Mr. Speaker, neither ourselves or the federal government were willing to accept the costs for the additional RCMP who were called in during the course of the strike. This bill has been outstanding, to the detriment of the RCMP. Recently, we have taken the initiative to suggest to the Solicitor General of Canada that we will advance a cheque for 50 per cent of the costs and leave it to him to decide when to pay his 50 per cent. That is the best way to resolve that outstanding dispute, keeping in mind the interests of the RCMP who are unfortunately caught in the middle and left holding a huge outstanding bill. That's the nature of the discussions to date. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, that is not available to me at this time, since we had looked at a method of calculating the amount and were preparing to forward that to the Solicitor General. So, I will make that information available to the Member. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I didn't get the last part of the Member's question. But, the amount outstanding with this particular dispute is a little over $2 million. I thought the Member, being close to being a professional accountant, would want it down to the last cent and I cannot provide that to him.

---Laughter

So, it's in deference to his high level of professionalism that I chose not to give him an exact figure. But, as I said, it is about $2.1 million. That's about as approximate a figure as I can give him. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Justice. In October, I asked the Minister of Justice about a recommendation of the Family Law Review and one the Special Committee on Health and Social Services made which would allow courts to make orders of exclusive possession to the family home, for victims of violence. The Minister responded to that question by advising that specific recommendation would be incorporated as part of the section of the proposed Family Law Act which was, at that time, currently being drafted. He also said that he expected to be able to table such a bill, the Family Law Act, for consultation purposes during the life of this government.

Mr. Speaker, I notice that the bills tabled earlier this week don't include the Family Law Act. So, I would like to ask the Minister if we can, in fact, still expect to see such an act during the life of this government?

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I cannot give that commitment. We've had some difficulties in drafting legislation on schedule. We've had a huge volume of work to be done by a limited number of people and have had difficulties with accidents and problems with making sure people who are able to draft legislation were available for the amount of work that needed to be done. So, at this time, it doesn't look like, and I think it's fair to say we will not be able, to table anything in the life of this government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Supplementary to the same Minister. Since a fair bit of effort has been put into moving this legislation along to the point it's at now, can the Minister advise whether or not he has some process in mind to ensure that what progress has been made to date isn't lost?

Mr. Speaker, this piece of legislation has been generally anticipated by all Members because it results from a commitment made by all Members of this House to address family law where there's a lot of work to be done, particularly to do with children and families. It's unfortunate that we have not had the capacity to meet the schedule that was demanded by this House. We had difficulty in finding people who specialize in legislation to do the full volume of work that was required.

At this time, at best, we may be able to table or make available a discussion paper in June for Members to review. We will probably recommend, as a department, to have this as part of a transition document that will compel the next Legislature to treat seriously the need to fulfil the work we set out for ourselves some years ago. Thank you.