Twenty-year time warp: Canadian PLE in 1987

It’s 1987, and it is a watershed year for public legal education in Canada. Infused with federal interest and dollars, the movement is on the verge of “completing the network”: there is now a sole-purpose PLE organization in every province and territory except New Brunswick. Justice Canada’s core funding commitment has just jumped from a $60,000 to a $70,000 minimum annual commitment per organization. A bunch of PLE organizations have gotten together to form a national umbrella organization, the Public Legal Education Association of Canada.

The artifacts of Canadian PLE brim with hope and vigor. After fifteen years of creating the field out of nothing, pulling it up by its bootstraps, and dragging it into a skeptical and sometimes hostile world, the pioneers of PLE are beginning to see the light, and it is good.

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Considering the great promise of that year, I thought I ought to use this blog to leave a little window open into 1987. To do that, I’m posting a “Survey of Public Legal Education in Canada” from 1987, compiled by Suzan Hebditch and published that year in the Canadian Association of Law Librares Newsletter/Bulletin. PLE researchers and anybody currently involved with a sole-purpose PLE organization will likely be interested in taking a look.

Here it is [1 MB PDF].