Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are in a House in the sense of the Assembly and this truly is the area to create some type of debate. Although I don't want to belabour something that may be seen as fruitless, I would like to discuss and explore a little bit for a moment the matter of my concept of a pan-territorial model. If we thought of it in the context of full cost accounting where we would pay for somebody to provide services, which we do already. In my mind, I can sit here from a Legislature point of view and look at this situation where I can see us justifying two more staff lawyers in an office to help things move a little faster. We can certainly farm them out to Nunavut or whatnot. I wouldn't want to close the door to the concept. Maybe it's a model we want to discuss directly with Alberta, I don't know. If we don't have enough lawyers to handle our family law cases. I guess that's a signal that we either aren't doing them right or we just don't have enough staff. I don't know. This is not my specific area of expertise, but it does tell me that some element is going wrong there and if we're having a continual backlog of between 80 and 100, that tells me we're missing at least one more lawyer, maybe two more lawyers. I am not sure. I look for the expertise of the Minister and his deputy to tell me would that make the difference.

Why don't we create some type of agreement that we could look at exploring these options? Again, you are right; it probably is more costly to share or work with Nunavut, but justice shouldn't necessarily be seen based around cost. It's about fairness and effectiveness. I just want to make sure we are doing the right job under the right factors. I would like to hear some thoughts about that whereas the Minister looks at beefing up the legal aid office with two more family law lawyers in the concept of working with another agency, another region, so we can maybe do some cost sharing when we have slow times and busy times. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Bell.

Mr. Chairman, we have recognized that it would be better to have more staff lawyers and we think now that we have just filled these two vacancies, that will bring our complement to five or six. I think there is still one vacancy, but this will be the most staff lawyers we have had at any one time while working on these legal aid cases. So we think we can make some real inroads into getting that number down from 80. I think that's where we need to go. We are hopeful that we will be able to keep these folks here and that we won't have any additional vacancies. Of course, you never anticipate them and things do come up. We have to work as quickly as we can to recruit new lawyers when we have vacancies and we will do that. This is a priority for us. We recognize the difficulty of going to the private bar, so we do need a core complement of staff lawyers.

In addition to that, we are working very closely, as I have said, with the private bar to try to get more uptake and more interest. The tariff issue is one we will sit down to talk about and address. So it's a multi-pronged approach here in strategy. I think if the Members have suggestions, or the committee has suggestions as to models for legal aid service provision or delivery, I am certainly interested in hearing about those and having more discussion about those models because I think we all have the same interest here, and that's in getting the caseload down and making sure people get timely service. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, I will accept that invitation and maybe the Minister and I can meet later, on another day, to discuss how I see this happening. It may not be feasible. I will recognize that, but I would certainly like to have a serious discussion about that going forward.

Specific to family law lawyers, specific to Yellowknife, does the Minister have any idea how many family law lawyers we have in Yellowknife that can practice family law? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Bell.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Just a clarification, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess really to beat it down, how many lawyers do we have in Yellowknife that can practise family law cases?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can undertake to provide some more concrete information if the Member needs that. The deputy has suggested to me that it might be in the neighbourhood of 10 people in the local bar who can, and probably five who do so with any regularity. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The ballpark is just perfect. That's all I really need. If I take the estimate of 10 lawyers that can practice family law, let's work with 10. What is the Minister doing to advocate at the NWT bar that we cannot convince these 10 lawyers to take eight cases each? I would like to hear that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We've met with the bar to talk about potential strategies for recruitment of lawyers. They do attend universities, talk to students who are going to be entering the workforce, talk about what we can do to attract more lawyers to our jurisdiction. That's something the department is going to be working with the bar on. We think there is merit in that, but we can't force work on anybody who doesn't want to do it. Even if we could, I would suggest to you that that is probably not the type of representation you would want for people. You don't want to coerce lawyers to take cases, even if we could, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will say you can't force them, but I will put it this way: Have you gone to the bar and asked them for the potentially 10 lawyers, could they carry a workload of eight extra files in order to clear off the backlog so we can continue to deliver services in a timely way? If he hasn't done this, could I get a commitment from the Minister that within the next little while he will make that commitment to go to the bar and even write our local law firms to see if we can get this? We don't have 100 law firms, there are maybe 20 independents including the little law firms, individual shingles, as well as the big ones. I don't imagine we have too many. Can I get the commitment that the Minister will write the local bar, as well as the local law firms, point out our problem and say we need you guys to pitch in to clear up the backlog in order to keep ensuring that justice is delivered in a safe and effective way? Can I get that commitment from the Minister, please?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Bell.

Mr. Chairman, it doesn't come as any surprise to the local bar that we have a backload of cases in family law. The Legal Services Board does meet with the bar frequently to talk about this and to talk about strategies for dealing with this backlog. It is that type of discussion that leads to the discussion from the bar to Legal Services Board is that one way to deal with this is to raise the tariff. That's why that is under consideration at this point. You have some lawyers who are well established in town, very busy in their practices and have decided that they don't want to practice family law, have decided that they don't want to take on legal aid cases. I would suggest that probably to a person they know we have a challenge because it's a challenge right across the country. It's not unique to the Northwest Territories. We have a challenge in meeting the need for legal aid cases. The federal Ministers are very well aware of this.

One point I would make is, I think in the Northwest Territories and in the other territories we have done a good job in getting our special circumstances recognized and we do get some funding for legal aid for civil law matters. That's not the case for the rest of the provinces. We do have a separate deal. We get separate treatment from the provinces who would all like to be treated similarly to us, I would suggest. I think we've done a good job as a department in bringing forward our interests and in advocating that the North has special challenges and circumstances. We will continue to do that at the federal level. I know the Legal Services Board and our department will continue to work with the bar, to see if we can't get more lawyers interested in practicing family law and dealing with our legal aid caseload. One approach will be the tariffs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see time is running out, but I will ask the same question again. I don't believe it's a cry for help if we wave the white flag and say we need some assistance. I am asking the Minister, would he write the bar and would he write the law firms in the local area and tell them we have a backlog of 80 cases? Whether they've decided for some reason or not that they are not presently practicing family law, would he take that initiative? That's all I am asking. Would he ask for help to clear off some of the backlog? It's a nice little letter. I wouldn't ask the Minister to make any over and above commitment. That's all I am asking for, is for the Minister to say can you help us deal with this family law problem, we need your help to pitch in to keep things moving. That's all I am asking for. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I could suggest is I write to the president of the Law Society and make sure the Legal Services Board is also copied to approach that individual to sit down and discuss

strategies for combating our legal aid caseload. We can start that discussion. I am prepared to do that. As I did indicate earlier, this has been an ongoing matter with them, but I am certainly prepared to take that up. Thank you.

I am going to call page 7-23 and then the chair will call a break. So we are on page 7-23, activity summary, legal aid services, operations expenditure summary, $4.385 million.