Louis Sebert

Mr. Chair, the government is committed of course to funding these types of organizations because it has been clearly identified that this is a very important area, if I could put it that way, in our society and we do need this help. However, it may be that the program has to be redesigned. We would find that out after the assessment of the program is done. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, legal aid has expanded its operations in the area of outreach. There is now an individual that goes out to many of the smaller communities dealing with sometimes issues that cannot be dealt with, either by private lawyers or by the legal aid clinic lawyers, so there is an effort from legal aid to have actual individuals go out and help people, particularly in the smaller communities where access to justice is a large problem, there being no resident lawyers in most of those communities. With respect to the issue of the library, as I have mentioned earlier, the expense of continuing...

Mr. Chair, I don’t think we actually have information as to what they’re paid. I understand that often they’re working in construction sites, so I’m assuming they are paid at least minimum wage, but I don’t have that information before me. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, this is as a result of the transfer of wilderness camp funding from corrections. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, the issue of a standalone courthouse in Yellowknife has been a long-standing issue. I believe this was looked at at some point in the not-too-distant past. The cost of establishing a new standalone courthouse was found to be excessive, so there’s no plans in the immediate future to develop a new courthouse. Certainly, the judiciary and law profession probably would prefer a modern, standalone, separate courthouse. Should we go down that route, the cost would be very, very high and would take away from other capital projects that might be more worthy to a larger group of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned yesterday, there is very little activity, of any kind at the library. There are very few people, lawyers or otherwise using that library. There has been a change in the way in which lawyers and other research the law and most of it is done online. I believe that when the library was reduced from its very large size to its current size, that some of the historic books were given to archives and some of the other books of interest to the local bar were simply given away to the lawyers. I don’t think the law library is used very much by the...

Mr. Chair, we have a contract with an organization that is very experienced in this area, but perhaps I can ask Ms. Haener to give more detail. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, if I could assist with some statistics about the average length of custody; that information is now before me. For adult males the average remand time is apparently 53 days; adult females is 38 days; male youths is 53 days; and female youths is four days. Although there are a lot of people on remand, it would appear to me that the average remand length is quite short. With respect to those on remand, we have attempted over the last few years to allow them to avail themselves to as many programs as is possible. Clearly, they cannot likely take all of the programs because some of...

Mr. Chair, I understand this is when inmates go out on work release and they are paid or more money comes in for their work than is actually due or owed to them, so we recover that small amount of $7,000 a year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes. Certainly, Mr. Chair, there does seem to be value in this type of program, and depending on how the evaluation of the pilot project moves along, we would be looking at this type of program or something very similar to it in the future with our business plans. Thank you, Mr. Chair.