Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses, and thanks to the folks who came from the Lower Mainland and made that overseas trip to come to Victoria. It's good to have you here.
I'd like to start with you, Ms. Govender. You've been very articulate about the cost of not having an adequate legal aid framework in place. There are $100 million in court costs in B.C. alone. I imagine that if we expanded that, it would be over a billion dollars nationally. There are half a billion dollars in EI payments, and other costs that are probably equivalent to at least half a billion dollars, so it's costing us billions of dollars not to have an effective legal aid framework in place.
You mentioned the issue of adequate funding. That would be the heart of the argument. Do you have any idea of the figures it would take to adequately fund legal aid across this country so that we can eliminate those huge costs that we're seeing now and provide support for folks in the legal system?