Overview of Recent Activities and Achievements - August 2003
Table of Contents

KEEPING CANADIANS INFORMED

Outreach and Partnerships Initiative

The Outreach and Partnerships Initiative (OPI) helps foster collaboration and enhance relations with the Department's non-traditional stakeholders. In particular, it aims to find innovative ways to work with universities and colleges, the private sector and community groups. OPI was involved with a variety of activities over the course of the year, including:

• organizing "Justice Days" at the University of Victoria, University of New Brunswick, University of Moncton and the University of Saskatchewan, to provide faculty and students with information on the Department's work while encouraging them to contribute to it;
• supporting the National Laskin Moot Cup Competition, involving students from seventeen Canadian law schools, as well as the National Essay Competition on Terrorism in collaboration with the Canadian Bar Association; and
• sponsoring the Action Canada Fellowship program - a partnership between the federal government and the private sector to invest in Canada's young leaders of tomorrow.
• co-sponsoring the National Essay Contest, an annual competition led by OPI in conjunction with the Canadian Bar Association.

Work is underway for an expanded Justice Days campaign, as well as the Clinical Law Internship program, which would provide law students with work experience in the Department while receiving academic credit.

Justice and the Law - www.jl-jd.gc.ca

Launched in March 2002 as part of the Canadians Gateway on the Canada Site (canada.gc.ca) , Justice and the Law contains justice-related information gathered primarily from across the Government of Canada. The site's major categories include:

• an introduction to Canada's legal system;
• how the law applies to you;
• legal education and information resources;
• legal assistance options; and
• a cross-Canada directory of justice- and law-related organizations.

The site also organizes information according to legal life events (including divorce and bankruptcy), as well as by groups of interest (such as Aboriginal peoples and youth).

After conducting focus tests with the public in February 2003 across Canada, the Department of Justice re-released the site with an improved layout in March 2003. The development team continues to establish partnerships with provincial governments, public legal education groups across Canada, as well as with other Government of Canada Web sites.

Department of Justice Online - www.canada.justice.gc.ca

The Department of Justice's Internet site provides Canadians and other interested users throughout the world with free access to a wide assortment of departmental materials.
The site continues to offer cost-effective distribution of relevant information, and its usefulness and successes are reflected both in user feedback and in the usage statistics. In the past year, the site has been extremely active, registering over six million page views per month. The sub-site for the Consolidated Statutes and Regulations accounts for in excess of one million additional page views per month.

Some noteworthy activities over the last year included:

• developing a NewsRoom on the site to provide relevant, up-to-date information on Justice issues and events primarily for the media;
• launching the Web site of the Programs Branch, which is responsible for many of the Department's grants and contributions programs; and
• creating a Parenting After Divorce Web site, which offers information and resources about the current system and parenting arrangements after separation and divorce.