Mr. Chair, the member has raised a very interesting and important question. I hope I will have a bit more time to express myself because the legal aid question is very important. When we are talking about legal aid, we are talking essentially about access to justice.
We have to make a distinction. For example, criminal legal aid involves the Canadian federal government. Civil legal aid involves the provinces. When we talk about legal aid as well, it is a provincial jurisdiction.
We are getting involved with funding, as the member said. I am pleased to say that over the past few years we have increased our funding. Our aid base was $82 million. Because of unique pressures the provinces were facing, we have added $20 million for the past two years. In the last budget as well we have been successful in obtaining additional funding. That means $89 million over the next two years. That brings our yearly contribution to legal aid to $126.4 million for the next two years.
The member said that the program is sunsetting after two years. That is because the existing program that we put in place is there for two years and after that we will see. In the meantime we are working with our provincial and territorial counterparts in order to renew the system, renew the program, share our experiences, look at best practices and make sure that we have an open access to our justice system. We can have a fantastic justice system but if people cannot access it, we will get nowhere.