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NUNAVUT - Nunavut Legal Services and the Government of Nunavut are calling on the federal government to increase its share of funding to alleviate the current burden on the legal aid system.

In a speech to the legislature on Sept. 17, MLA Keith Peterson, a former chairman of the Kitikmeot Law Centre, described legal aid services in the territory as "dangerously under-funded" and legal aid lawyers as overburdened by heavy workloads.

"I am aware that our legal aid lawyers are stretched thin and cannot possibly deal on a timely basis with the myriad of cases that are assigned to them weekly," he said.

"I support our government in its ongoing efforts to work with other provinces and territories to impress upon Ottawa the urgent need for new resources to be provided to our legal aid system."

Chris Debicki, executive director of Maliiganik Tukisiiniakvik, has seen the number of criminal files increase by over 100 per cent in his four years at the legal aid clinic.

"There's no question, I think, in anyone's mind that there's an urgent need for more and stable funding," he said. "Our funding has been relatively flat for a number of years but we've had significant increases in volume.

"Of course it affects our ability to deal with clients in a timely fashion and it just means that we can't respond to all of the legal aid needs that are out there."

Aside from the need for more federal funding, the burden on legal aid lawyers is also compounded by the fact that there are almost no lawyers in private practice in Nunavut.

"It's called a mixed model, where you have both staff lawyers doing legal aid work and the private bar," said Paul Nettleton, the new executive director of Nunavut Legal Services. "That, in my view, is the most effective means of addressing the needs of a territory like Nunavut."

But private practice in the fledgling territory will take time to develop, he added.

Nettleton was heading to Toronto last week to interview a group of candidates up for hire. The new recruits will replace those lawyers whose contracts have expired and who have chosen not to stay in Nunavut, as well as help to address the growing need in family and criminal law.

Nettleton will also be at the national negotiation table as a delegate of the Permanent Working Group on Legal Aid to conclude discussions with the federal government surrounding its share of legal aid funding at the provincial and territorial level.

The PWG is "presently near the tail end of what has been a fairly lengthy process of negotiating with the feds about revisiting the funding base for legal aid," he said.

"It's their view and mine that the costs were inaccurately predicted at the time of the territorial division and they've increased dramatically since that time.

"They've been preparing a business case for additional funding, so I'm looking forward to those discussions as well as working with the GN to get more monies from the feds."

Nettleton applauds the GN for continually responding to the needs of the legal aid system as its burden has increased.

"There has been a growing commitment (from the GN) to match the growing need," he said. "There's always been, from my experience, people there that are willing to listen and work with us."