Law Times

Law Times • January 7, 2013 Page 7 COMMENT LCBO waste enough to drive you to drink u Letter A to the editor s we shake off the post-festive fog and get back to business this week, the fight for the premier of Ontario's office ramps up in access to the demon rum that has been in place 1927. to address the issues of Queen's sincechoiceIt does nothing a one-size-fits-all stratlocal because it's still Park egy just like the Beer Store. LEGAL SUPPORT CENTRE LETTERS.indd 1 3/1/12 4:39 PM earnest. The real issue is who the retail entities serve. TOUTS PROGRESS SO FAR Politically, we're adrift in a strange Foreign conglomerates, for example, own the Beer The Human Rights Legal Support Centre welcomes Law new world with a prorogued legislature, Store through a de facto cartel that allows them Times' discussion of Andrew Pinto's report on Ontario's a lame duck premier, and seven candito rig the game to ensure their brands get promihuman rights system. We would like to provide updated dates to replace him. Of course, there are nence at the expense of craft breweries. information on one point in the article: since April 2012, nine aspirants if you include ConservaThe LCBO doesn't serve the citizens of Onthe centre has been able to answer 83 per cent of inquitive Leader Tim Hudak and NDP Leader tario either. Like the Beer Store, it serves its masries to its telephone advice line, responding to 14,082 of Andrea Horwath. ter, which in this case is the giant bureaucracy that them in the first six months of this year alone. Ian Harvey The leadership convention takes place surrounds it and holds up the $1.63 billion paid to Pinto recognized the efforts the centre has made to Jan. 25-27 at Maple Leaf Gardens, which the treasury last year from sales of $4.7 billion as provide excellent service with limited funding. The reis somewhat ironic when you consider the fact that there the price of cutting it loose. port concluded that the centre could assist more people hasn't been a winning team out of there since 1967. The The reason for the mediocre returns despite its mowith increased resources and that its services were needwinner of that beauty contest will become premier, al- nopoly is that the LCBO is expensive to run with some ed by many human rights applicants who are unreprethough if it's one of the candidates who don't currently 6,500 full- and part-time employees paid $15 to $20 an sented before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. hold a seat in the house, there will be another delay of at hour plus benefits. Incidentally, that contract is up for reThe Dec. 10 article, "Lawyer calls for gold standard least six weeks in order to hold a byelection. newal this spring, so customers should brace themselves. rights system," quotes Antonella Ceddia as saying our When the new leader assumes the job in the legisThen there are the 1,000 or so managers and supervihuman rights system is not a gold standard.  Whatlature, it's anyone's guess as to what will happen. If the sors. Fully 250 of them make more than $100,000 a year ever the characteristics of a gold standard system may Liberals shift to the left by aligning with the NDP and with 17 senior managers earning more than $200,000 a be, there are a few facts worth noting about Ontario's settling with the unions, the spring budget will be a tax- year. In addition, president and chief executive officer current framework. and-spend doozy. Alternatively, we could be heading for Bob Peter is pulling in about $450,000 plus bonus. For the first time in 50 years, human rights claimants another general election. We just don't know. The issue is not whether private enterprise could do can access an expert human rights tribunal, an open Meanwhile, the curious leadership of Premier Dalton better — it most certainly could — but whether a thorhearing process, and an early opportunity to settle at McGuinty continues. Mindful that his successor will like- ough overhaul of the LCBO's practices could generate mediation. For the first time, thousands of human rights ly face voters sooner rather than later, the premier-in-exit more revenues for the treasury and serve the public better. claimants are able to access free legal services through has placed a couple of pre-election goodies on the table. Auditor general Jim McCarter thinks so. He pointed the centre as our expert lawyers have represented hunOne was to find $10 million in the face of the Connecticut out in his review that the way the LCBO sets prices is dreds of claimants before the tribunal at no cost. massacre to restore a program to install security cameras mind-boggling. First, it sets the price at retail and then The centre's staff have achieved significant public and remote locks in schools. The other involves a nod to tells suppliers to raise or lower their prices accordingly. interest remedies through mediation and hearings. the long-standing demand for more places to buy liquor, It's fair to assume that the LCBO has some fat and a deThese remedies have created systemic changes to the beer, and wine. cent audit and management review team should be able operations of police services, school boards, and large The latter move is more interesting since it's a hot-button to flush those savings loose. employers, including national retailers. issue for voters and a critical fiscal component of the budget. Hudak's mantra of privatization is a dogma that plays Pinto has made some excellent recommendations The proposal is vague. We'll get 10 pilot LCBO express ki- well with the hard right of the Conservatives but he should to improve the services provided by all three human osks inside grocery stores selling wine, beer, and liquor some be cautious because until we really know what's going on rights agencies and we look forward to working with time over the next 18 months. They won't be independent at the LCBO and how much money it's wasting, it would our partners and affected communities to implement and probably won't have extended hours. LCBO employees be premature to sell out right now. LT many of them. will staff them. Jennifer Ramsay It's far short of Hudak's call to privatize the LCBO and Ian Harvey has been a journalist for 35 years writing about Communications and external more cosmetic than a fundamental shift away from the a diverse range of issues including legal and political affairs. His relations co-ordinator root of the LCBO's post-Prohibition mandate to control e-mail address is ianharvey@rogers.com. Human Rights Legal Support Centre Previous law practice program participant recalls experience during 1949 Manitoba articling crisis BY MORLEY GORSKY For Law Times T I had a range of duties. My principal, for example, was honorary counsel to a child and family service. This led to my appearing in child and family court on a number of occasions. They dealt mostly with custody and filiation proceedings, the latter leading to the determination of the paternity of a child for support purposes and to a number of "Who's your daddy?" reunions with high school acquaintances. I also had appearances in the Small Claims Court; was responsible for carrying out legal research and preparing draft pleadings; represented impecunious walk-in clients in the lowest criminal court, the magistrate's court; performed real estate and other searches; and did a lot of thankless tasks in addition to getting yelled at a lot. Upon my call to the bar in September of 1953, my principal offered me employment at a salary of $150 a month. In 1954, I departed for Ontario where I was called to the bar in November 1955. All of the students in Golden's course found articling positions before the end of first year. Upon their call to the bar, they either found jobs with small firms or became sole practitioners as did most of those who weren't part of the program. LT u SPEAKER'S CORNER he recent approval by the Law Society of Upper Canada of a three-year pilot project for an articling alternative reminded me of my own experience when a shortage of articling positions in 1949 caused the Law Society of Manitoba to create another option. I'm 84 years old, so I doubt there are many of my contemporaries available to help out with any details I may have overlooked. But here's some context. The University Of Manitoba law school was very much an apprenticeship school in 1949. It also included formal one-hour classes from September to April usually taught by eminent practitioners who received a small honorarium. Students would attend them Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to noon over a period of four years. Students with undergraduate degrees also had to serve under articles for 48 months, including the summer, before being eligible for their call to the bar. Those with only two years of undergraduate experience had to serve for 60 months. Time for the purpose of call to the bar began to run when a student secured an articling position and was enrolled as an articled clerk by the law society. Hence the crisis of 1949 when there was an insufficient number of articling positions. In response, the law society created a practice program for those students (of which I was one) who were unable to find an articling position. Those of us in the program were fortunate in that the late David Golden, a Rhodes scholar and war hero who later worked as deputy minister of defence construction, was a founding member of Telesat Canada, and served on many public and private boards, conceived of and conducted it. The course, offered at no additional cost to students, required them to perform a large number of simulation exercises based on real examples. One of the rules of the program was that participants were to continue to seek an articling position and, if successful, move seamlessly to the real world of articling. It took me several months to find a position and while I appreciated the advantages of being in a real law office, I discovered that, unlike the practice program, I became responsible for things such as banking, serving process, courier and office-cleaning duties, liquor purchases, and, in one instance, the purchase of a melon baller. Office hours were Monday to Friday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. I received $10 a month during my first year with annual increments of $10 over the next three years. My remuneration was a bit on the low side compared to other students but only a bit. In case of emergencies, the office trumped school. www.lawtimesnews.com Morley Gorsky practised law in Ottawa, was a member of the faculties of law at Queen's and Western universities, and worked as an arbitrator and mediator. He doesn't own a melon baller.

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