Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Justice. Can the Minister speak to what value the Office of the Children's Lawyer has added since its establishment in 2011, including the value of the support it has offered to the roster of lawyers who take on cases advocating for children? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the children's lawyer provided great value, of course. That position is now vacant. But the person who was in there did a lot of work and it's very appreciated, those efforts. The children's lawyer would meet regularly with the panel of children's lawyers. So there's the Office of the Children's Lawyer, and they essentially oversee a panel of lawyers in various places in the territory, I believe one is also in Edmonton, and they assign cases to those panel lawyers. They would also provide some professional development opportunities, do research, keep up to date on what's happening in the world of children's law. They updated the they were responsible for updating the policy manual for the office. They were responsible or they oversaw the migration of all the data collected by the office into the new legal aid information data base. So they performed a number of different roles. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I understand that the manual for the Office of the Children's Lawyer has been completed. But can the Minister explain how often that manual is supposed to continue to be updated and reviewed and who would be best suited to complete that work? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The manual needs to be updated as new there's new developments in best practices and case law and things like that. And so in the future, it's possible that the those roles will be done by other members of the other lawyers in the Legal Aid Commission. We do have a number of lawyers who specialize in family law who deal with children's law. There's opportunities for those staff to have professional development opportunities to learn more about children's law. I'm sure they get notifications in their inbox when there are significant cases that impact the world of children's law. So there is capacity among the other lawyers to undertake that work when needed. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the agenda for this government includes amending the Child and Family Services Act to address the 19th Assembly's Standing Committee on Social Development's recommendations and to align the Act with the federal Act respecting First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children and youth. So how does the Minister propose to gain specialized advice about the legal rights of children as part of its review of the Child and Family Services Act, or propose changes to related acts, such as the Children's Law Act or the Family Law Act. So how does the Minister propose to gain advice on as we review the Acts during this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As with any initiative, I expect that the relevant department will undertake a thorough review and reach out to experts as needed. I just want to reassure everyone that the Northwest Territories has no shortage of lawyers. I think we have four times the number of lawyers per capita compared to the rest of Canada. There's plenty of legal advice out there for the taking. Thank you.
Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question just would be does the Minister know how many lawyers we have that specifically specialize in children's or law I don't know if children's law is a thing, but law that specifically pertains to the legal rights of children? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe there are seven panel lawyers who are regularly assigned files by the children's lawyer. So that's just within the territory and those are just the panel lawyers. And I'm not sure how many other lawyers in the territory also have expertise in that area. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
