Justice for Sale: How Canada's Courts Punish the Poor and Betray the Charter
by Laing Z. Matthews
For thirty-five years, Laing Z. Matthews sat inside Canada's courtrooms - not as a lawyer or judge, but as an interpreter, a witness, and eventually, a litigant. He translated for the voiceless, observed the rituals of justice, and learned the hard truth behind the robes: in Canada, the poor do not receive justice - they are processed by it.
Justice for Sale is the definitive exposé of class-based discrimination in the Canadian legal system - a work of lived authority, constitutional analysis, and moral clarity. Through first-hand accounts, legal history, and careful reasoning, Matthews reveals how Canada's courts routinely violate the Charter's promise of equality before and under the law.
From unaffordable counsel and gutted legal-aid programs to punitive cost orders and procedural traps, the system ensures that the poor lose long before judgment day. A single mother in family court, a worker dismissed without cause, a refugee facing deportation - all navigate a structure built not for truth, but for those who can pay to reach it.
The book unfolds in four sweeping parts:
Part I dismantles the myth that justice is blind, tracing how colonial law and professional elitism entrenched a class bias that persists to this day. Part II exposes how the system actively crushes the poor through legal-aid failures, self-representation stigma, and economic punishment masquerading as procedure. Part III reframes these injustices as constitutional betrayals, arguing that poverty itself must be recognized as a protected ground under Section 15 of the Charter. Part IV offers a vision for reform - a blueprint for justice without wealth, drawn from comparative models in Europe and rooted in a single radical idea: that access to justice is not charity, but citizenship.
Across every page, Matthews writes with the precision of an insider and the fire of a reformer. His courtroom scenes - urgent, human, unforgettable - expose the quiet violence of form over fairness, of polish over truth. His legal reasoning is as rigorous as it is readable, bridging the worlds of law, politics, and public conscience.
This book does not beg for sympathy. It demands accountability - from the judiciary, the legislature, and the nation itself. It argues that democracy dies not when the powerful break the law, but when the poor cannot use it.
Justice for Sale is both an indictment and a roadmap: a call for constitutional renewal, professional humility, and moral courage. It speaks to every Canadian who has ever stood alone before the bench - and to those who still believe that law should protect the powerless, not serve the powerful.
