We Africans have robbed our countries to the bone.
Canada has been kind enough to give Black/African Canadians some money to run a Legal Clinic to address their needs.
Alas, it seems like we cannot be trusted with money. Read on ...................
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RESOLUTION of the COMMUNITY SUPPORT GROUP for THE AFRICAN CANADIAN LEGAL CLINIC
(CSG - ACLC)
WHEREAS FORTY-FIVE COMMUNITY ELDERS and leaders of the African-Canadian community came together at Toronto City Hall and met with top officials of Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) and then considered appropriate community responses to a crisis at the African Canadian Legal Clinic (ACLC);
WHEREAS the ACLC is a publicly funded Community Legal Clinic designed
to address systemic racism in Ontario through litigation, advocacy and
legal education and needs high credibility, impeccable honesty and solicitous
accountability to the African Canadian Community in order to perform its
objectives;
Considering that the ACLC has enjoyed the confidence and unified
support in the African- Canadian Community of Ontario for its local and
international initiatives in the name of that community; in the light OF
FINDINGS of an official Legal Aid Ontario (L AO) forensic audit that the ACLC
received $418,000.00 in non-LAO source funding but never reported same to LAO
although required by law to do so; and further
the said forensic audit has substantiated that the ACLC management has
engaged in unlawful double-billing of LAO and the Canadian Court
Challenges Program;
WHEREAS CLINIC MANAGEMENT has willfully and unlawfully obstructed LAO's right to audit files and data concerning non-LAO funding sources;
whereas clinic management has over years altered ACLC Board Minutes provided to its auditors to delete references to financial, personnel, overtime payments to the Executive Director and outstanding financial obligations, thereby calling into question the accuracy of previous audits;
AND WHEREAS inaccurate entries were made to ACLC statistical program to inflate the statistical data reported to LAO raising questions of cost effectiveness and efficiency of the Clinic in meeting the legal needs of its community;
AND WHEREAS CLINIC MANAGEMENT has unlawfully altered the ACLC's
Membership records to manipulate Board Election process at AGMs; and whereas
members in good standing & concerned members of the community were excluded from
the AGM on October 23rd 2003 by police and security officers, raising concerns
about the ACLC's compliance with the Corporations Act and also about its ability
to represent the African-Canadian community;
NOW THEREFORE This community Meeting:
1.a. Declares that the African-Canadian community has lost confidence in the present clinic Management and Board as being capable of representing the African-Canadian community;
b.. Calls upon the Board and Management of the Clinic to forthwith hand over all files and data of non-Legal Aid Ontario funding to L AO for a forensic audit;
c.. Calls upon LAO to list as a term and condition of ongoing
funding of the African Canadian Legal Clinic the suspension of the Executive
Director and the Director of Legal Services pending the outcome and disposition
of its investigation;
d.. Calls upon the Board of the ACLC to forthwith suspend the
Executive Director and the Director of Legal Services pending the outcome and
disposition of the investigation by LAO;
e.. Declares the election of Directors held on the 20th day of October 2003 to be null and void;
f.. Supports, if necessary, a Court Application under the Business Corporation's Act for an Order appointing an interim board from the African-Canadian community;
Appoints a Steering Committee of seven persons being Zanana Akande, Julian Falconer, Margaret Gittens, Paul Kafele, Dudley Laws, Charley Roach, Valarie Steele, Carl Vecock, to take steps to pursue the realization of the demands herein.
DATED at Toronto, this 23rd day of October 2003
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