Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm looking at the line item for Office of the Children's Lawyer, which I spoke about yesterday in my Member's statement. So children and youth in the child welfare system are some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. And decisions that are made for them are supposed to be based on their best interests, on their views and preferences when that can be determined.
So, first, if we just establish what exactly is being lost here. We see that the budget is being reduced by $200,000. Can you explain what is being reduced and what will remain in the program with the remaining $225,000? What is that remaining amount for?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. What is being reduced is an administrative position essentially, the position that would assign files to panel lawyers when required to do so as well as perform other duties. What remains is a budget for, I believe, seven panel lawyers experienced in dealing with children's law and family law matters. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So to be clear, we're cutting the senior lawyer who runs the Office of the Children's Lawyer? Is that what you're referring to when you say it's simply an administrative position?
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you. Yes, that is correct. That position has not had a case load and so it hasn't been representing children in court. Those duties are done by the panel lawyers. So the position over the last number of years has been working on updates to policy manuals, assigning the files to the different panel lawyers, working on migrating data into the legal aid information network, and similar tasks. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So my understanding is that some of the important roles of that senior lawyer in the Office of the Children's Lawyer has been training and mentoring those other lawyers who are assigned to children's cases, which is a very specialized area, vetting those lawyers, monitoring them, responding to complaints about them, as well as undertaking research and advocacy around changes to legislation, such as the child and family services process, the CFS Act, as well as advocating about children's legal rights within HSS, to schools, families, even to judges and to other lawyers. Can the Minister explain who will be taking on those responsibilities if the senior lawyer position within the Office of the Children's Lawyer is reduced? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. And those are all things that could be done by someone in that role. The extent to which they're done, I'm not sure. But the duties will be taken on by the executive director of the Legal Aid Commission with support from the other staff. And the Commission, from what I understand, feels confident that those duties can be absorbed and done without any disruption in service. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Does the Minister know whether the executive director of legal aid has any experience in family or children's law to be able to take on those responsibilities?
Thank you. Go the Minister.
Yes. Thank you.
Thank you. Go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I just want to be clear, you know, based on some of the answers the Minister gave yesterday to oral questions, you know, there's a lot of joking about how we have so many lawyers in this territory, surely we have plenty of them already. But this is a very specialized area of law and to be clear, you know, government lawyers, real estate lawyers, corporate lawyers, criminal lawyers, cannot take on this work. And most of the lawyers working within the GNWT are not actually qualified to work with children. And in fact, many may not want to practice in that area because it is a very challenging and complex area of law. And my understanding, too, is that legal aid has four family lawyers on staff and often are quite busy and overwhelmed. There's often quite high turnover in those positions. And they often represent parents in child welfare cases so there might actually be conflicts of interest.
Is the Minister concerned about any possible conflicts of interest that would arise if we have legal aid staff that are managing the Office of the Children's Lawyer?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. No. And I would say that the Member stated this is a very specialized area of law, it's essentially family law. You can have some additional training, but I wouldn't characterize it as very specialized. And the position does not have to work with children. There have been no cases held by the children's lawyer for quite some time and so there was no working with children. We have -- there is a number of panel lawyers, as I have mentioned, and they have experience in this. Some of them are actually criminal lawyers or have experience in other types of law so, you know, while lawyers do have specialty, they do also have the ability to work in a number of different areas. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I mean, I would -- I would respectfully disagree with the Minister and certainly would strongly advocate that this position be filled again and, you know, that the current person in the position is retiring but I think it is very important that that position is filled again with someone who does have expertise and experience in family law and specifically children's law. I mean, it's not very much money in the grand scheme of things, and that person has really played a linchpin role in holding this office together, including mentoring and training the lawyers that are on that panel of roster lawyers. And, you know, the Minister mentioned there are seven lawyers on this panel or roster. Three are based in Yellowknife. One is based in Hay River. And the others are -- actually operate in both NWT and BC or Alberta. All are doing this on top of other legal responsibilities. They're not doing this a hundred percent of the time. And, really, to have someone who is, like, holding the system together and being the core advocate and the person who can both advocate within our system but also be that person who can mentor and train and field complaints, I think has been quite essential. And so I think it is quite shortsighted and a mistake to let this position go. So I'll leave it there for now, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you. Next on my list I got here is Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I just would like to understand why legal aid clinics is substantially higher in this budget than the Legal Aid Commission itself. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
I'd like to direct that to Mr. Bancroft. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the director.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The legal aid clinics is where the lawyers are positioned and established out of that operate all of the numerous legal aid clinic -- law clinics. So that's the housing, if you will, of all the lawyers. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Range Lake.
So in 20 -- the actuals from 2022-2023, the Commission had $3.9 million, and the clinics at 2.7, and now that suddenly inverted, now you see the kind of the opposite proportion, you see the clinics at $3.5 million and the Commission at $2.8 million. So I guess what does that change represent? Is it just a re-profiling of resources or are we moving more -- like, more to the panel itself rather than in-house staff? I can provide more detail if that's still unclear. But that's the change I'm trying to understand. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
I will hand it to the director. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the director.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The variance there, you're seeing there, is the variance between the private bar panel lawyers and the staff lawyers being utilized. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So would it be accurate to say that we are -- there's a higher expenditure on private lawyers than on staff lawyers in this budget? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Staff lawyers. There's a higher expenditure on staff lawyers. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.
Nothing further. Thank you.
Thank you. Now on my next -- on the list here is I have got Member from Monfwi.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. With the court services, I see in here that for 2023 and then with the main estimate and then there was some increase in 20 -- later on revised estimate. But within this fiscal year, 2024-2025, it still stayed the same. And then there's a large reduction in the Office of the Children's Law, which is an important -- you know, it's -- this office is very important for many of our children that are in care or for -- you know, they provide good services. I just wanted to ask where is the increase made within the court services?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
I'd hand it to Mr. Bancroft for that information. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the director.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The in-year increase that the Member's referring to was as a result of a supplementary appropriation tied to the Access to Justice Agreement with the federal government where we received $1,072,000 for additional funding to modernize and bring newer technology into the Legal Aid Commission. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Monfwi.
Okay, yeah, thank you. Thank you for that information because I was trying to find why, where. And also within the court services, okay, I think this is probably the court workers, you know. In North Slave there's, like, you know, 57, 57 active position -- we're still in the court services -- and there's nothing in Tlicho. There's nothing in Deh Cho and Sahtu. Why, how come there's no allocations or positions in that region? Can the Minister explain why or why there's no services provided for those three regions?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. The Member's referring to the previous section that we voted on, court services. And the reason that the positions are distributed that way is that's where -- the courts are in Yellowknife. The head main court is in Yellowknife. There are court services that operate out of the Hay River courthouse, and there is a court worker in Inuvik as well. And so that would explain the distribution in the previous activity. Thank you.
Thank you. All right, is there any other Members that want to make comments? If not, I'd like to continue on.
No further questions, please turn to page 314. Justice, legal services, operational expenditures summary, 2024-2025, main estimates, $7,645,000. Does the committee agree?
Oh hang on. We had -- we'll go back to -- we'll go back up here. We'll go back to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
