Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Justice confirm how many outreach legal workers we have in the NWT and what their role is when it comes it dispensing legal advice information and how are small communities accommodated in that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is one legal aid outreach lawyer in the Northwest Territories. There is also one court worker who works in that office. People call the Legal Aid Outreach Clinic for a number of different reasons, most commonly, by far, is for family law questions. So questions, you know, what steps do I take now that I'm separated? What do I need to do to get a divorce? A lot of questions where they just need guidance and where to go. And from there, people can either get a lawyer or take the appropriate steps.
Traditionally, there's been a lot of travel with the Legal Aid Outreach Clinic. But this past year and the previous year there's been no travel unfortunately. Before that, there was a significant travel to most communities in the territory going back to between 2014 and 2019. But anyone in the NWT can call the Legal Aid Outreach Clinic. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm how many NWT residents use the service of the legal outreach lawyer and if those services occur mostly in Yellowknife. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So in the 2020-2021 fiscal year, there were 692 people who accessed the Legal Aid Outreach Clinic. 46 percent of those people were in Yellowknife and the rest were throughout the territory, and it roughly breaks down to the populations of the specific regions. So the South Slave region had about 15 percent of the people, the Inuvik region about 15 percent, and so on. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that I guess I come across is that when people come into my office, they're looking for I guess more than legal advice. They're looking for assistance in drafting, you know, documents.
So I'd ask the Minister, would the Minister consider expanding the legal outreach lawyer's responsibilities to include the drafting of documents for clients in less complicated matters. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I know when people go to the Member's office, they go there looking for free legal work is what they go looking for and he obliges on a regular basis. So I'm thankful for that, and I know his constituents are.
The Legal Aid Outreach Clinic does provide assistance with some forms, but probably not the variety of forms that the Member's talking about.
I can look further into that. The issue comes down to the fact that that office is stretched pretty thin as it is. Their workload is maxed out so we would really need additional staff in order to do that type of work, and I would love additional staff, and I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Yellowknife North brought up increased employment. So with my next question, and also the comment just from the Minister about requiring extra staff, the Minister can make more employment, create more employment in the communities.
So will the Minister commit to reviewing the need to expand the current number of legal outreach lawyers to include Hay River, Fort Simpson, and Inuvik. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I have identified this as a priority with the department.
There are court workers in those communities, and I know that they do provide quite a bit of assistance. As MLA, I often send constituents to them, and they do help. I know that we have asked the outreach clinic to make sure they're keeping good records on who's contacting them and about what issues, and I know they have that. I read some of those stats here and so we're doing our best to make a case to get some more positions but I can't promise anything at this point. But I would be as happy as the Member to see that happening. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
