Robert Hawkins

I appreciate the Minister’s platitudes about trying to be heroic on a territorial level. I am sorry. Can someone give him a flag of the territory? On one hand he is interested in spending money in a prudent way, but there is no way of saying that we are. Why would we keep a facility open for one inmate? That is kind of the point, which is it doesn’t make an economic sense. There has to be a breakeven point that makes sense, and let politicians make the political decisions as to where it is. Ultimately the issue comes down to if the politicians don’t have the facts it is difficult for us to...

Thank you. I appreciate the answer from the Minister on prevention and I wholeheartedly agree from the approach of upstream. It’s better than being downstream without the paddles. On this particular problem, though, it almost sounds like they’ve abandoned the people with this particular issue. It’s great to provide prevention for those to keep them away from drugs such as crack or meth, and hopefully it will keep them away from alcohol abuse, but the territory really needs a detox centre to focus in on how to address these issues, and in the past they’ve used Stanton, which is not an...

Well, I’ll ask it this way: Is there anything to prohibit the Department of Justice from providing an alternative solution such as a southern institution if it was seen as that was considered a relevant option to send an inmate to? Is there anything to prohibit that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to talk about addictions. Last month when Members set our collective priorities for the 17th Legislative Assembly, we included enhancing our addictions treatment programs, and for good reason. If we could only solve some of the problems of addictions with some action, by taking action, so many other issues would become less of a problem than what we have here before us today. We would have less crime, less violence, fewer people on income support. We would have healthier families, fewer babies born who are sick, who are with illnesses, better...

It does in this particular case, not realizing they were in a mixed situation. Then it would go to the point of does the department provide an evaluation of where becomes the breakeven point where we choose to house our own inmates at a significant cost or can we consider sending them to another particular facility, if need be, outside the territory and we pay that direct cost. In some cases it may be cheaper for us to pay – by way of a simple example, if I may – $120,000 to house an inmate in Alberta where it costs us $3 million to keep the facility open for that one inmate per year. The...

Now, on that note, when we house one offender in a particular facility, what would it cost per day to house that particular offender per day in our facility? In other words, we would have to have security, somebody at the gate, somebody at the door, somebody to cook, somebody to clean. We would have to have the full costing of that particular facility, because we can’t run them empty. That said, would the department be able to provide that detail?

Thank you, Madam Chair. On a separate issue, I think I heard the Minister say that there was one female inmate at this particular time within the custody services under the GNWT. Does the department have an estimate as to what one inmate costs the system in the context of full costing? At the same time I’d like to know to what Nunavut would pay the Northwest Territories for us to house one inmate in our facility. If I could get that breakdown between the two numbers.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to support my colleagues in this particular motion. I understand very well, and in some respects I acknowledge the need for a conservative agenda where it is a law and order type of government.

There are issues of crime that need to be tackled, and tackled harder, but it’s very difficult out there who believes on a typical process, everyday process, that more jail time, longer jail time really solves the root causes of crime. Very few people would argue that particular situation.

I agree with colleagues that have said serious crime needs to be addressed differently...

Maybe the Minister could explain to the House how Nats’ejee K’eh treats people who have pill problems, who have crack problems, who have meth problems under the present, or I should say under the current design and focus that Nats’ejee K’eh provides as the only treatment centre in the Northwest Territories.

Madam Chair, I move that we report progress.

---Carried