SU Elections 2022 Q&A: Student Legal Services Referendum

In addition to electing new student representatives, the Students’ Union 2022 election will give students the opportunity to decide on renewing the Student Legal Services (SLS) fee.

SLS’s designated fee unit (DFU) goes towards providing undergraduate students at the University of Alberta with free legal representation. The proposed fee will support services such as Student Group Assist, the Residence Project, and the TransID Project. This referendum is proposing an increase in SLS’s fee from $0.87 to $3.00.

Representing SLS in this Q&A is Jeremy Hoefsloot, a third year law student and former SLS executive coordinator.

The following interview has been condensed and simplified for clarity.

What is this referendum trying to accomplish?

Jeremy Hoefsloot: What this proposal is about is offering more dedicated, tailor-fit services to students going to the University of Alberta. We’re asking for a fee of $3.00. With this $3.00 fee, we’re offering a plethora of new services.

The first one is that we’re offering what we’re calling Student Group Assist. Executives of student groups can face unlimited liability for any damages that their student group cause. SLS will help you navigate the Societies Act [and] the Corporations Act and help you avoid liability and make sure that your student groups aren’t coming into any unfortunate circumstances.

The next service that we’re planning on offering is the residency project. Currently, we do landlord and tenancy disputes, but we’ve more or less shied away from dormitories, because it’s kind of hazy. With this proposal, we would have all of the caseworkers and all of the resources that we would need to effectively represent students who are having disputes with residency services who are living in these dormitories.

Another thing that we’re planning on offering is a campus-based TransID Project. This is one that we’ve already been doing off campus for just the low-income trans community in Edmonton. If your gender identity does not match what is on your government issued ID, SLS will help you change that. We’re planning to bring this service to campus.

With this increased funding, we’ll have more resources to bring this service permanently on campus. This includes bringing the notary services on campus as a part of this, which is a part of the big package deal that we’re offering.

The final thing that I’m really excited for, and it’s something that we piloted this last year is the Human Rights Project. Our special initiatives project shares its resources with the Human Rights Project, and we’re hoping to branch off and help the Human Rights Project become its own thing. So, students who are facing discrimination, human rights issues on campus or at their work can come to SLS, and they can be assured that they’re going to get legal representation at the Human Rights Tribunal.

To wrap it all up, one of our projects is the Legal Education Reform Project. You may have heard about the no fixed address report that we did a couple of years ago, [in] which we did some legal research and discovered that most loitering tickets in Edmonton were given to people with no fixed address. With our report and our advocacy, we were able to get the loitering bylaw removed. We want to continue this advocacy.

We’ve heard some concerns about sexual assault on campus, and how different legal agreements between faculty, university, and students may be contributing to an environment where these types of incidents happen and are not punished, and are given an environment where they can continue unpunished. We want to engage in legal research, understand a bit more, and shine a light on why this is happening, and effect changes to these agreements and to the law at play — like we did with the no fixed address report.

We do plan on continuing our services like our Criminal Law and Civil Law Project. If any of your readers are facing criminal charges, or is facing some sort of civil dispute, you can give us a call anytime. If we’re not open, we’ll get back to you and we’ll help represent you.

For students who don’t know, what is Student Legal Services (SLS)?

Hoefsloot: SLS is a non-profit ran by law students at the U of A. We’re the largest pro bono legal clinic ran by students in Canada. We offer free legal services to people who are low-income in the Edmonton area. Part of our agreement with the Students’ Union is we offer no-questions-asked legal services to undergraduate students here at the U of A — that includes criminal law, civil law, family law, and other services.

Have there been any changes to the Student Legal Services Fee since students’ last voted to pass it?

Hoefsloot: Absolutely not. Our fee has not changed since 1999, since it was first implemented and it was $0.87 cents.

If this referendum passes, how much will students be paying and how was that cost determined?

Hoefsloot: Students can expect to pay $3.00 per semester. This cost was determined by looking at our financial statements and what it would cost us to get the caseworkers that we need to get the Human Rights Project on its feet, as well as dedicate caseworkers to our other projects like the Student Group Assist, and the Residence Project. Putting that all together, this is this is what we came up with.

Will all students be paying this fee?

Hoefsloot: Not all students will be paying this fee. Augustana students are exempt from this fee. This does not mean that Augustana students cannot use our services — Augustana students are still welcome to come to SLS if they’re facing any legal issues.

The reason we don’t charge Augustana students is we have an area of operation that is Edmonton and surrounding communities. Camrose is sadly outside of our operating area. If you are having a matter that is being heard by a judge in Edmonton, Augustana students still get the same benefits [as] regular U of A students. Or, if a matter is not being heard in court, and you just need legal information, we’re happy to provide that free of charge to you as well.

Why do you think students should care about the work being done by Student Legal Services?

Hoefsloot: SLS is truly unique and it’s one of the things that make the U of A really special. The U of A and Alberta is unique in this regard. We’ve amended our Legal Professions Act and the Provincial Rules of Court to allow law students to represent people in provincial court on criminal and civil matters. You can get this almost nowhere else.

The work that we do is absolutely tremendous each year. We represent over 1,000 criminal law defendants each year. These people are low-income [and] really on their last row. We can see the good that we’re doing in the community. Students should care about this because we’re trying to focus and tailor the good that we’re doing to the community to the student body. We’ve taken the successes and the lessons that we’ve learned working with our advising law firms and the work that we’ve done in Provincial Court to better serve students.

Nowhere else in the world can you get guaranteed legal representation for $3.00 a semester. This is an amazing value add to students, especially for those who are living in residence. I think that’s really the crown jewel of this proposal. Residents services may seem intimidating if they’re asking things of you or you’re in a dispute with them.

If this referendum succeeds, you’ll know that student legal services has your back.

–With files from Jin He