Artists’ Legal Advice Services (ALAS) mission is to empower Ontario’s creative community through access to legal information and advice. We endeavour through our legal clinic, educational sessions, resources and copyright advocacy to obtain more equitable outcomes for artists in Canada within the Ontario and Canadian legal system. ALAS recognizes that in order to build trust and confidence in the legal system, we must recognize our community’s particular experiences within the legal system, including experiences of racism and other forms of systemic prejudice and inequity.
We stand in solidarity with Black, Indigenous and all racialized communities in the fight to end racial injustice. Racism persists in Canada today, taking the lives of Black people, Indigenous people and racialized people, and systemic inequity marginalizes a great many others across Canada. We acknowledge racism in Canada persists through policies and practices entrenched in Canada’s legal system and institutions that reflect and reinforce prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination against persons from Canada’s Black, Indigenous and all other racialized communities and results in unequal access to and unequal benefits under the law.
ALAS commits to seek guidance and collaborative input from leaders and experts and especially from our artist stakeholders on how we can help. Amongst other things, ALAS wants to find the best ways we can to help amplify the voices of Black, Indigenous and other racialized artists, creators and cultural workers in Ontario and Canada. Internally, ALAS also commits to explore how we can improve diversity and inclusion and provide anti-racist education within our own organization.
ALAS will work with our community to assess the best ways that we can help to combat systemic inequity and prejudice. We will update our website and social media as plans develop. We will use our social media as a forum to share resources and discuss legal challenges faced by the Black, Indigenous and other racialized creative communities in Ontario, and we encourage you to join the conversation. We are eager for the Ontario creative community to get involved and collaborate with us. Please don’t hesitate to contact us.
