Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Speaker, this program, as I stated, will be rolled out this month. It will be a program for the Northwest Territories that will be delivered here in the capital of the Northwest Territories. At the same time, I did commit to the standing committee, when I presented to them on this specific program, that one of our goals is to deliver this into the regions outside the Yellowknife jurisdiction and potentially going into the communities. That will take some time, Mr. Speaker, but that’s one of our goals as the department, that we want to roll out the program into the regions. The communities...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Through our consultation with the communities and also our partners with various organizations such as the RCMP and NGOs and other organizations and interdepartmental as well, we provide various programs. One of our priorities, of course, is prevention and preventive measures, and also the Member referred to the treatment, how we can have a program in place that those individuals, the victims who are seeking out some sort of support from our organizations in the Government of the Northwest Territories. Through that, there have been some programs such as I just highlighted...

The Member is correct that a number of departments are providing funding to the Centre for Northern Families. ECE, Health and Social Services, NWT Housing Corporation and the Executive provide just over $600,000 to deliver programs and services such as the Early Childhood Program in different areas, outreach workers and the shelter funding, emergency shelter. Within the Justice department, through community justice programming, we are going through the review or programming of the dollars that are being contributed to the communities. We have to work with the organizations such as the...

Mr. Speaker, the Domestic Family Violence Treatment Option Court Program has been developed through the court proceedings and it has the involvement of a chief judge, Chief Judge Gorin, Judge Gagnon. The Department of Justice, my department, is working closely with them. The Public Prosecution of Canada, the RCMP and the defence bar are the parties that are involved in developing this program. The program will be delivered here in Yellowknife, working closely with the offenders and also the low-risk offenders.

Mr. Speaker, we feel that this is a great opportunity to work within the court system...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that Bill 14, An Act to Amend the Conflict of Interest Act, be read for the third time.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 20, An Act to Amend the Evidence Act, be read for the third time.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] The knowledge of the elders is very important. [Translation ends]

[English translation not provided.]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to thank the Member for putting this motion forward. As I stated in my language, it is because of the elders of the past and the elders of the present that I still speak my language. I would like to thank them for that. I am a firm believer in having elders in school as well. We do have elders in schools and we’ll continue to provide those services.

I think this motion basically provides us more strength to move forward on what we...

Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. To my left is Mike Reddy, policy and planning division, and to my right is Mr. Mark Aitken, director of legislation division.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here today to speak to Bill 14, An Act to Amend the Conflict of Interest Act. I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Social Programs for its review of this bill.

The Conflict of Interest Act defines the circumstances in which a council or board member is considered to be in a conflict of interest when participating in decisions of that council or board.

The current act automatically deems that a member has received a benefit -- what the act calls an “indirect pecuniary interest” -- in situations where the member is also an employee of the...