Thank you.
It would be very difficult to set a national level for eligibility, for example. The cost of living in Vancouver and the cost of living in Toronto is a lot more expensive than living in other parts of the country. The eligibility rates for provinces have to take into account the cost of living. That's part of the formula. That's why the eligibility levels are determined by the provinces.
Now, whether those levels are sufficiently low or sufficiently high enough is a question that the province has to answer. Of course, all of the provinces have to balance the costs of legal aid with the costs of health care and the costs of roads and the costs of other social services. In the end, they have to make political decisions. Their cabinets make these political decisions every year when they do their budget allocations. It becomes a political decision at the provincial level, as well as a fiscal decision. It's a balance between, on the one hand, serving the needs of Canadians....
That's why I also mentioned that there's the federal court-ordered counsel fund. Those are the situations where, on an application by the accused, if a person does not qualify for legal aid under provincial criteria and the judge in the case is of the view that the matter is serious, that the person is likely to go to jail, and that the person needs legal assistance, the court can order, in federal prosecutions, the federal attorney general to provide legal counsel. If it's a provincial prosecution, they can order the provincial attorney general to provide counsel. Then the attorney general provides funds to reimburse the counsel directly and not through legal aid.