Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. This is, again, across the board consulting with various departments. It’s a GNWT consultation unit so this is before us and we need to work with this initiative. We feel that it’s a valuable tool that we need to move forward with, so that’s where we’ve engaged the GNWT departments’ engagement in this area. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. This is a new unit. My understanding is it should be up and running around September, this fall.

Mr. Speaker, I believe in due time that will happen, whether it be the end of this government or early next government, but we do have that information that we need to share with the standing committee and providing that and possibly delivering a legislative proposal as the next step. I have committed that to the Member already. Mahsi.

I look forward to the Member’s information that he’ll be sharing with us with my department so we can move this file forward. As I’ve stated, we’ve gathered most of the information, but any information that the Member can provide that would be available to us to proceed with this file so we can deal with this matter that’s been before us within our department. I’ll commit to this House that we’ll continue to work on this file with that information.

We’ll definitely verify that. The report may have been given to the Standing Committee on Social Programs because my department deals specifically with the Social Programs committee, but if the Member didn’t receive that, then we can provide that additional information that was shared with the standing committee. Mahsi.

Mahsi. We do collect the information on inmates that pass through our institutional services throughout the Northwest Territories and that gives us a caption on where we should focus. If it’s going to be a reintegration model, we’ve made some changes to our reintegration model as well as the programming and we’ll continue to do that. We feel that reintegration back into the community they should be prepared to walk into a community.

So we have some information on file that we collect over time and based on that we develop programs or make changes to our programming. There is also federal...

Mr. Speaker, it is easy to say tear down the building. We currently house over a couple hundred inmates there as well. I can give you an example of how much it costs to deliver a program, on-the-land program versus North Slave Correction as an example. We have $250 per person at the North Slave Correctional Centre. It is going to cost us almost double, $415, out on-the-land program. We as a department pursued it because we felt it would be in the best interest of the communities to host on-the-land program. It does cost us extra dollars, but we believe in it, so that is what we are pursuing...

Mr. Speaker, we are doing that in other parts of the regions as well. There is a work release in place. The South Slave, Mackenzie, there are different programming that individuals go out on the land, and in Fort Smith and different institutions. They take out the inmates to cut wood for the community. Those are the ongoing initiatives that we continue to support so it keeps the members active in their community or in a community. If it happens to be their community, they are contributing to that community as well.

Mr. Speaker, this is a program that we continue to support in the communities...

Mr. Speaker, the specific review, again, I have to get that information for the Member. What were the highlights of the review and what needs to be changed, if there needs to be changes, that is the information that I was referring to that I would provide to the Members. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. That specific information I need to get for the Member. I don’t have that detailed information in front of me right now.