Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; the program is a program that is offered by the federal government. We administer it on their behalf to make it easier for Northwest Territories residents to access the program, but the rules of the program do not allow Métis people to access the program. It is not just the Métis people that have had problems with it. We have a waiting list. There are more than 20 status people who, this year, are not getting served by the program because the program ran out of money so early in the year.

Mr. Speaker, I have written to the federal Minister on...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member asked what I would be proposing for the future. I think all Members are aware that in 2001 the RCMP requested an increase in their complement, and in last year's budget, this current year's budget, the one that's before the House right now for next year and the one that I would propose to bring forward for the subsequent year, we will have dealt with all of their requests in that proposal. So I have already advised the standing committee that I will be looking for support for another six positions, to respond to that request in next year's budget.

What...

Mr. Chairman, that may be a question for Mr. Roland. It’s not one that I can answer.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think in terms of the people that we see coming into the correctional system so far, while drugs are becoming more and more of a problem, still the majority of substance-related issues relate to alcohol. So we still have an ongoing problem with alcohol. There’s a considerable amount of programming within the facilities that is aimed at helping people learn to deal with their addictions and we are quite supportive of that kind of programming continuing. In terms of prevention, we do encourage the RCMP to ensure that they are working in communities as much as...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this point, the department has had $400,000 removed from its budget. The first year savings were only going to be $267,000 plus the $30,000 or so for the fencing, so we are about $300,000 below, or in savings this year. That would rise very quickly to $400,000 in future years. So it would be an ongoing $400,000 additional funding that would be required in order to put it back in. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not aware of a plan to integrate casuals into the full-time workforce. If the Member is talking about our human resources report, we're talking about making sure that casuals are better trained. So, for instance, that would like mean that as positions came open in the regular workforce, casuals would more than likely be qualified for the positions in the future, but the human resources plan did recommend that we increased the amount of training for our casual workforce.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That could be high or low. I don’t know. There’s no way to say, because I don’t think we even have a listing of the positions when that report was run that were vacant. So, you know, I have no idea what the average would be. It’s possible that it’s $60,000, it’s possible that it’s $70,000, it might be $50,000 or it might be $80,000. I don’t know.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With me today I have Deputy Minister Don Cooper and the director of finance, Ms. Kim Schofield.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Neither Mr. Cooper nor Ms. Schofield can think of anything that has even been looked at in terms of moving into a supp.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In any given year, the maximum number we have had applying for this is six. It is a maximum of $10,000 each. So $5,000 per semester is the maximum that is made available. Thank you.