Charles Dent

Mr. Speaker, I can't answer that question at this time. I don't know exactly how many staff, but I know that, for instance, in the North Slave region, there is one officer supported by five staff in the career centre, who can also provide services to people in apprenticeship programs. That's typically the way it is done; the support is provided through the career centres in the Northwest Territories. I will have to commit to getting the Member the specific numbers at a later date. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, NWT apprentices do qualify for financial assistance for books, for travel if they need to travel to take their training, and for living expenses. So there is funding available to support apprentices in those areas already. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good afternoon. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that the Department of Justice has completed negotiations for a two-year agreement that will see the GNWT receiving $1.24 million to increase the number of aboriginal RCMP officers in the Northwest Territories.

This funding, from the Government of Canada’s First Nations policing program, announced last October, will support a number of projects, including: a recruitment strategy to encourage aboriginal individuals to consider joining the RCMP; an access program to help applicants meet RCMP entrance requirements; a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the previous government responded to the 65 recommendations of the Special Committee on Official Languages in 2003 and one of the responses was the passing of the new Official Languages Act. One of the things that will be happening by July 1st of this year is there will be an aboriginal languages revitalization board established and the purpose of that board will be to maintain, promote and revitalize NWT aboriginal languages. I will also, by July 1st, be announcing the establishment of an official languages board which would advise myself on issues related...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can certainly, as I said I would to Mr. Hawkins, take a look at the issue of a registry and see whether or not that would work in the Northwest Territories. In this sort of situation, the new Youth Criminal Justice Act would allow a different approach, and that is an intensive supervision program. So in the future with this kind of offender, it's likely that there would be a more intensive supervision program in place that would reduce the chances of this kind of offence happening again. Unfortunately, that wasn't in place when he was released the last time. I'm...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the issue of the two young people is a very incredible situation, and it's certainly horrible for the young people and their families. I am terribly sympathetic to that, but I have an issue here where there's a person who has been charged with an offence. It's an alleged offence and for the Minister of Justice to be talking about a case while it's before the courts is completely wrong.

So I can speak in general about the issue of what we're trying to do about crime in the Northwest Territories. I have met with the chief superintendent of the RCMP and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish I could make that promise, but as Minister I'm not allowed to provide any direction directly to the Legal Services Board because it is an independent body. The limits are the appointment and revocation of appointments of the members of that board. That's the only action that the Minister can provide, other than providing funding. I can tell you that we have not cut our funding to legal aid at all in the recent past. As I said, we have tried to increase the staff lawyer component to deal with the backlog. I've talked to the federal Minister of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't answer that question directly without in fact appearing to release information that I said I couldn't. Therefore, I will say that any time we hear concerns about morale among employees, it is an issue that we want to address. The Member has raised the issue with me. I listened carefully to Ms. Lee's statement yesterday, and I think that as early as tomorrow FMB will likely deal with that situation. I hope that overall we will be able to deal with any issues of staff morale that we may have within the department, but we can't confirm that it's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories does not record stress leave. Sick leave is provided to employees, but there is no requirement for employees to disclose the reasons for their absence. This would be an unreasonable invasion of the employee's privacy. This is well established through labour relations law and it's not permitted under the collective agreement. So I can't answer the Member's question. FMBS has advised us that we're not able to collect that information, much less disclose it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Education, Culture and Employment has been advised by Justice that the IBAs are private contracts and we do not have access to them, so we are unable at this point to determine the answer to whether or not they are compensation or cash payments as a gift or whatever, income. I am prepared again to review the entire income support program, and would be happy to discuss that with the Standing Committee on Social Programs. But I am reluctant to make any one-off changes. I would like to take the opportunity to spend some time, work with the committee to...