Pivot Legal

The problem Pivot is attempting to solve is that of marginalization, and its attendant harms, both subtle and gross, upon the quality of life of everyone in society.

The impacts of the marginalization are felt most harshly by those directly affected: illegal drug addicts, sex workers, homeless people, First Nations' people, and others. However, the negative impacts of marginalization are not restricted to those directly affected. Everyone in society loses when a fellow citizen is reduced to a survival existence, unable to reach his or her full potential.

Most obviously, there is the loss of that person's potential social and economic contribution. There is the sickness and crime that follow from extreme vulnerability and poverty. More indirectly, the security and quality of life of everyone is reduced by the possibility of marginalization happening to themselves or someone they care about, through accident, disease, or ill-fortune.

Perhaps most importantly, a social curtain is drawn between those who have and those who need. This partition is felt in the hearts and minds of everyone, creating patterns of fear, aversion, intolerance, and contempt. These emotions do not simply prevent individuals from opening their hearts: as a cultural phenomenon, they prevent us from achieving a society that is truly inclusive, supportive, and compassionate.

The impacts of marginalization are felt in every city and town in Canada. However, its shadow is cast into sharpest relief in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES). The poorest postal code in the country according to Statistics Canada, the DTES is a social crucible for Canada on addiction, policing, housing, and prostitution. It is a problem, a challenge and an opportunity. Solve the problems of the DTES, and you are on your way to solving problems of marginalization across Canada.

Social prejudices

Marginalization is a direct outcome of our social values. These values express themselves in many subtle but all-pervading ways through the legislative framework that governs our society.

Unfortunately, social norms are often confused as ethics. Prejudiced beliefs are strongly held. There is often a belief that the benefits of the law should go to those who are "morally deserving," a path of reasoning which often eliminates those who by mental disability, behavioural anomalies, addiction, or base poverty do not attract the sympathies of those in positions of institutional power and influence.

Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and laws that can be used to promote the health, well-being, and safety of marginalized persons as well as challenge the causes of marginalization. However, due to their poverty and lack of integration, the situation of society's most impoverished and disenfranchised groups has seen little change.  Although legal remedies for marginalization exist, the laws protecting rights and entitlements make many assumptions about the functionality, knowledge, and resources of those requiring protection.

In reality, marginalized people are poorly integrated into the structures of mainstream society and rarely in a position to effectively participate in the formal processes necessary to challenge unfair structures. Without financial resources, and without a means to strategically and effectively advocate on their own behalf before government and the courts, marginalized persons often cannot obtain the benefits of the socially progressive developments in the law enacted during the last century.

Traditional approach not enough

Politicians and legislators have the greatest power over the lives of marginalized people, through setting economic and social priorities. Unfortunately, there is little mainstream political capital in challenging the widely held social attitudes that create the conditions for marginalization.

Even the political left, traditionally focused on the interests of the working poor, often overlooks or ignores the concerns of marginalized persons.

Service organizations such as food banks and temporary shelters are critical in protecting marginalized people from the worst impacts of poverty. However, such organizations, while invaluable, address the symptoms rather than the causes of marginalization. Untreated mental and physical illness, social isolation, drug addiction, and sexual exploitation remain prevalent. Although the charitable service model has been the traditional way of addressing poverty and hardship in North America, in its long history it has failed to effectively challenge the systemic institutional causes of marginalization.

Legal aid and advocacy clinics follow a similar model as service organizations, although in the context of the law. Such clinics are an important service, providing legal representation to individuals who lack the financial means to retain lawyers on their own. Unfortunately, legal aid has undergone drastic funding reductions in recent years in B.C. Even without funding cuts, however, the focus of such clinics on individual problems rather than on the systemic causes of those problems means that demand for their services will never decrease, no matter how successful they are.

Using the law strategically

Law is a critical tool for social change, because it is through the law that we regulate our civil society. Approaching social change with the tools of the law can create systemic and robust impacts on the way society is governed. Pivot's legal strategy includes three tactics:

• Legal education projects are aimed not only at educating marginalized people, but also educating other groups about those rights. In each case, tailoring the communication to the target group is critical.

• Strategic legal action describes a range of legal initiatives, from formal correspondence to civil litigation, aimed at challenging barriers to the rights of marginalized persons.

• Law reform includes research on policy and administrative reforms as well as legislative changes that would enable lasting improvements to the social and legal status of marginalized persons.

The idea behind Pivot is that a crucial fulcrum of social change is to be found by advancing the interests of those at the margins. There is an important difference between "advancing interests" and "providing charity." Pivot accepts as a principle that marginalized people are the ultimate authorities on the problems they face, and seeks to address those problems proactively.

Like a lawyer to a client, Pivot uses community research and documentation, through legal affidavits and focus groups, to empower marginalized persons to raise their voice and assert their interests. For Pivot, creating opportunities for marginalized people to take control over the definition of their interests is the first step towards improving their lives in a substantive and meaningful way.

The key idea is impact

The key idea behind Pivot is that using legal tools to strategically advance the interests of marginalized persons will create positive and lasting outcomes not only for those directly affected, but also, in a far-reaching way, for everyone else in society.