heads up.

Accidents will happen. However, I resolved to not be unprepared the next time - just in case. That was a wise decision too.

In a remarkable series of events, John Done bailed just 3 days before the rescheduled March 7 Social Benefits Tribunal Hearing. He had not even read my Submission. Needless to say that sent me into scramble mode. Just 20 hours before the SBT hearing, I received a phone call from a representative of the Low Income Needs Coalition. It seems that they (and others) had convinced Mr. Done of the wisdom of jumping back on the bandwagon. A letter from the local community legal clinic was hastily provided in support of their suggestion that I ask for a postponement. Since the respondent had already postponed the matter once before, I had decided it would be prudent to prepare a summary of my case anyway. At the hearing, which was held in the same hotel as the visiting Premier Harris, a few supporters from LINC and I made our way through the large police presence and dutifully requested the second postponement. Needless to say, the Arbitrator was not amused. However after much pseudo-legal mumbo jumbo and a token objection from the Respondent's lawyer, the matter was again postponed.

The new Hearing date was eventually set for August 15, 2000. However it too was not without some last minute drama.

Just as the last time, John Done pulled out with less than 48 hours notice. It was deja vu! I kid you not - nobody could make this stuff up. Again, a last minute expression of local outrage at this treatment from activists here in Kingston resulted in yet another change of mind.

Unfortunately, the case, which I had every reason to believe he was preparing, was not prepared. We had even met once to discuss the details and he had contacted a potential expert witness by telephone. Needless to say, it was yet another shock in what seems to be a never ending series of surprises in this case.

After thinking it over, I elected to have him show up anyway. I reasoned that, as a kind of "duty counsel", he would at least be useful in protecting me from any abuse of process. That was to be wishful thinking.

Mr. Done managed to stumble out of the gate seeking mediation, irritated the Adjudicator enough to prompt a lecture on Tribunal protocol and effectively ensured that my carefully prepared case would not even be considered. Mr. Done could not have more efficiently sabotaged my case if he were actually working for the Respondent in the matter. Some have since suggested that he may well have been doing exactly that. I am unprepared to go that far. I merely report the horrific facts. You decide.

To help you put it into greater perspective, we will now skip ahead a few years. After losing at the Tribunal, losing my apartment and most of my possessions and then spending two years listening to another Kingston lawyer tell me how the case would soon be ready to Appeal to Divisional court (only to have this winner later relocate without telling me), the local OW office decided to reinstate my benefits! I again refused to sign the Participation Agreement and was accepted anyway!! And the lawyer who simply disappeared? Last I heard, he accepted a commission working for - you guessed it - the head of Kingston's Social Services.

If you think that was too hard to believe, consider this: while the Ontario Human Rights Commission was telling me that they were too backlogged to even assign an investigator to my Complaint, a lobby group managed to convince the OHRC to find the time to sanction the noncodified economic "rights" of same-sex couples. Give me a break. Worse - we have not yet heard the last of John Done and the Kingston Community Legal Clinic. Stay tuned. It gets weirder yet.

Part 6: What the lawyers have said.

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Who Watches the Watchers? (part 2)

Part 6: What the lawyers have said.