Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said earlier, I had no expectation or I had no understanding that there had been a direct approach to the casual employees involved in this. I did say that they may have been in attendance at the meeting that full-time staff were notified at. I would expect that through the union they would have received some notification but, as I said earlier, I didn’t expect that there had been a direct approach from the department.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is a number of small grants to organizations of $1,000 or $2,000 to a number of different organizations or judges to go to conferences. There is not one group that gets it, but it is spread out.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member talked about the community justice coordinators and the reduction in those positions having an impact on communities. One of the reasons we have gone ahead with reducing coordinators was that we have got the committees up and running in the communities. If they need support, we are keeping enough resources to have one person who can go into a community and help them get things back on track. What we are doing is taking $237,000 from the savings and reinvesting that and making it available to the communities, so that those communities who were finding it...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that you’d find that the people who were involved with Tl'oondih and setting up the program would say that we’ve done a fair bit of work from the department to assist with that happening. In terms of an ongoing situation, it probably works best on an intermittent basis because you build up the numbers of people then who are prepared to take the programming and you have that critical mass. I think that helps, actually, make sure that you have enough people for a reasonable intake, which gives them the numbers then to justify the programming. Thank you, Mr...

No, I’d disagree with the Member. We do not discriminate. Our programs are available to everybody in the Northwest Territories. Our programs are available for everybody. If the Member is suggesting that we should give UCEP back to the federal government then we could do that, but it would probably mean that there would be less money available in the Northwest Territories. Our programs, the ones offered by the GNWT, are universally available to all members of the public. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I certainly can’t speak for I think it was Minister Kakfwi at the time who proposed the facility at first. I can’t speak for what his expectations were, nor for Minister Antoine who followed him, or Minister Allen, but the facility was built by the time I got the position. I don’t think that anybody thought that there was going to be a moving of things around to justify the facility. I don’t think that is what is happening. The South Mackenzie Correctional Centre is a good facility. It is well used. There has been no suggestion that we move the clients from that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is about $1.5 million, I believe. Sorry, it is $1.092 million. It is almost $1.1 million. It would be basically the plans. We would hope to be ready to the point where we would be very close to going out to tender on the project.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to send that message to the judiciary. If this Assembly feels strongly that the Canadian Government needs to make the laws tougher in this area, then I could certainly raise the issue at the next federal-provincial-territorial meeting of Justice Ministers with Minister Cotler. I believe he is the Minister of Justice now, so that would be the appropriate Minister with whom to discuss it. Or I could send a letter. It is exclusively an area of federal jurisdiction. I could certainly make this Legislative Assembly’s feelings and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the Member knows, I’m very supportive of on-the-land camps. I agree with the Member that an important aspect of them is not just traditional knowledge, but working with the elders in the healing process. That’s absolutely essential. The Member also knows that we have to have people who want to take the programming. We’re hoping that the new approach will help us get more people into the camps.

The Member asked what the camps need. They need more people in them to be more successful because they make their money by charging us on a per diem for the inmates who are in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure if other jurisdictions would have this issue, because in the Northwest Territories it’s a unique situation where we deliver the program on behalf of the federal government. Normally the federal government provides the funding to bands across Canada. It’s not delivered by governments. I could look into whether or not the Yukon is doing it, because that might be the only other jurisdiction where a similar approach would be happening. If that is the case, then I would be quite pleased to work with the Minister from the Yukon collectively.