Again, we were very pleased to see the support for unified family courts in budget 2018. We're working toward ensuring that we can meet the needs and identify the judges, the 39 judicial appointments that were in the budget, in the four provinces that expressed a very real desire to expand their programs or to actually set up programs, as I said earlier, in Alberta, in Ontario, in Nova Scotia, and in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In terms of family law and access to justice in family law, the unified family courts, as you know, having practised in Nova Scotia, will create a space where individuals can go. We'll have within those unified family courts the ability of the so-called one-stop shop. We'll have specialized judges in family law in those courts. We'll have simplified procedures within those courts. We'll also have community programs and support services to assist individuals who are going through this. For most people, the only time they interact with the justice system is in family law. We want to ensure that we do everything we can to assist those individuals in gaining the necessary access to justice in a timely way and as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.
When we were going through all of our discussions and consultations with the provinces and with individuals, there was clearly a desire to ensure that in concert with unified family courts we're taking the necessary steps in terms of the reforms we've proposed in Bill C-78 around the Divorce Act and around two other pieces of federal legislation to also contribute to improving the family law situation in the country.