Julie Green

Mr. Chair, the next business plan cycle is approximately nine months away, so I'm wondering if in the interim there is still this backlog, which the Minister referred to in June of last year as unacceptable in all ways, I'm looking for some assurance that there are the resources in place now to deal with this backlog? We're talking about services to very vulnerable people. That is the basis of a Public Guardian application. It's not for the likes of you and me. So I'd like to think that people are not continuing to wait months and months for service in this area. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. These may also be questions that the Minister needs some additional time with. I'd like to know the number of assessors who are dealing with that backlog of referrals and also the number of staff who are dealing with what I'm going to guess is an increased caseload based on looking at those referrals, so could he please commit to giving us a rundown of how those referrals are being dealt with, by whom, and what the staff capacity is there? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I noticed that the adult support services line which includes the Office of the Public Guardian is losing a small amount of money this year and it seemed like a good time to ask the Minister about the progress of his review of the Public Guardian's office which was due by the end of the calendar year; that was the deadline that he gave us. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for his response. I recognize that there is a process in place to try to get better service from the RCMP if we feel that the service we are getting is not adequate. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that fewer than 10 per cent of women who have been sexually and physically assaulted report, just exactly because of the onerous nature of trying to follow up the conditions of recognizance that are placed on the accused. I didn't hear from the Minister that he acknowledges that this may be a problem or what he might do to fix it? Masi. Mr. Speaker.

Thank you to the Minister for that answer. I think that he has had a more positive experience, or his clients have, of this court system than the woman I have been working with. In this instance that I cited in my Member's statement, the victim had to visit the RCMP three successive times to report just one instance of intimidation, each time requesting interviews with more senior RCMP members and then finally getting the support of the Status of Women. Only then did the police take action to enforce the conditions of release. My question for the Minister is: why should it be so hard?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, before we finish discussion on this area, I want to address three areas in which the Regular MLAs would like to see some additional investment, and I'm just going to go over them briefly. There have been detailed questions. First, we're looking for additional money for our Youth Mental Health Strategy to help young people who are facing mental health issues and also perhaps concurrently addictions. We are looking for additional money for the anti-poverty fund which would extend the good work this fund does at the grassroots level to combat poverty in our...

Thanks to the Minister for that response. I'm going to ask a follow-up question. In what circumstances are they valuable if they are revealing information that is not a conviction but only that a person has had some kind of contact with the justice system or the police?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Justice. In response to my questions on the topic of records of non-conviction in November, the Minister said that criminal records checks are intended to protect vulnerable groups and "essential in certain circumstances dealing with vulnerable populations or children." To be clear, does the Minister really believe that the police should be making any records public which do not deal with a conviction for a criminal offence but disclose only that a person has been in contact with the police or justice system? Mahsi, Mr...

Just one more. Yes, I appreciate that that is a goal and not a definition, and for sure this work is going to be hard. I don’t think that we should wait for the federal government. I think that we need to consider in our own context what poverty is. We often hear that people with low income don’t feel like they live in poverty, so it's not only income driven, but we do hear that lots of people don’t have enough food to eat.

So I think that we really have to make the effort to do that, and I think the biggest danger here is overthinking it and making it complicated, and that's why I'm talking...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am going to return to a topic I raised during the last sitting, as I have had another constituent bring another case of injustice to my attention.

The issue is records of non-conviction, the reports that are produced by the police when a criminal records check is requested. These reports may contain records of a person having been questioned by the police and not charged, or charged and the charges were later dropped, or charged and the person was later acquitted. In the latest case of my constituent, the person was charged with assault in 1990 and received a...