Louis Sebert

Mr. Chair, the government is, of course, committed to filling the prior commitments developed in our mandate and is currently reviewing the feasibility of various options for establishing the office of the ombudsman. There are many different examples, and I know that in the last Assembly there was a good deal of time spent on this, and it may have been that there had even been some drafting. The department is developing a work plan which will establish timelines and deliverables relating this aspect of the mandate.

Now, the legislation, to a large extent, will be determined by our discussions...

Mr. Chair, I know that the Legal Aid Commission does monitor, in the sense of, when there's complaints and everything, that there are complaints about lawyers or service, it does go to the commission. I can advise that, with respect to family law, which was a great concern because several years ago there were very lengthy wait times, up to nine months or a year  and I now understand that the wait list for family law clients is around 90 days, so three months. Urgent matters, of course, are assigned to counsel right away. So they do monitor client satisfaction, if I can put it that way, Mr...

Yes, Mr. Chair, the deputy minister can explain for what the fund is or the reason for the fund. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, Mr. Chair, it will be done in this fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I think we're all cognizant of the great contribution of special constables. In the past, it did seem to me, and I arrived in the North as that program was kind of coming to an end, that there were, however, not many of our Aboriginal citizens who were actually full-fledged members of the RCMP. That started changing. So I think they found the program to be less important than it had been previously. The Member's point is well taken. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Of course, we do have that in our mandate. And it has been of concern, both to the department and to members of the bar, that it has been extremely difficult to staff these positions outside of Yellowknife in the last number of years. So we do realize that it would be better in some ways to have clinics in various communities outside of Yellowknife, but it has become very expensive, difficult to staff, and that's why we're taking this approach to the clinic. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Certainly, Mr. Chair, I could commit to doing that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, I can commit to do that, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I understand that there are four persons involved. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, Mr. Chair, we could of course do that. They already do track files by location. I happened to notice amongst the statistical information provided to me that there was a 30 per cent decline in overall case load handled from Inuvik in fiscal year 201415 to 201516, so, obviously, the source of files can be tracked. Thank you, Mr. Chair.