Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are some significant questions arising around public legal services. Justice delayed is justice denied. The inadequate budget.
The question to the Minister was what were the backlogs in terms of cases under family law, civil law, criminal law? Mr. Chairman, we have all seen copies of the letter, at least one letter from a lawyer indicating the problems. I have talked to other lawyers and they are prepared to withdraw their services because of cuts to the fee schedule and such, which is already, as they have told us, quite low by lawyers' standards. There have been some schedules which were arbitrarily cut.
This is an activity within the Department of Justice that is in trouble. It is well and good to be spending $30 million on new jails and that kind of stuff. We are contemplating palatial estates for the judges when we do not have adequate funds for the people who need it the most, the people at the bottom end who are least able to look after their own rights and look after their own freedoms.
Under the Canadian Constitution, this particular activity is supposed to be there to protect them. What we are seeing are people being backlogged and court cases being stacked up because there are insufficient funds. Of all the things in Justice, this is probably one area that is most problematic, that has caught the eye of the committee. I think it is important.
If there are significant backlogs and people are being denied justice and access to legal services because there is no money, then it is very problematic. I agree with the Minister that we probably do need a thorough review of how we provide these services. If it has not been looked at for ten years, then it is probably long overdue and shame on the federal government for abrogating their responsibility with justice and legal aid.
In this case, we cannot stand by and just blame the federal government. There are too many of our constituents, too many of our people who are not getting access to very critical legal services. Could the Minister indicate what the backlogs are, just so everybody can appreciate the gravity of the situation? Could he also speak to the latest instructions to cut certain parts of the billing available to lawyers who are giving legal aid? Thank you.