Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have any money in the budget to do that. I have given up, in this budget, the $400,000. The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is in the budget that’s before the House, we have reduced the expenditures by $400,000 and have said in order to achieve this reduction, we have to close the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre remand unit. Mr. Speaker, we will function this year with $400,000 less. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In terms of better, I don’t know if it’s a question of it being a better setting. The issue is really one of having two facilities when we can accommodate the prisoners with one. That’s where the savings are. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The magnitude of the numbers is, I am sure, relatively close to what the exact numbers are going to be. Whether we are saving, $300,000, $400,000 or $500,000, there is a significant savings to close this facility. So even if my numbers were wrong, they are not wrong by that amount. The amount of money that’s in this year’s budget, Mr. Speaker, is $400,000 less than what it would take to keep that section of the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre open. That’s what the department has given up. So whether the department is exactly right in the numbers that have been...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What we are saying is that we think that the transportation of people on remand can be accommodated for very close to that number. Again I am saying it is plus or minus. If we have a few more or a few less, it will change. Yes, based on historical data, that number is pretty close to what is expected. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My figures are based on historical data. However, we could get two or three more remand customers next year, or two or three less, so the numbers will change. They won’t be exact over the next year. The numbers that have been presented to the Member are in fact based on historical evaluations. We took the logs from South Mackenzie Correctional Centre and looked at how many times inmates have been in and out for remand or in and out for appearances in court, and used those numbers.

Yes, there has been an in-depth look, but I can’t predict exactly how many people we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can’t make that commitment. The budget that we have brought forward obviously involves the layoffs of staff in order to meet our fiscal target. I can’t guarantee that people who have received layoff notices are going to keep their jobs in the public service.

We didn’t issue any layoff notices to people who work in the remand facility in Hay River. Not one layoff notice was issued there, because none of the folks are getting laid off. They will be absorbed into the staff at South Mackenzie Correctional Centre. The staff at Dene K'onia…It is unfortunate, but if we...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not going to be asking any questions. I would, though, like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Tlicho people on this, the final piece of legislation, to launch their self-government into action.

All the time I have watched them since I have arrived in the North, I have noticed that the Tlicho leadership, the families and communities have got a powerful history of supporting education and learning. I think that shows in the success that we see of young people in that region. The Tlicho have consistently put their organization’s money into scholarships and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government stands committed to regional involvement with communities or regional and community involvement in the justice process, and that’s why we have community justice committees. That’s why we’re adding funding for the community justice committees to be involved in justice. We are also committed because we support the courts to travel to each and every community to conduct the courts as they are necessary.

Mr. Speaker, when we’re talking about Dene K’onia, I don’t disagree that we have tremendous programming and tremendous staff resources there, but, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In fact, that facility has been the only facility that’s had male young offenders in it since March of this past year, so March 2004. The reason for doing that, Mr. Speaker, was to ensure that we placed all of the open custody young offenders in the one facility as a means of saving some money. We can’t close the facility in Yellowknife, it’s a dual facility, half of it is for secure custody and the other half is open custody, we can’t achieve the same level of savings. We did reduce the costs over the course of the last year by not utilizing the open custody section...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I meet with the RCMP, drugs are certainly an issue that we talk about. I think it’s important to remember that there is a section in the RCMP that deals with drug trafficking and they are federally-funded positions. I have been working with Chief Superintendent Summerfield to pressure the federal government to make sure that all of those positions are filled and active in the Northwest Territories, and I will continue to make the point with the RCMP that we do need to be very vigilant on drugs. Thank you.