David Ramsay

Mr. Speaker, what it appears like to me is that for that period of time there wasn’t a clinical psychologist and it would appear that the department spent $20,000 on a contract to one psychiatrist. Mr. Speaker, we are having repeat violent offenders walking out of that facility, recommitting crimes in our Territory. Mr. Speaker, I want to know how it is possible without a clinical psychologist that the Department of Justice could only spend $20,000 on services to inmates at North Slave Correctional Centre. That is what it looks like, Mr. Speaker. Where is the evidence of any other psychiatric...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Getting back to my Member’s statement and I suppose I could ask questions to any one of my colleagues across the floor on the contract registry, but I am going to zero in, if I could, on one item in particular that just is not in that contract registry, Mr. Speaker. It is something that I brought up in this House time and time again and that is the lack of psychiatric services at North Slave Correctional Centre. Mr. Speaker, looking at the contract registry that goes from April 1, 2009, to March 31, 2010, if you look at the Department of Justice, apparently they had a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess the timing is pretty good. The Minister and his staff are going to be providing a briefing to Regular Members next week on the Deh Cho Bridge Project. I was wondering if the Minister could commit to have his department staff, when they come to the briefing next week, provide the committee with an overview of the contract itself, especially with an eye to eligible costs and where responsibility lies for eligible cost overruns on that project. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, didn’t the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation hand over control of the project prior to March of 2010? If so, why is the contract with Ruskin between the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and Ruskin and not the Government of the Northwest Territories and Ruskin? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As well, I am not talking about what is going to happen in the future or what is happening right now. I would like to know what is happening right now, too, but this period of time, Mr. Speaker, if we didn’t have adequate services for inmates that were at that centre, which would appear to be the case, I would like to know about that. I would like, again, to get a commitment from the Minister that he is going to include that period of time, April 1, 2009, to March 31, 2010, and if he wants to throw in what is happening today and going forward for psychiatric services in...

Mr. Speaker, what I am trying to do is come up with some idea of what services are provided to inmates in that centre for that period of time. Mr. Speaker, if they are without a clinical psychologist and the department would apparently... It looks like they spent $20,000 on a contract to one psychiatrist. Is that the limit of psychiatric services that were provided to inmates at the North Slave Correctional Centre for that period of time? I would like to ask the Minister again that question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In February of last year I made a statement in this House in relation to the Government of the Northwest Territories contracting practices. Today I’d like to follow up on that statement.

The number I cited last year of roughly $53 million being handed out through sole-sourced means has gone up by nearly $5 million, to $58 million in the government’s latest contract registry.

Going through the latest contract registry leads me to the same conclusions I made last year: one, we have an addiction to consultants; two, our staff are taking on too much contract management and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice if we cannot review cases where individuals have been incarcerated, as I mentioned earlier, 15, 16, 17, 18 times for violent offences, if we cannot review files of that nature in an effort to try to get dangerous offender status on those offenders if they reoffend.

Given the fact that we have such a high incidence of violent crimes and repeat offenders of those violent crimes, I’d like to get a better understanding of why we’re not seeing applications made for dangerous offender status for habitual violent offenders in our Territory.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week I addressed the issue of light sentences being handed out in cases of heinous acts of violence where, Mr. Speaker, the prosecutors and judges were well aware of an individual’s prior convictions. I also spoke about the inadequacy of treatment and programs for inmates in our corrections system.

Mr. Speaker, I’ve spoken to many inmates both while incarcerated and after their release that state the same thing: there is a lack of services available for them while they are incarcerated.

Just last week it was reported that we now have convicted criminals of violent...