Caroline Wawzonek

The powers under the Residential Tenancies Act were recently transferred from being restricted to the Territorial Court to Supreme Court, which certainly did increase the suite of options available to judges and improve the options in terms of their enforceability. The Residential Tenancies Act is aimed at essentially settling disputes between individuals who have civil disputes. Certainly, the suggestion that there should be powers more akin to criminal law powers is not going to be appropriate or even possible within the jurisdiction of the act. To that extent, in my view, it is already...

Mr. Speaker, in fact, we have once -- once -- to my knowledge laid a charge, back in 2001.

Many, many years ago, there were some reviews of the Affirmative Action Policy but it has certainly not been any time within recent memory. I can confirm, Mr. Speaker, I have already requested and received a briefing on specifically the issue of the Affirmative Action Policy from the department. It, certainly, is on the radar, if I might say so in that way, that it is something the department is alive to, and that there may be a need to modernize that policy. For the moment, the next step would simply be to do that work within the department, and to bring it to Cabinet to see that it does see...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Affirmative Action Policy is one tool that the Government of the Northwest Territories uses to ensure that we have a representative workforce, and in so doing, in addition to having that policy and having that in place for all hiring across the Northwest Territories, there are efforts made in the course of the careers recruitment process to provide assistance. There is a help section within the website and within the department that could assist individuals in terms of resume writing and can assist them with interview preparation. In addition to that...

Mr. Speaker, I did not speak specifically to co-drafting in terms of how that would look and what commitments might be made. Quite frankly, the reason is that, if I make a commitment in this House, I am going to take it very seriously, and I understand that co-drafting and the involvement of the Indigenous governments, the involvement of the intergovernmental council, involves EIA, involves Cabinet, involves more than just the Department of Justice, and so I was not prepared to stand up and make that specific commitment here. Nevertheless, I can certainly commit to working with standing...

Again, that has also come up at Cabinet, that has also come up in the Department of Justice, and, similarly, there are obligations within the devolution process to the intergovernmental council to ensure that, in some circumstances, there will be a process that engages those partners. That protocol is also being worked on, and so, again, I am in the same situation of, while I do not have a specific that I can provide to the Member, I can assure the Member that that is in progress and it is actively being worked on right now to develop some things so we have some standards in place and so there...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Regulations cover a wide breadth and variety of different types of topics. There is a variety that range from items that are fairly technical, some that are community-specific; in some cases, consultation is built into the legislation itself, so, no, there is not a single set standard at present in terms of how regulations are drafted in the Northwest Territories.

It certainly is the desire of Cabinet, as I hope the Members are seeing, to be more consultative in our approach. There are two different streams we have spoken about; firstly, more public consultation and developing that process for all regulations generally to determine which ones go through that process and which ones don't, as well as items that go through the intergovernmental council, and that may be subject to somewhat different processes. Certainly, once there is a stage for which regulations should receive general public consultation, I would commit to taking that through to committee...

This topic has certainly come up in front of Cabinet, and it is one that has already come up in terms of the Department of Justice taking a lead and being aware that this is something where we can do better. As far as what that will look like, at the present time I can't say, but it is our intention that we can have a better system in place to determine, as I said earlier, which regulations should be subject to public consultation, what that process would look like. It is our intention to build that in so that it's more clear, so that the public knows, so that this House will know, which...

As all of my colleagues here know, over-incarceration of Indigenous people was not an express priority that we noted for the Members of the 19th Assembly. Nevertheless, I have already stated publicly that this is a priority for me personally. It is an issue that I have personally been engaged on for many years, and I can't imagine that anyone who knew me in my past life would expect me to come into this House and not see this as a personal priority. With that, Mr. Speaker, I would certainly like to assure that, doing my part, as Minister of Justice, and the Department of Justice of the...