Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes. When we heard that the CRA was planning to tax student grants to aboriginal people, the Minister of Finance and I jointly signed a letter pointing out that this would be counterproductive and encouraged them to reconsider their decision.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can certainly provide the Member with a listing of recent visits to communities. I will endeavour to ask the RCMP for the numbers of times that they have been into the schools for conversation. I expect that every time they are in a school that is one of the issues that they address. I think it is important to remember, as I said, that we have other initiatives. We have the Esteem Team that goes around to talk to kids about the issues like this and making healthy choices. This government isn’t taking just one approach; we are taking a number of approaches. But...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The formal program DARE isn’t offered in the smallest communities. The resources aren’t there to do it, but, when the RCMP visits schools, and they often visit schools on community visits, they take the opportunity to talk to young people about making the right choices. That is certainly something that comes up. It is not a formal program, but it is something that is discussed. The other thing is that the school curriculum itself includes dealing with making the right choices starting as early as kindergarten. Kindergarten and Grade 1 is entirely focused on just...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The $15,000 was in the budget for planning money for the renovations to the school. With the situation that’s happened this winter, we are likely going to have to find out for sure what’s happening with the piles before we determine at what rate we move forward with the renovation or replacement. So that $15,000 now will probably be used to study the situation more. If it proves that we need to spend some money for short-term repairs, then we will have to find the money to do that. At this point, that money was in the budget before the issue with the crack at the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the Member’s last question, I would have to check with my colleague, the Minister of Public Works, to find out if the thermostat has been fixed yet.

---Laughter

I haven’t got that information with me. In terms of the schedule, the planning is proceeding, as I understand it. The whole process of locating the site for the school has proceeded over the course of the winter and the community has been involved in approving that site so that now we can start to prepare. The expectation is that construction will start to take place within the next fiscal year and the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I should probably go back to Mr. Menicoche because I haven’t been offered the occasion to respond for a number of Members. I can’t disagree with Mr. Menicoche that the RCMP in his region have a big area to cover with the six communities, and I certainly heard the Members yesterday talking about the need for more police services in communities that don’t have any services right now. As the information that I have with me here indicates, there are eight RCMP positions in Fort Simpson and four in Fort Liard. I don’t know if any of them are vacant at the moment, but that’s...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not aware of the exact number of condominium corporations in operation right now. It is, though, I know a relatively small number. Condominiums are a fairly new method of housing in the Northwest Territories and that’s one of the other reasons, as we start to see more and more of them, that we need to take a look at our act and make sure that we are protecting the consumers adequately.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t think the Member would find any different opinion from Mr. Cooper or me, that justice delivered at the community level is better justice. I think what we would say, and Mr. Cooper advises me, that the community involvement in the Northwest Territories is already higher than what you would find anywhere else in Canada.

We have, across the Northwest Territories, 30 active community justice committees, where we are seeing them do exactly what the Member is recommending. They are taking administration of justice to the residents of that community and we are quite...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I speak to an event that reminds us of the dangers facing those who put their lives on the line to make our communities safer. Yesterday, four RCMP officers were shot and killed while investigating a suspected marijuana grow operation near Rochfort Bridge, Alberta.

This serious and tragic event has touched all of us, especially the officers’ colleagues here in the Northwest Territories who are represented in this House this morning by Inspector Greg Morrow and Inspector Roch Fortin of “G” division. It also reminds us of the...

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to present the 2005-06 Department of Justice main estimates. These estimates offer details on how the department will allocate its resources to meet its mandate of administering justice, including corrections and policing, in the Northwest Territories.

The 2005-06 operational budget for the department is $79.8 million. This is an increase of .58 percent of approximately $460,000 from last year’s main estimates. This increase will help make our communities safer and improve access to legal aid services.

Seventy percent of our total budget will be spent on law...