Bob Bromley

Cabinet is giving us the impression that we are creating a mirror-image system through our mirroring legislation. But these not-so-subtle changes are starting to look like a Cabinet power grab.

I will have questions. Mahsi.

Thanks for the Minister’s response there. I wonder if the Minister would consider it worthwhile taking the initiative to approach and offer these professionals the opportunity for feedback in an open way beyond the expectation that if they have issues that they will raise them. Sometimes you will get different input that way. It’s not an essential. I just think it might be a worthwhile exercise, a one-off if it doesn’t work, but if it does produce good results, that may be something to consider.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to follow up. I don’t feel like we’ve got to the end of our trail here at exploring this. We are taking on, from a major federal department, responsibility for planned water resource management, a substantial regime, and within that there are inspections to make sure that mines are operating according to law and guidelines and so on and there’s an enforcement requirement. Now, my understanding is departments don’t have their own legal capacity to do prosecutions that they would request. The legal division, as I understand it, is this page that we’re on, services to...

I guess I would appreciate that information. What I’m looking for here, the last time I looked, if I’m right, I think it was over $1,000 per person per day, I think in the order of $1,600 or something like that. Obviously, at that rate and given the success of other jurisdictions in Canada that have joined with mental health courts, these costs will be made up very, very quickly. Albeit capital costs won’t go away and so on, and that’s my interest there.

So I think I’ll leave it at that and I’ll look forward to that information and perhaps have the Minister consider what the potential savings...

Much appreciated, Madam Chair. I get to Social Programs when I can but I don’t always, so perhaps that’s been supplied and will be easy to pull out.

From time to time we have heard concern from legal aid lawyers about various issues and I’m wondering if the department has a process where they collect feedback from legal aid lawyers about what issues they’re having and how the department responds and whether there are any examples. Like, when would this have been done most recently?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m just wondering: the framework for enhancing victims’ services, $500,000 a year from the federal government with a five-year program. It looks like we’re into the final year here; it could be running out next year. I’m just wondering if that’s the case and whether we’re seeking a renewal with that and also whether there’s been any evaluation, if we can expect next year to get an evaluation of how the program has worked. Thank you.

Are we talking about this division?

I would hope so. I think the Minister knows that we’ve been working on this for quite a while, and I know his staff have been working on this for quite a while. I consider the $300,000 committed here to this project is a very, very modest start, and frankly, I’m disappointed. I was disappointed with the Department of Health and Social Services not to hear any specific expenditures towards this service again, because it really is our best opportunity to deal with a major part of the mental health issues that we have, as well as our legal and corrections costs.

Does the Minister have an estimate...

I assume that’s an average across the whole NWT, so that would vary region to region. I wonder if I could get a rough idea of what the variation would be like. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just had a question on the maintenance enforcement. I know we changed the legislation on that a few years back. Is the Minister able to report on any trends and how we’re doing in that area? Thank you.