Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE)
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Accepts Legal AidAccepts Legal AidAbout Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE)
The Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE) is a community legal clinic for low-income seniors, and it was Canada's first clinic built around the legal problems older people face. Its lawyers deal with the issues that tend to come with later life, from long-term care and retirement homes to pensions and elder abuse, and they can represent clients in court and before tribunals.
Help is free for low-income adults aged 60 and over who live in the Greater Toronto Area. A case from outside the GTA can still be taken on when it matters to older adults as a whole. Its work isn't limited to individual files, either: as a clinic for low-income seniors across the province, ACE also takes on systemic problems that affect many older people. Clients can get anything from quick summary advice or a referral to brief services or full representation.
ACE runs with nine full-time staff. Three staff litigation lawyers handle intake and any litigation, two lawyers work as institutional advocates for people living in care settings such as long-term care homes and hospitals, and two licensed paralegals look after intake and support the legal team. Graham Webb has been Executive Director since October 2016, having worked at ACE as a staff litigation lawyer from May 1995 until then.
ACE is a registered charity. Its main program funding comes from Legal Aid Ontario, but it's a non-government organization that stays independent of government. The office is at 55 University Avenue, Suite 1500, in downtown Toronto. New inquiries are taken by phone or in person on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
History
ACE began with a 1983 application to the Ontario Legal Aid Plan, the forerunner of Legal Aid Ontario, for a new clinic serving low-income older Ontarians. Members of Concerned Friends of Ontario Citizens in Long-Term Care Facilities organized the group behind the bid, a mix of lawyers, community and health workers, a small-claims court judge and seniors' activists. The funding came through, and the clinic opened on Holly Street in Toronto in 1984. Its corporation is still named Holly Street Advocacy Centre for the Elderly Inc., with Advocacy Centre for the Elderly registered as its trade style.
In its early years, ACE's board and staff consulted older adults and local groups about the legal help seniors needed, and that outreach shaped the kinds of cases ACE takes and the guidelines it uses to choose them. ACE wrote Long-Term Care Facilities in Ontario: The Advocate's Manual, a plain-language guide to that area of law issued in 1998, 2001 and 2004, and it contributed to drafting the Long-Term Care Homes Act, 2007 and its regulations.
Practice areas
Long-term care homes
ACE has represented long-term care residents for over 30 years. It advises the resident whose rights are at stake, and sometimes a substitute decision-maker when that resident is mentally incapable, on the many questions that come with living in a home, including poor care. Two staff lawyers work as institutional advocates for clients in long-term care, hospitals and psychiatric facilities.
Hospitals
When admission, detention or discharge goes wrong, ACE can advise the older patient or a legally authorized substitute decision-maker. Its lawyers also advise on improper hospital charges and on pressure to send a patient to an unsuitable place after discharge.
Retirement homes
ACE gives advice, education and representation under Ontario's Retirement Homes Act, and it has written two pamphlets for people weighing up retirement homes.
Health care consent and advance care planning
ACE can advise the older adult whose rights are in question on consent to treatment and advance care planning. In some limited situations it can also give information or advice to a substitute decision-maker in this area.
Home care
Complaints about home care are part of ACE's work, along with reviews and appeals when home care services are cut back or refused.
Pensions and income
ACE advises older adults on whether they're entitled to Old Age Security, the Guaranteed Income Supplement, and Canada Pension Plan retirement or survivor benefits, plus related income security programs.
Elder abuse
In cases of neglect or of financial, physical, sexual or emotional abuse, ACE can give legal advice to the older person affected. Where a crime has happened, it may point a caller to the police.
Powers of attorney
ACE doesn't draft powers of attorney, but it explains to older adults how these documents work, how one gets made and how they can be misused. Misuse of a power of attorney a client gave to a relative or friend is among the cases it handles.
Consumer protection
On consumer problems, ACE offers summary advice by telephone, information and referrals, including on remedies for unfair door-to-door sales.
Good to know
Wheelchair accessible
LGBTQ+ friendly
Parking availableFees & payment
Legal aidHow Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE) works
ACE exists to improve older adults' quality of life, and it does that through more than casework: public legal education, law reform, community development and organizing all sit beside direct client help. Self-advocacy is a big part of it. The clinic's education work aims to give seniors enough information to stand up for themselves, or to spot the problems where they might want a lawyer.
Because the clinic can't serve every eligible senior, it weighs a client's income, how much the case matters to legal issues facing seniors generally, and whether another community clinic serves the client's area. Under ACE's rules, people who own or help run a long-term care facility can't be elected to its board, and neither can staff of any group that represents long-term care or retirement homes.
Reported cases
-
Cuthbertson v. Rasouli, 2013 SCC 53
A majority of the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the consent regime under Ontario's Health Care Consent Act applied in the case. Graham Webb was one of the counsel for ACE and the ARCH Disability Law Centre, which intervened together.
Decisions where the firm's lawyers appeared as counsel, from public court records. Past cases don't predict future results.
Milestones & recognition
- Jane Meadus, a staff lawyer and institutional advocate at ACE since 1995, received the Ontario Bar Association's 2025 Award for Excellence in Elder Law, presented at the OBA Elder Law Day luncheon on June 19, 2025.
- Jane Meadus was the 2016 recipient of the Osgoode Professional Development Award for Outstanding Contribution to CLE, and both Meadus and Graham Webb are Distinguished Fellows of the Canadian Centre for Elder Law Studies.
- In June 2021 Jane Meadus was appointed to the National Long-Term Care Services Standard Committee.
- Jane Meadus has represented parties at long-term care inquests, among them the El Roubi/Lopez Inquest, and at the Gillese Inquiry into Long-Term Care.
- Graham Webb is a former chair of the Canadian Bar Association's National Elder Law Section executive.
In the community
- On November 14, 2023, Graham Webb and Jane E. Meadus gave written and oral submissions on Bill 135 to the Standing Committee on Social Policy, and on November 21, 2023, Webb did the same before the Standing Committee on Justice Policy on Bill 142, the proposed Consumer Protection Act, 2023.
- In 2023 ACE partnered with Justice Canada on a study meant to fill gaps in legal data about seniors.
- ACE's 2025 Special Lecture, run with the Law Society of Ontario and the Ontario Bar Association, looked at the standard of care lawyers owe vulnerable older clients.
- ACE has joined ACORN, the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, ARCH Disability Law Centre and other groups in calling on the City of Toronto for a by-law that keeps every rental unit at 26 degrees C or cooler.
- Besides its many brochures, ACE has made a 20-minute DVD on powers of attorney.
Affiliations & connections
- Legal Aid Ontario: Legal Aid Ontario provides ACE's main program funding.
- Ontario Health Coalition: In 2023 ACE and the Ontario Health Coalition filed a Charter challenge to Bill 7, the More Beds, Better Care Act, 2022, in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
Lawyers 6
The neighbourhood
ACE works out of 55 University Avenue, an 18-storey office tower with retail and a food court on its concourse level, set in the heart of Toronto's financial district. It stands at the corner of University Avenue and Wellington Street West, a short way south of King Street West. Clients can walk straight in from the underground PATH network, and the tower connects to St Andrew station on the Yonge-University subway line, which is fully accessible.
The clinic's office is wheelchair accessible. For those who drive, the building has three floors of paid underground parking, entered from Wellington Street West.
Frequently asked questions
- My retirement home won't let me come back from hospital over my care needs. Can ACE help?
- ACE handles this kind of case: a retirement home refusing to take a resident back from hospital because of care needs is one of the problems it takes on. Pressure to leave a home or retirement home, or problems with care services, are on that list as well.
- Does ACE count my house when it checks whether I qualify for free help?
- ACE leaves out an owner-occupied principal residence belonging to the older adult whose rights are at issue. If most of your income comes from Ontario Works, ODSP, or Old Age Security with the Guaranteed Income Supplement, you qualify financially.
- Can I start an intake with ACE by email, or do I need to call on certain days?
- ACE doesn't take first intakes by email. Call or come to the office on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday, between 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. or 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. Anyone who needs an accommodation for a disability or accessibility need can ask for a different intake arrangement.
- Will ACE represent me at a Consent and Capacity Board hearing?
- ACE generally doesn't, because low-income seniors usually qualify for legal aid certificates that pay for specially trained private lawyers to represent them before the Board.
- How should I book a Wheel-Trans drop-off for ACE's office at 55 University Avenue?
- ACE asks Wheel-Trans riders to request a drop-off on Orillia Street, behind 55 University Avenue and reached from Wellington Street West, rather than at the front door. From there it's a direct, safe route to the building's accessible rear entrance.
- I live outside the Greater Toronto Area. Can ACE still help me?
- ACE may take a case from outside the GTA when it's significant for older adults generally. And when staff give only summary advice and referrals, the residence and income guidelines don't apply at all.
- Do I have to join ACE's membership before I can get legal help?
- ACE doesn't require membership for its legal services. Joining costs $10.00 a year for individuals and $25.00 for agencies or groups, and the clinic can waive the fee if it's a financial hardship. (Fees as of October 2026.)
- Can our seniors' group book an ACE lawyer to speak at an event?
- ACE takes speaking requests through its Speaking Engagement Request Form, and it recommends sending one in at least two months ahead so there's time to review and reply.
Where to find them
55 University Avenue, Suite 1500, Toronto, Ontario, M5J 2H7 · 416-598-2656
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