David Ramsay

On April 1st, of course, we inherited the regulatory responsibility from the federal government. There are processes in place and we have to respect the processes and not fetter the regulator, not fetter the process that’s in place through legislation, legislation that we’ve inherited from the federal government.

Mr. Speaker, the Member makes it sound like we are not offering any services at North Slave Correctional Centre when it comes to spiritual and cultural health. We have elders that come to the facility that do sharing circles with the inmates, and we do that. We just don’t have, on staff, a permanent position. The coordinator position has been vacant, as I mentioned, since June, but that’s not to say that the centre isn’t still providing those types of opportunities for inmates that are at North Slave Correctional Centre. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We set up an office of the oil and gas regulator separate from the ITI department. It’s in a different building. It’s a stand-alone operation. I’ve delegated the day-to-day authority in most cases to the chief conservation officer, who is the executive director of our oil and gas regulator office, and we’ve set it up in a way that allows me to continue to do my job as Minister and also be the regulator. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: I am pleased to report that earlier this month the Territorial Court of the Northwest Territories launched the Wellness Court, supported by a new Department of Justice Wellness Court Program.

The Wellness Court is an alternative to conventional court that focuses on the offender rather than the offence. This court, and the supporting program, provides intensive supervision and targeted programing for chronic offenders who have mental health issues, addictions or cognitive challenges that contribute to their criminal behaviour. With this program we hope to help offenders develop a...

Mr. Speaker, seizing vehicles has occurred in the past when it comes to bootleggers. It continues to be an option where it is feasible. We also have a memorandum of understanding with the Government of Canada in respect of sharing the proceeds and disposition of forfeited property, the sharing of the amounts paid or recovered on account of certain fines and sharing of certain monies transferred to Canada by the governments of foreign states. We have an MOU in place with the Government of Canada that allows us to share some of those funds. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The answer is yes. We have had that concern come up previously. We are currently talking to other jurisdictions about their experience with this. Some of the preliminary discussions we’ve had with other jurisdictions indicate that we really need to be careful, because in a lot of cases the cost to store the assets seized sometimes ends up costing more than the assets themselves at the end of the day.

We have some discussions ongoing with other jurisdictions and I am glad that the Member brought the issue up again today. Thank you.

Thank you. We have our suite of business-related programs and services through ITI. In addition to that, we also have a new expenditure-based rebate program that we’ll be launching next month, November of this year. So we’re looking forward to seeing if that can be successful in helping to attract investment in the film industry here to the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve just completed a report, entitled “The Sector Analysis and Action Plan for Screen-Based Media Production in the Northwest Territories.” We’re going to use this information, the information gleaned in that report, as the basis for a film strategy for the Northwest Territories, which we hope to have completed by March of 2015. So a lot of work is continuing to move forward on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The deputy minister outlined the reason why we sought the increase of $400,000. The Member is right; the value has increased on rough diamonds and evaluation services. It’s the funding that we require to provide the service, and the company that we’re working with has the experience to deliver the service that the Government of the Northwest Territories requires in evaluating diamonds.

A new detachment does come with a lofty price tag. That’s why, with the resources that we do have, we have to try to find a way of moving forward with improving the level of service. In the case of Gameti, we talked about a holding cell being provided in the community. If we get into Wrigley and Wrigley leadership identifies that as a need, that’s something we will continue to work on.

We always need to be moving the yardsticks forward, Mr. Speaker. In the case of providing service, we are going to do that.

Again, I look forward to travelling to Wrigley and I can explain that to the community...