Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Yes, I figured that you really weren’t going to give me an answer right now, but I appreciate that you will come back to me at some point in time and advise when I might be able to expect this kind of a program.

I imagine the Minister doesn’t have this information with him, but I’ll ask the question anyway and he can hopefully get back to me. Do we have any idea of what the average cost is to the government when somebody dies intestate? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that and I appreciate his commitment to get the information. I do appreciate the fact that the government has a community outreach lawyer, but when a community outreach lawyer goes to a community, they aren’t just dealing with wills and estates. They are dealing with any legal service that a resident in a community needs and I think we need to specifically target will and estate planning. In the end, we will be saving money because the office of the public trustee will not be dealing with people who die intestate.

I’d like to know from the Minister if he would...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to discuss the need for access to will and estate planning for our residents. We do have one GNWT lawyer, a community outreach lawyer, whose job it is to visit communities and provide legal services to our residents. But one lawyer can hardly even begin to make a dent in our residents’ needs around will and estate planning. There’s a huge need to educate people about the need to have a will and another huge need to give residents access to lawyers to draft their wills and help them do estate planning.

Employees of the GNWT have access to assistance with...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we could proceed with Industry, Tourism and Investment, the Minister’s comments and any opening comments from Members, if there are any. Thank you.

Great, thanks for that. So the 10 positions that we are adding, could I just get a rough idea of what types of positions they are, are they all lawyers or what functions do they have? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, thanks to the Minister. So I note two pages in, I think, there is an increase in five positions. Are all five of those positions related to devolution or not? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I note a pretty large increase in compensation and benefits under services to government. Could I get a bit of an understanding as to what we are adding here?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee wishes to continue with Tabled Document 22-17(5), NWT Main Estimates 2014-2015. We would like to start the Department of Justice and, time permitting, Industry, Tourism and Investment and perhaps Finance. Thank you.

It’s nice to know that the Minister and I are on the same page. My next question was going to suggest that the Minister look at our neighbour to the west, the Yukon, who have some excellent information on-line. They have plain language information for residents. They have a fact sheet on estate planning, which is one of the resources that they have there and I think that’s something that we certainly could do. So I appreciate that the Minister has indicated that this is something we can do.

Is the Minister making a commitment to do some of that work and to provide some of these resources? Can...