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The time to act is now: Transforming research
into innovative action
HANNAH DE JONG
Canadian Forum on Civil Justice
Research must always go hand-in-hand
with action and implementation. While the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice primarily focuses on
access to justice research and advocacy, it also
recognizes the importance of putting the recommendations and strategies that are developed by
evidence-based research into action. Indeed, it can
be said that research, while important, accomplishes little if it does not spur others to act.
While the CFCJ’s national “Cost of Justice”
survey is currently in the stages of data collection, there is a wealth of other studies with sound
recommendations ready to be put into practice.
One of the most recent is the final report of the
national Action Committee on Access to Justice
in Civil and Family Matters, which has sparked
discussions around the importance of moving
from research and recommendations to action
and implementation. The report, “A Roadmap for
Change”, which came out last October, calls on
governments, academics, the legal profession, and
all other stakeholders to rise to the challenge of
improving access to justice in Canada. It provides
a nine-point access to justice “roadmap” that
delineates concrete and innovative goals that we
should be striving to meet. Some of these goals
include increasing funding for legal aid, strengthening the “Early Resolution Services Secto