Thank you, Ms. Austin. One of our witnesses, Ms. Peterson, when she appeared before us, she gave us an example. I think in her view, even if you have separate offices in legal services, that is not any different from any law firms and many large law firms and even law firms in Yellowknife where they have offices in Yellowknife, Vancouver and Toronto. There are lots of branch offices here where they are headquartered elsewhere. Even if a lawyer has a file in Yellowknife, a lawyer employed by that same law firm based in Vancouver would not be able to take on the other side of the same file. That would constitute a conflict. The distinction here is that while the law firm where they have branch offices here, they would share the same admin offices and the same files, whereas the legal aid offices here do not. The crucial matter here is the definition of what a law firm is. Some witnesses who came before us in our public hearings felt that the legal aid office as a whole, whether or not the legal aid office is including their branch offices in Inuvik and two offices in Yellowknife, constitute a law firm, and that two lawyers within this law firm should be able to represent two sides on a file.
Some of the suggestions that she made was to do a very strong disclosure when the clients come and they get a lawyer assigned within legal aid here, that they are advised about the fact that a family law file, one spouse gets legal assistance from legal aid. Say if it's a man, his ex-wife, his current wife or his separated wife, if she gets assigned anther lawyer from the legal aid, that they are advised that they are being represented by legal aid, both, and that there would be some kind of consent or acknowledgement so they are aware that they are being represented by the same legal aid service. Can I ask the Minister what steps in that regard they are taking to make sure that people who come to the legal aid office and if both parties are represented by legal aid, that they will be made aware of that and address that possible conflict of interest? Thank you.