Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thought I moved to Hay River for a minute. Mr. Speaker, I love libraries. Libraries are community hubs. They are one of the last true public third spaces. They are keepers of knowledge for generations. I also love the law. I love the work we do in this House. I love the complex work society does of putting all of our norms into the written word. It should come as no surprise that I love law libraries, and one day, I wish to live in a place with a law library. In fact, if I lived in any other province or territory in Canada, I would be able to access a law library, except not here.

Mr. Speaker, we in this House like to re-hash old debates, so I would like to revisit the closing of the law library that occurred in the last Assembly. During that time, it was predicted that the new law resource centre would become nothing more than a few blinking lights in a closed room, and that is what it is today. It's two computers with access to journals, but no staff and no one to help the public guide that.

Mr. Speaker, law libraries are key to lawyers who are in trials and need to find a quick citation of a difficult case. They are key to members of the public to understand what laws they are living under. We in the Northwest Territories write new laws every day. Every time we settle a modern treaty, we are adding to the constitution of Canada. Law libraries track that information. They make sure it gets published, and they are at the forefront at the work we are doing, but no one is doing that work right now in the Northwest Territories. We have a serious problem with access to justice in this territory, and the beginning of that problem is literal access. The failures of the last law library were due to it being behind locked doors, and our current law resource centre requires you to find someone to give you a FOB to let you into that building.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage the Department of Justice to reinstate a law library or, at the very least, make sure that the law library is public facing. I do not think anyone is going to come in and steal the law books. Perhaps, we can keep them in an open door. However, there is much more in this area to do. I believe we need to look at our law resources and put them together in a more public-facing issue. Right now, access to justice is often too many appointments with multiple departments behind multiple closed doors. I encourage the Department of Justice to step out of its fourth-floor courthouse and truly be accessible to the public. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.