Robert Bouchard

With the deputy judge stepping away from Hay River, was that on choice or was it the department’s move, and what is the hiring policy? Are we hiring somebody to fill that position? Can the Minister give me some more information on that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It has been several years since Hay River has had a full-time resident judge and remand in its South Mackenzie Correctional Centre, SMCC. It was not too long ago that we had a full-time judge that lived in Hay River, that worked in Hay River and travelled around the South Slave doing work for Justice. Along with that judge came remand, inmates that were waiting on trial. Several years ago the Department of Justice, in their wisdom, decided to remove remand out of Hay River and centralize Yellowknife. We’re very concerned with this. There are a lot of extra costs for...

My next question is to deal with remand and dealing with inmates, our accused people of the public, and they’re holding in facilities and the Minister just indicated that it’s busy in Yellowknife.

Why do we not have remand in Hay River? Why are we not taking some of that court pressure off in Yellowknife in the Hay River area for South Slave residents? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll follow up with my questions for the Minister of Justice.

My first question is: When can the community of Hay River expect to get a resident judge back in the community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple comments in the general comments area. The first one is I’d like to know what the Housing Corporation is doing to combat, obviously, all the pressure we have with seniors, the aging population we have in the Northwest Territories and how many units we’re expecting to build for seniors, how much we’re expecting the seniors to stay in their own homes, maybe seniors programs to assist in that area. I guess I’d like to get a little update on what we’re doing.

We know some of the pressures that are coming over the next five or 10 years with the aging...

I would like a specific example of what, out of this year’s budget dialogue, came out from the public, because I’m concerned the presentation was just made, the presentation was there, the public was heard, but nothing was implemented.

What specifically was implemented from this budget dialogue will be going forward or was implemented to this budget?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement about the budget, I will have questions for the hardworking veteran Minister of Finance.

I would like to see if the Minister can give me some information on how they look at getting more information from these budget dialogues going forward. The numbers are definitely low. Can we get some information on how we improve that?

This is the problem that I have, is I think that those park positions were in the budget before the budget dialogue. So, I’m looking for specific examples from the budget dialogue that were implemented. We already knew about the fibre optic line; we already knew some of this stuff. I’ll even go back to the previous budget dialogues.

What has the department learned from the public, has implemented and put into our budget process and into the operations of the government?

My next question is: What did we hear this year and how does that apply and how has it been applied to our current budget?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too will obviously be talking about the budget dialogue that the Minister of Finance continues to hold for the last three years.

I’m not sure if I’m really that confident in this budget dialogue process. Indications from this year are we had 97 people attend and we had 11 individuals or groups submit. Those are really low numbers and I’m not sure if we’re using this to direct or just as an excuse that we’ve consulted, because the numbers look crazy as far as I’m concerned. Thirty people from Yellowknife attended. Thirty people from a community that’s very large, the...