How has COVID-19 affected access to justice?

The ad hoc Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group on Measuring the Impact of COVID-19 on Access to Justice in Family and Poverty Law Matters recently released the report Measuring What Matters.

The report examines the impact the pandemic has had on various aspects of life, including income support. It shines a positive light on the work the Social Security Tribunal (SST) has accomplished throughout the pandemic. It found that the SST is one example where COVID-19 didn’t seem to have any lasting impact on access to justice.

The report shows that we continued to serve people during the pandemic, and even improved our client service to make the appeal process easier for the people who use our system. We measure and evaluate our work to see how we’re doing and where we can improve. We also have a continuous feedback loop that informs our next moves toward continually improving our performance.

The SST welcomes scrutiny by external experts, such as the authors of this report, because their work helps to promote transparency and accountability in the justice system.