David Ramsay

Again, I respect the Member, but we’re trying our best to staff and be ready for April 1st when we get the new responsibilities. We’ve also got $11 million that we’ve got set aside for shortfalls in our operation. If we need to look at increasing resources and getting a staff complement more than what we have put in place today, that’s money that will be available to us as we go forward. Certainly, we are going to be ready. The Department of Justice will be ready. It’s not a soft spot. It’s something we feel strongly about, that we can deliver services to government, to the departments that...

Just to clarify, Madam Chair, no, the deputy minister had mentioned how the integrated case management was working with the wellness court to the Member previously, and I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re in the third year of the five-year plan and there is an evaluation built into the program as well. Of course, we would hope that at the end of five years the funding would be able to be renewed in some way, shape or form. Thank you.

I think each individual’s circumstances may, in fact, be different than the next person, but we could be potentially talking to Education, Culture and Employment about opportunities to bridge the two. Again, I think it’s very important that people have opportunities on a year-round basis. If there is that opportunity to work with ECE to talk about training opportunities and how we can get the trappers that are trapping that want to be employed in the oil and gas sector as things continue to move along in the Sahtu, again, that’s something that we’re very much interested in doing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was for the legal divisions for support to devolution.

Madam Chair, I mentioned 12 communities. If you take away three that are on the road and close to another city like Yellowknife and Hay River, so you could take off Detah, Tsiigehtchic and Hay River Reserve, then you’re down to nine. As I mentioned earlier, the cost of putting a detachment into a community is anywhere between $10 million and $12 million capital costs and that would include housing for the members.

Also, on an ongoing basis you’re looking at about $2 million on an annual basis for a small detachment. I mean, you could be somewhere around $100 million in a capital expenditure if...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate the Member bringing forward this motion. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, we have close to $800,000 earmarked for on-the-land programs in this year’s budget, $787,000 to be exact. I’ve also made a commitment earlier to provide the established safety protocols and the framework to Members, and we will get that to Members as soon as possible. Again, it was part of the RFP process. We also will continue to work diligently on finding a service provider for a wilderness camp here in the Northwest Territories, and again, we have to remain optimistic that...

I’ll go to Ms. Schofield for that response, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our role as a department is to, again, provide legal advice and support to departments. We do have some new enforcement responsibilities. Those will be carried out by other departments. Our role in this was to add five new positions at our legal division and they’re not just the ATIPP position the Member referenced, but we have beefed up our staff complement in the legal division by five positions in anticipation that they will be busier after April 1st. As we go forward, if we need further resources in that area, through the business planning process we could...

Thank you, Madam Chair. For that detail, we’ll go to the deputy minister. Thank you.