10 In  a  paper  given  by  the  President  of  the  Law  Commission  of  Canada  (“LCC”)  in 2002¹⁹, Professor Nathalie Des Rosiers reviewed the work of the Commission.  When the LCC started its work in 1997, it defined its mission as “a commitment to engaging Canadians in the renewal of the law to ensure that it is relevant, responsive, effective, equally accessible to all, and just.”  In her paper, delivered after the completion of the first  five  years  of  this  work,  Professor  Des  Rosiers  concentrated  on  why  the engagement of citizens was essential to law reform.  She identified the need for the LCC to develop better means of allowing members of the community “to exchange with  one  another  and  take  stock  of  the  research”  of  the  LCC.    She  stressed  the importance of community involvement in identifying topics which might require law reform.  Like many others referred to in this paper, the LCC found a marked degree of alienation both about law and about the process of law reform.  Speaking of the LCC’s  consultation  with  the  community  about  what  was  wrong  with  the  law,  she said: “The  most  revealing  element  of  this  consultation  was  a  sense  of disengagement  of  Canadians  towards  law  and  institutions.    It  almost seemed that life, real life, was outside the scope of law and certainly, that law was not considered as contributing to the achievement of an improved quality of life, but rather as an impediment to fulfilment.” Other  areas  proposed  by  the  LCC  for  community  involvement  are  in  the  initial research as to the scope of the problem by looking at the “reality of the law as it is lived”, that is the impact of the law on the lives of people, by engaging members of the community in proposing and implementing changes. 3. How can law reform be made more accessible? The  purpose  of  accessibility  to  law  reform  is  two-fold:  to  gain  responses  and feedback; and so that the public has a ‘sense of ownership’ over the process of law reform.²⁰  This in turn ensures that a Law Reform Commission’s work is intellectually rigorous and practical: having considered evidence of how the area of law in question operates in practice; gathered information from a variety of sources and perspectives;                                                 19   “Engaging   Canadians   in   Law   Reform”   www.lcc.gc.ca/em/pc/speeches/20010403.asp   visited 31/03/04. 20   North, Peter “Problems of Law Reform” [2002] New Zealand Law Review 393 at 396.