Louis Sebert

Mr. Chair, I know that the judiciary will still have their library and I believe the Department of Justice does have a somewhat smaller library. Legal division does. Some of the books… I had the opportunity of looking at the main library here in town does have some books on law, so we will not have one central source of legal materials in the same way, but I think there will still be some access to those types of materials, either through the regular library archives, our library here, or the internal law libraries of the GNWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I’m not sure of the exact dates, but we will have such a plan in due course, hopefully by the end of the year.

Mr. Chair, I believe that program does come under this section.

Mr. Chair, I’m not absolutely certain as to the average length of stay. I do know that the issue of remands across the country is an issue of quite a high percentage of inmates in our system, approximately 60 per cent are on remand, and I think that’s consistent with statistics across Canada. I do know, however, that we have one of the best records of getting people to court. Unlike in the south when there’s very often a very long delay and people spending a long, long period of time on remand that doesn’t tend to happen as much here. But, unfortunately, I do not have in front of me statistics...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m pleased to present the 2016-2017 main estimates for the Department of Justice. Overall, the Department’s estimate proposes a decrease of just over $3.4 million representing a decrease of 2.67 per cent over the 2015-2016 main estimates. The department’s budget continues to balance the need to ensure effective frontline program delivery while supporting the government’s objective of limiting expenditure growth to ensure the long-term sustainability of the fiscal framework. The estimates represent the work of the department for the administration of a justice system that...

Mr. Speaker, I’m not certain which law library was spoken to or are they are planning to speak to. I know that there’s two law schools in Alberta at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and the University of Calgary obviously in Calgary. I know little more than that. There will be communications with one or both of those libraries.

Mr. Speaker, at the time the budget was rolled, if I could put it that way, a letter was sent to the Law Society asking for their concerns or input. I can say that informally over the years I have consulted with my fellow practitioners and I took what they told me to Cabinet when we did discuss this very matter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we’re anticipating this change will actually save a great deal of money. Last year, just to give the House some statistics, we spent $467,000 to operate the library. There were only 984 visitors to the library, so that works out to about $500 for each person, each visitor, to the library. Only 385 books were signed out, which would work out to about $1200 for each book signed out. Additionally, our statistics indicate that most of the users of the current library are the legal profession and only about one per cent of the users are the general public, but I’m glad to see the...

Mr. Speaker, the department is very focused on issues of access to justice and we’re looking at the feasibility of establishing a resource centre in the courthouse which would allow counsel, legal counsel, and the general public to access electronic materials and a limited number of hard-copy books.

As I mentioned, Mr. Speaker, there is no specific plan at this time to reduce costs; there’s always attempts to reduce costs. However, I will have discussions with the board and be giving direction to them in several areas, so certainly that is an area that I could bring back to this House if there is a specific request made by me through consultations with the people in this room, the Cabinet and so on. I don’t think there’s any specific planned reductions at this time apart from the normal ongoing corporate responsibility of keeping costs in line.