Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Legal Services Program, as you know, is handled by the Legal Services Board, which is independent of government, according to our Legislature. They set the tariffs for the lawyers. The tariffs, or rates paid to lawyers for their services, have regulations they follow to determine the hourly rates and the daily rates. There are different amounts for a student-at-law or somebody who has less than four years, four years to six years, seven years to ten years, ten years or more. The rate goes up with the amount of years you spend as a lawyer. So they have set that rate and they follow that rate. That is a set rate. If that is a problem for the lawyers, then the Legal Services Board are going to be meeting with the law society to discuss this issue fairly shortly at the next board meeting this coming weekend, I believe.
So that may seem to be a problem there, but there are other factors as well. I am told that family law and criminal law are two different approaches. Apparently, not too many lawyers who are family law lawyers are in the North. It is less glamorous and it takes a lot more time to deal with family law issues.
So there is a difference between criminal law and family law in that regard. So that could be the reason why we see a bit of a backlog in the family law cases and we do not see them in criminal cases. We are aware of what the concerns are and what we perceive of the problems that are there.
Of course, it all comes down to dollars. As I indicated earlier, the whole program is supposed to be a jointly funded program with the federal government. They have not been giving their fair share for this program. Every increase that we put into this program is coming from our share. We need to look at that and we need to review that.
The indications are that the federal justice department is aware of this problem not only from here in the North but throughout all the jurisdictions in Canada, that the legal aid programs throughout the country are underfunded. We need to also see if we could get additional funding from the federal Department of Justice in this regard. I would like to see a review of this whole program.
Apparently, the last time this program was done ten years ago, there were a lot of good recommendations that came out of it to improve the program and keep that direction. I think it is about time that we do another review. Thank you.