Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My first answer, I am hoping for a yes. Presently, right now, if you want to access the law resource centre, it is behind a locked door. Is the Minister willing to unlock the door? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I love it when I can say "yes," so I wish the Member would have asked me a different question.
---Laughter
In this case, Mr. Speaker, having access to the library through a FOB allows there to be 24-7 access for lawyers in the territory, which is valuable for small law firms and independent lawyers who have the ability to go to the courthouse any time of the day, after hours, and get into the legal resource centre. During the day, members of the public can access that resource, as well. They just have to talk to staff, and they will let them in. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I was really hoping that we could free the books there. I think there is a larger question here about, since the cut was made to the law library, whether there are any plans in this area. That would begin with reinstating a law librarian position. Does the department have any plans to reinstate a law librarian?
No. I want to thank the Member for bringing this up because, really, what the issue is, as I see it, is access to justice. A law librarian in Yellowknife is a way to increase that access to justice. Primarily, though, it is a tool for lawyers. I think that we share the same ideal of increasing access to justice, and there are other ways to do it. If we were to put resources into something, I don't think that a law librarian in the downtown Yellowknife courthouse is necessarily the best way to do it and the best way to reach the most citizens of the territory.
I tend to agree with the Minister, but my concern here is that we seem to have no plans in this area to increase access to justice. Right now, I know that we have done some good work. We have one outreach lawyer. They run a Legal Aid clinic that does some of this work in poverty law, but I think there is definitely much more that can be done in that area. I think it starts by having it be a more public-facing law centre, one where people can find access to resources. Are there any plans to expand our current Legal Aid outreach clinic so that, perhaps, people looking for information can start there?
We just went through a lengthy budget process, and as the Member is aware, there are no additional resources in that budget for the Legal Aid outreach clinic. That being said, I think that it is a very valuable area, and it is one area that I am pushing for and trying to figure out how we can expand it. I think that it is one of those areas that we could have even located outside of Yellowknife. We could have a position somewhere else and expand the access to residents across the territory. There are opportunities for outreach lawyers to create educational materials for residents to give them better access to justice.
This is one area that I am definitely looking into. We are gathering the statistics. We are making the cases. Hopefully, we will be able to add something in the future. We are lobbying the federal government. I will note that the Northwest Territories probably has, maybe next to Nunavut, the most generous Legal Aid services in Canada by a long shot. The budget is already stretched pretty tight, but I think that it is a place that we really should be looking at making more investments.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad to hear that this is something that the Minister is looking into. I think that one of the concerns that I have in this area is that the resources seem to be in a lot of different places. I know that Legal Aid does good work, and I know that the court workers do good work. The law resource centre could use a little work. There seems to be a lot of resources in different places. I think the solution here is really bringing them together into some sort of arm's-length law centre, a place that could take on articling students. I know there is talk in this territory of starting a law school similar to Nunavut, a place that you could actually go and have access to a multitude of services. In reviewing this, is the Minister willing to look into how we are currently setting out resources between the Legal Aid commission, the law resource centre, or the Department of Justice, and perhaps there is some room to put them all in one, more public-facing body? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Member raises great points. This legal resource centre was initially supposed to be more open to the public on the first floor of the courthouse, but things came up during renovations. It moved up to the fourth floor. He is correct that it is separate from a lot of our other resources. I think that is the type of work that we need to be doing, looking at how we can have more of a storefront, how we can make these services more accessible. As we move forward, I am having those conversations with the department. There is nothing in the works right now, given that we don't have the new offices lined up, and there are costs associated with it and a lot of work that needs to be done. I think these are the kinds of things that we need to be doing as a government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
