Services in Ontario - Claiming your rights as a worker

During the COVID-19 situation, many community legal clinics are no longer meeting with people in person, but will provide services over the phone. Call ahead for more information.

Legal Aid Ontario funds legal clinics across Ontario. There are two types of legal clinics: community legal clinics and specialty legal clinics.

Community legal clinics provide free legal services to people with low incomes who live in their area. Most help with:

• Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program
• tenants’ rights
• the Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, and the Guaranteed Income Supplement
• employment problems

Some clinics can help with immigration and refugee problems or debt and consumer problems.

Search for the clinic in your area using your postal code.

Some specialty legal clinics provide free legal services to specific groups of people with low incomes:

• Advocacy Centre for the Elderly
• Aboriginal Legal Services
• ARCH Disability Law Centre
• Black Legal Action Centre
• Centre Francophone du Grand Toronto
• Chinese and South Asian Legal Clinic
• Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples
• HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario
• Justice for Children and Youth
• South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario

Some specialty legal clinics provide free legal services in only certain areas of law:

• Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario
• Canadian Environmental Law Association
• Income Security Advocacy Centre
• Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario
• Injured Workers Community Legal Clinic
• Workers Health and Safety Legal Clinic

The information centre is a telephone line that gives general information about the Employment Standard Act. They don’t give legal advice.

The hotline can give you 30 minutes of free legal help and advice over the telephone on civil law matters, which include:

• employment
• housing
• consumer issues
• Powers of Attorney
• corporate law for charities, non-profits, and small businesses

It doesn’t help with family law or criminal law problems.

The hotline generally accepts calls Monday to Friday between 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The Workers’ Action Centre gives workers free information and advice. Call them to get:

• information about your rights at work
• help figuring out how to deal with an employment problem

The Ontario Legal Information Centre offers a free 30-minute meeting with a lawyer to anyone in Ontario by telephone or in person at their Ottawa office in English or French. They can provide legal information in any legal topic, and referrals to services.  You have to leave a message and a lawyer will call you back.

LAO has 4 free regional advice lines that can give legal information and advice in French over the telephone to people living in:

• Eastern Ontario
• Northern Ontario, and parts of central Ontario including:
  • Barrie
  • Parry Sound
  • Muskoka and Kawartha Lakes regions
• Greater Toronto Area
• Southwestern Ontario

The advice lines do not help with family law or criminal law matters.

The centre gives free legal information and advice to people who have experienced discrimination. If you’re Indigenous, press 4 to reach the Indigenous Service intake staff. The centre can:

• help you fill out an application to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario
• give legal advice about how to deal with discrimination
• provide legal representation at mediations and hearings, in some situations

There is also an online tool that can help you figure out if your situation might be discrimination.

The Law Society of Ontario has on online Law Society Referral Service that gives you the name of a lawyer or licensed paralegal who will give free legal advice for up to 30 minutes in any area of law.

If you can’t wait for a legal representative to call you back, or if you don’t have a call-back number, email lsrs@lso.ca. Or, if you’re in crisis or in custody, call 1-855-947-5255 or 416-947-5255, Monday to Friday, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.