Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you for the comments. From what I understood from the comments by Members, there are two main issues. Large ones mind you, but the first one dealing with gender and aboriginal representation in the judiciary as spoken about by Mr. Krutko and Mr. Picco, and specific issues about Chief Judge duties that Mr. Ootes talked about and of the legal fees. Incidentally, these were issues that the standing committee felt quite strongly about. We, the government, did review it with the committee and as I stated in my opening remarks, we are making motions to amend the bill so that it incorporates, number one, some principals on the diversity of population and gender balance when considering membership to the Judicial Council, and also enabling a section on the payment of legal fees for those making complaints. We will be making amendments on those specific issues as they come up.

If I could make a couple of very general comments about aboriginal representation in the judiciary, the comments by Mr. Krutko are very much typical of what I hear in the communities as I travel as a Justice Minister, ensuring there is representation of the aboriginal people in the judiciary. The judiciary is something that is very important to the public, and it is important to the department as well. We do have some good examples of how there has been progress in the system. Mind you, we understand that we have a way to go. Things like aboriginal recruitment in the RCMP and the police force has made some good progress.

We have a program now to get more JPs from the communities and more consideration for aboriginal and women in the JP system. Most recently, we have made sure that when we hired a group of correctional officers to correct a shortage of officers in the whole system, we had almost two dozen correctional officers who we consciously said that the majority of those would have to be of aboriginal descent, and we have done that. That is very recent. All in all, the issue of restorative justice and of community justice, is one that is very important. I am proud to say that we in the north, especially the small communities, have been pushing this issue along for many years and, happily, we heard the federal Minister of Justice saying, when she talked about the Youth Offenders Act, that it is now a priority and an important issue for the Canadian government. I am glad that we have been leaders in that field. That is a good thing overall.

On the issue of duties of a Chief Judge, Mr. Ootes asked if it was merely administrative function. The Chief Judge's duties are to preside over administrative functions for the Territorial Court judges, of which there are two others. This has to do with scheduling of court cases, of travel functions, making sure that cases are heard in as timely fashion as possible, office related issues, et cetera.

Those will be my comments, if you want, Mr. Chairman, I would ask Mr. Sutton to maybe make a quick comment on the issue of legal fees paid on behalf of complainants as we will propose later on. Thank you.