Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the department policy is that for any legal work, they first look in the North to see what is available, to see if anybody is interested in doing the work. In some instances, if there are certain skills or experiences that are required to do something very specific, then if firms in the North cannot provide that service, then the department has gone south. This is the practice of the department.
As for the exact dollar figure of how much legal dollars have gone south from the department, we do not have that number right here. We will find it and provide the honourable Member with that information.
The honourable Member started off talking about the Legal Services Board in regard to family law. In this area, the Legal Services Board has an independent, statutory board with authority under the Legal Services Act. This board of Northerners provide the service. One of the services is the family law area. In this case, we are doing what we can to hire lawyers to do this work and the work, that is the money that is involved in this to do this work, is based on a fee per case, I believe. I guess we cannot find enough lawyers to do this work with the fee we pay.
As a result, there is difficulty in finding lawyers who want to do this type of work. I understand it is rather difficult work and that it does not pay enough according to the going rate for lawyers. I guess if we ask for more money in this area, then we could raise the fees and perhaps that would attract more lawyers to do this type of work.
We are staying with the fees that we provide and the Legal Services Board that has committed resources to the problem. I believe two family lawyers have been hired in the last couple of years. There is mediation. There is an appropriate amount of funding that has been identified to deal with mediation in this area. It is a difficult area that we are dealing with, and the Legal Services Board has made this area a priority over the last year and will continue to find different ways of increasing its capacity to deliver high quality services in this area. I will just reply to the honourable Member with that. Thank you.