You touched on a couple of areas of legal aid, and you quite correctly pointed out that requests for legal aid money are in the supplementary estimates that are provided to you.
I think you're talking about the area of civil legal aid. You're right. When I was here in the 1980s and the 1990s, the Government of Canada did have a specific line item. I think it was under what we would now refer to as the Canada social transfer. There was a specific line item with respect to civil legal aid and it was cancelled by the Government of Canada in 1995. Again, you were here at that time. Why it was cancelled, I'm not in the best position to know. You're probably in a better position yourself to know why the Government of Canada cancelled it.
Inasmuch as that was taken out as an item that was listed in the transfers to the provinces, I was quite interested in making sure that more money was being transferred to the provinces. So when my colleague, Mr. Flaherty, tabled his budget, and when I saw there was $63 billion more money going forward for the provinces, I was among those who were very pleased, and I congratulated him. I congratulated him, quite frankly, in my role as Minister of Justice because I thought, great, this is wonderful news; there is more money in the hands of the provinces, and certainly for the support of criminal and civil legal aid, they're in a better position.
If the provincial AGs didn't get any of that money for those, that's very disappointing. But I can tell you it was one of those things that certainly I looked for when Mr. Flaherty came out with that budget. When I saw those increases of transfers to the provinces, I was happy again, and happy in my role as justice minister, because I knew there would be more money for legal aid, civil and criminal, which I both support--