Immigrant Public Legal Education & Information (PLEI) Consortium Project

By providing improved access to PLEI, newcomers to Canada will be better able to identify and address their legal needs and have an increased awareness of core Canadian legal values. During this 2009, the focus of the project has been on Residential Tenancy Law and Employment Standards Law; in 2010 we will concentrate on Family Law.

A key strategy in achieving our goal is holding workshops throughout the course of the year. There are three main types:

1. Cross-sectoral workshops, which bring together Settlement Agencies, PLEI Providers, and legal service providers allowing these organizations to clarify their roles through facilitated discussion on community resources, community plans, and referral systems.
2. Training workshops for Settlement Workers, bilingual/bicultural counselors, and others working with immigrants.
3. Community workshops for target linguistic-specific communities in the project's geographic areas.

Through these initiatives, the IPC project aims to bring together Settlement Agencies, PLEI providers, legal service providers and immigrants in an effort to identify the most current, relevant and appropriate public legal education and information, expand the network of resources used by organizations working with immigrants, and foster cooperative initiatives that will result in the development of new materials. In the pursuit of our goal, we emphasize the use of multilingual publications and ethnic media as ways of implementing PLEI strategies.

For more information about IPC Project, please visit www.immigrantlegal.ca.