Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on the recommendations of the Access to Privacy Commissioner in the last Assembly, the government also made a recommendation that the government post all salary ranges for different categories of employment in the Government of the Northwest Territories. The Member and I were both on that committee, and since becoming a Minister I have directed the department to post all salary ranges for all categories of employment in the Government of the Northwest Territories on-line. They are all there.

As far as posting individuals’ salaries and individual position...

Mr. Speaker, many of the individual diversions are very specific to the individual involved in the diversion, whatever can be arranged in the community. It would be difficult to provide a comprehensive list of every specific diversion that has taken place, but I will commit to getting to the Member a bit of a summary of the types of things that are being done in the different communities as well as a little bit of a summary on what some of the communities are doing as far as prevention and individual diversion.

I do know that some of the communities have submitted applications for money to run...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a couple things. Some of it’s promotion and advertising. We do have the Not Us campaign, which is actually a community-driven promotion and awareness campaign. It does exist in Inuvik. The RCMP are working with the community group who is delivering that, and I think we’re getting some pretty positive results in Inuvik.

We also have community justice committees in most of our communities in the Northwest Territories. They are working through diversion to work with youth to find alternatives and healing methods, and ways to divert them out of the criminal justice...

It is a hypothetical question. I have committed to going to committee. I have committed to sharing our information with them and working with them. If committee has some direction they would like us to follow, we’re absolutely open to discussing that and working with committee on any issue that’s important to them and the people of the Northwest Territories.

I just want to correct my last answer just slightly. Employees’ information, excluded senior management are on-line. I’m not 100 percent sure about deputies’ information, how that is determined. It is by policy, and I can share that with the Member if it’s not on-line.

With respect to individual bonuses and why they may be awarded, financial management would be one category. At the end of the day, we have collective agreements in place, we have agreements with our employees, we have the Public Service Act which outlines bonuses as a possibility. Every deputy is responsible for doing an...

Thank you. I don’t think we have anything to hide about or hide behind. Bottom line is, our legislation is specific and it talks of this particular area. We are not in a position to release that information without changing the Access to Information and Privacy Act.

Like I said, I’m happy to go to committee, have a discussion on this and if committee wishes us to change the Access to Information and Privacy Act, that is certainly something that we are willing to work with committee on. Thank you.

I’ve seen that information and I understand that some jurisdictions, under their particular access to information and privacy legislation, have the freedom to do that. We have our own stand-alone legislation here in the Northwest Territories which we have to comply with, and our legislation does not allow that. I am happy to sit down with committee and have some discussions around this, and if they wish for us to pursue this and look at our legislation, we’re happy to do that, but right now our legislation actually limits our ability to do exactly what some of these other jurisdictions are...

Mr. Speaker, every community justice committee consists of representatives from the individual communities. They all come with different strengths, weaknesses and ideas. I couldn’t say whether every committee does exactly what the Member is talking to, but I know many strive to do that. Specifics would depend on the community-by-community basis and what skills they have in their communities, what knowledge they have. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I don’t have the exact number of communities that actually have community justice committees in the Northwest Territories. I do know that it is the majority of communities. I also do know that currently 30 of 33 communities have access to the program and are accessing funding. I don’t know how active they are specifically, but I do know that 30 of 33 are accessing the funding for their committees.

Mr. Speaker, we all have a role to play in stopping abuse from taking place in our homes. Unfortunately, family violence continues to be a significant concern.

We know violence in the homes of NWT residents is having long-term physical, social and economic impacts on family members, communities, and the territory as a whole.