Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Sometimes this kind of work is about as exciting as chewing on the bark of a tree. I appreciate that the officials have gone the extra mile to help us chew on the bark.
I recall that in Ontario recently there was some public controversy over the size of one particular legal aid bill in a public trial. That occurred partly as a result of the trial judge ordering that the person shall have legal aid, shall have a court-paid or province-paid lawyer. That was a murder charge trial. In those scenarios we have this potential unanticipated explosion in legal aid expenditures. I'm sure the judge didn't take the time to think about whether it was in the budget or not.
Who picks up the tab for that type of judicial decision? Is it the province, or is it shared with the federal government? Is there any discussion of modalities between the feds and the provinces, to try to manage what I'll call that one-off judicial explosion, which in that case, from my recollection, produced a legal aid bill that was over $1 million? It might have been $2 million.