R.J. Simpson

Thank you. And as the deputy minister stated earlier, there is a working group looking at the reason, examining the reasons behind the decline. Some of the obvious reasons are changes to the Criminal Code as well as case law handed down from the Supreme Court related to things like bail. And the majority of inmates has, I believe, historically been remanded, and when the Supreme Court and the Criminal Code says no more remanding of individuals except in expectational circumstances, that has a huge impact. Thank you.

Thank you. In terms of the level of -- or the number of police and the level of crime, we're trying to catch up to the level of crime. And so it is not that more police aren't helping the situation, but the crime rate is rising. We heard yesterday for an hour about the impact drugs are having on communities. I don't need to speak any further to that. That was discussed.

In terms of the increases to the RCMP budget, the way this works is that the RCMP, they look at their operations across the territory, they identify areas where they're feeling pressure, and we've seen some communities with...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And that's what this reduction is reflective of, the fact that we no longer need all of that capacity in the system. The South Mackenzie Correctional Facility -- or correctional centre is actually at a lower capacity, but it is something unique that we do not want to get rid of at this point given that it is an initiative that is in line with our goal of addressing the effects of trauma. The South Mackenzie Correctional Centre is piloting a therapeutic model where inmates are actually residents, not inmates, and we attempt to help them gain the tools to stop them from...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe there are seven panel lawyers who are regularly assigned files by the children's lawyer. So that's just within the territory and those are just the panel lawyers. And I'm not sure how many other lawyers in the territory also have expertise in that area. Thank you.

Thank you. And there are some promising tables. Hope to see some things settled during this government. I don't really want to get into specifics. As they are in negotiations, I don't want to poison the well as they say, but and the thing about negotiations that I've learned is sometimes you start a term and the ones you're furthest ahead on are the ones you're the furthest behind on at the end of the term. And it's things that are completely out of our control. An Indigenous government might want to just take some more time at that particular point in the process, and we have to sit there...

Thank you. Yes, there is a budget for it. I believe the budget has been shared with Members, and if not I can do that. And it is under corporate communications. But I would like to hand it to the director for more information. Thank you.

Thank you. That's correct. Often there's work that needs to be done to get a program going and so the agreements with the federal government accounted for that, and then the ongoing funding is more reflective of the ongoing needs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The manual needs to be updated as new there's new developments in best practices and case law and things like that. And so in the future, it's possible that the those roles will be done by other members of the other lawyers in the Legal Aid Commission. We do have a number of lawyers who specialize in family law who deal with children's law. There's opportunities for those staff to have professional development opportunities to learn more about children's law. I'm sure they get notifications in their inbox when there are significant cases that impact the world of...

Thank you. I would be more than happy to brief the committee. Thank you.

Thank you. So I understand that some of the recommendations were implemented, but the report was ten years ago and I don't have a good handle on what's happened in the last ten years in relation to that report. Thank you.