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Wahl, Judith --- "The Advocacy Centre For The Elderly, Toronto, Ontario Canada" [2006] ElderLawRw 3; (2006) 4 Elder Law Review, Article 3


The Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, Toronto, Ontario Canada

Judith Wahl, Barrister & Solicitor, Executive Director[1]

The Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE) is a legal clinic funded by Legal Aid Ontario to provide legal services for low-income seniors in the Province of Ontario. The focus of the ACE legal services are on areas of law that have a direct or particular impact on older adults in Ontario. This includes legal issues in health care, tenancy issues in retirement homes and other seniors housing, long term care and hospital issues, health care consent, capacity issues, substitute decision making, advance care planning, seniors consumer issues, elder abuse, seniors pensions, other income maintenance issues.

Ontario funds the largest and most comprehensive legal aid system in Canada. Legal aid in Ontario is managed by Legal Aid Ontario, an agency that was established by the Ontario provincial government in collaboration with the Law Society of Upper Canada, to create a variety of delivery mechanisms for legal aid services, to directly manage the funding provided by the provincial government primarily for criminal and family law, and to fund and ensure accountability of the independent community legal clinics that deliver poverty law services.

Poverty law services include legal services in the areas of welfare law, income maintenance, workers compensation, immigration, human rights, tenancy issues, employment law, as well as legal services directed to particular client groups or with particular impact on segments of the population such as issues related to race, discrimination, aging, and disability to name only a few examples.

ACE is one of 79 legal clinics in Ontario and has been in operation since 1984. It is managed by a Board of Directors of 15 that is representative of the seniors’ community as well as the legal community and persons active in seniors advocacy. This structure ensures that ACE is independent of both the Ontario Government and Legal Aid Ontario, although funded by Legal Aid Ontario. It also ensures that ACE is directly accountable to its client community which it serves.

ACE is staffed by five lawyers and three support staff who offer five types of legal services – direct client service, public legal education, law reform services, community development work, and referral information.

In direct client service, ACE staff provide summary advice and legal information as well as representation before the full range of courts and tribunals. ACE lawyers have appeared in everything from the Small Claims Court through to the Supreme Court of Canada. Most cases are specifically for a particular client, although some cases are “test” cases as the court decision in that matter will likely have an impact on the broader seniors’ community as well as the individual client.

Public legal education workshops are organized for seniors and their families to provide practical information on basic rights in health care, tenancies, powers of attorney, long term care and anything else that may be of concern to the client community. ACE lawyers are frequent speakers at education sessions organized for health and social service providers, physicians, police, and the legal community on Elderlaw topics. ACE also produces printed materials, from booklets and pamphlets through to a comprehensive legal text on Long Term Care Law, all of which are widely distributed and available for order from their website and from Community Legal Education Ontario, a legal clinic that specializes in printed legal education material.

In the area of law reform, ACE staff prepare analysis briefs on any new legislation that impacts on seniors. These briefs are presented to the appropriate decision-makers, from government policy makers, to committees of the provincial legislature, to government officials and Ministers. As well the briefs are made available to seniors groups and other advocacy groups advocating for reform to assist them in understanding the legal issues and the implications of the proposed legislation or regulation changes. For example, ACE recently produced a comprehensive 185 page brief on long term care reform which was submitted to the Ministry of Health and Long term care to consider in its review of existing long term care legislation.

In community development, ACE has worked on a variety of projects. The most recent was a three year project on elder abuse response in which ACE worked with 18 communities across Ontario including urban, rural and First Nations Communities, to assist them in developing elder abuse response networks. The intent of the networks is to raise awareness to prevent abuse, and to develop appropriate local responses and resources for seniors if abuse should occur.

Many calls come to ACE that are not legal issues but on which seniors need direction and assistance. ACE staff try to refer the callers to appropriate services that can provide this assistance.

ACE staff serve over 3000 seniors each year, annually deliver between 60-90 speaking engagements and workshops, and engage in a variety of other activities that are related to Elderlaw issues. Despite its success, ACE is still the only legal service of its kind in Canada. There is an increased interest in Elderlaw issues and Elderlaw practice in Canada, with more and more private bar providing representation to the growing seniors community but there is a need for additional legal clinics in Canada, like ACE, to serve the low income seniors’ community. ACE will continue its efforts to promote the development of similar services in other provinces in order to better meet the need for legal representation and legal advocacy for the older population of Canada.


[1] Judith Wahl obtained her LL.B from Osgoode Hall and was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1979. In 1984, Ms. Wahl founded the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly in Toronto, Ontario where she remains Executive Director. Ms Wahl is a well known and well respected speaker on issues affecting the legal rights of older persons and has published widely on elder law topics.


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