Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just have some questions for the Minister of Justice. I’m just trying to wrap my head around the proposed closure of the law library.
---Laughter
Most lawyers in Yellowknife and the territory, I assume, are employed by the territorial government and they need access to legal materials. Do they already have, does the government already have a redundancy of all these materials that are in the library? Do the departments have full access to these materials already or are government lawyers accessing the law library and using these materials?
Masi. Minister of Justice
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned yesterday, there is very little activity, of any kind at the library. There are very few people, lawyers or otherwise using that library. There has been a change in the way in which lawyers and other research the law and most of it is done online. I believe that when the library was reduced from its very large size to its current size, that some of the historic books were given to archives and some of the other books of interest to the local bar were simply given away to the lawyers. I don’t think the law library is used very much by the lawyers in the government, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
I know that there’s a sign-in sheet so when people come into the library, they sign in. I saw the Minister’s comments yesterday talking about how much it costs, how many books were checked out and I know for a fact that when people go to the law library, they don’t all sign in and I know that when people go there, they might look at books and they might not sign them out, they might use those materials there. My concern is that while there might be a reduced cost to the government here, this reduced access to materials is just going to result in the government having to supply these materials in another way. Provide a library full of materials to the GNWT lawyers, otherwise, the department is going to working without all the information it needs. Has the Minister looked at what costs might rise for the government in terms of procuring those materials in relation to the potential cost savings of closing the library?
Mr. Speaker, a goodly number. In fact, most of the cases and many other analyses of cases are free online through CanLII or some of the other services that are provided to the public and also for lawyers. I have not received or done an analysis as to what costs we might incur should we be provided library-type services on a limited basis, but certainly there would be still a very, very large saving, in my belief, because the current costs which I referenced yesterday are very high, and if there’s a very small kiosk or something along those lines provided with access through the internet certainly there would be a consider saving in any case.
I’m not a lawyer; I’ve done a bit of legal research, though, and I know that I use lots of books, lots of physical books, because sometimes you can’t find that material online and sometimes it’s just… It’s inaccessible. It’s difficult to go through a 500-page book on your computer. I’m just concerned about the effect it’s going to have on the quality of legal work being done, and I’m concerned about the effect on small practitioners because the Minister mentioned that these materials are expensive. Legal books are very expensive. Access to online legal resources can be very expensive. There’s good sites like CanLII which is free, but there’s other sites that aren’t free and they have much more material and stuff as needed. I’m just really concerned that it’s going to affect the sole practitioners. They’re not going to be able to afford to practice here; they might head south. I know it’s difficult to keep lawyers here anyway. I guess I could go on but it’s more of a comment, I guess. Maybe the Minister can put some more thought into this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. I hear more of a comment. I’ll allow the Minister to respond if he wishes.
I was one of those sole practitioners until six months ago and found that certainly buying hard cover books are expensive, but I did have my own fairly modest library. I would note, rather, that at one point the Government of the Northwest Territories had libraries in many of the communities which could be used by the lawyers. Hay River used to have a very extensive library, as did Inuvik. Those have all been closed down. I think that what’s happened is the nature of legal research has changed, so the vast majority of it, as I understand, is now being done online. Yes, there are certainly services like CanLII which are free; other ones such as Westlaw you must pay for, but I think that’s just a part of practising as a lawyer. There are going to be some costs. As I mentioned yesterday and again today, the number of lawyers using the library, the current library, appears to be very small. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
