Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The turnaround time for court services here in the Northwest Territories is one of the best in the country. The issue the Member is raising on going from four weeks to six weeks, that’s the first that I’ve heard of that. If the Member has a specific occurrence or situation in one of his communities that he wants us to have a look at the amount of time, I mean, that’s something we can inquire as to the length of time that it’s taken and respond back to the Member. Thank you.
No, it’s not a specific case, it’s just that there’s such a backlog because they have extended it to every six weeks to have the Territorial Court sit in the communities and it’s creating quite a bit of backlog. I guess I can ask the Minister, if he’s not too familiar with it, maybe if he can ask for a briefing note and share that with me. Thank you.
Thank you. We will get the Member some information on that, and again, to our knowledge, there is a pretty quick turnaround and it is one of the best turnaround times in the country as far as court services go. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I know he takes pride in our justice system, but in the communities there are people waiting up to a year to have their trial heard it’s just not working out. In fact, the last territorial circuit in Fort Simpson the judge actually stayed an extra day and a half just to clear the backlog of the court docket there. So it is an issue and I’m just raising it with the Minister and asking him for a briefing note, and I look forward to it.
I thank the Member for bringing his concern forward and we will do our best to get an information package to the Member on that scenario. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Committee, we are on page 9-27, activity summary, court services, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Two areas I’d like to question. I guess the first one we’ll get out of the way. I had the same questions in the previous pages and I guess we can probably save a lot of time if the Minister can provide the same information and the same detail, as requested, under each section under compensation and benefits. Would he do that?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we could provide that information to the Member.
Thank you. My second question, changing subjects, Mr. Bromley had asked the cost per inmate, per day, the individual costs of the inmate at a facility.
Can I also get a breakdown of what it would cost to send inmates out, be it adult or a juvenile, both male and female? Thank you.
Thank you. We could get that information as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Committee, on page 9-27, activity summary, court services, operations expenditure summary, $12.415 million.
Agreed.
Page 9-28, information item, court services, active positions.
Agreed.
Page 9-31, activity summary, corrections, operations expenditure summary, $38.928 million. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s 9-31 that we’re on?
Yes. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to clarify. I just wanted to take a moment to look at the line item on grants and contributions that lists $179,000. This number is in reference to, I guess, on-the-land programs, in other words we call them wilderness camps and in this case there’s an elders’ program as well. We know, as a committee, that wilderness camps have been on the radar for the department for some time. We know that we haven’t had many in existence probably for about two years. The last two that we had of value was the Kozo Lake adult camp and the Sahtu elders’ camp. We know those are no longer in activity.
We know that really these wilderness camps don’t represent a direct cost-savings opportunity for our NWT justice system partly because of the ratio of staff to inmates is quite a bit higher and the fact that they need more program development. We know that. We know that the cost savings in the end has more to do with the success of reducing recidivism at the end of the program, so we know there’s a high level of investment upfront and, hopefully, high rewards near the end. We know that in the operation of those two wilderness camps, safety was a definite issue. There were some issues regarding safety mechanisms for the inmates and the staff.
What has the department done to reflect on what we’ve learned from these camps to improve those areas of safety? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with the Member and there are other Members who have raised the issue about wilderness camps. Again, we went out to RFP late last year looking for a service provider for the operation of an on-the-land program. We didn’t receive a proposal that was deemed appropriate or available to us, so we are regrouping now. We want to get a wilderness program off the ground for all the reasons the Member has cited. It’s a good program to have here in the Northwest Territories and something we want to see and ensure happens. First and foremost, we want to assure the safety of the inmates who would participate in an on-the-land type of program. We need to, as a department, find the right fit for an operator.
Going forward, we are hopeful we can find an operator who wants to provide this service. Our belief is we will be successful in finding an operator. I know the Member for Sahtu has talked to me a number of times about an operator perhaps from Fort Good Hope. We’re optimistic that someone will step forward and help us get this program up and running. Thank you.
I appreciate the barriers in trying to find the right proponent to try to take this on. We know it will be a pretty daunting task.
Has the department established any safety protocols so that when a proponent is identified that the government is the one who has established what those barriers of safety are? Did the government prepare the safety protocols? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Deputy Minister Haener.
For quite some time now, corrections has actually had some fairly detailed requirements around safety, which were contained in previous contracts for the delivery of camp services. They included items related to First Aid training, reporting in relation to the activities of inmates when they’re out at the camp, staff ratios, those kind of things were included in the contract documents. We’ve taken the opportunity over the past several months to review that information to strengthen it, and there was also some collaborative work undertaken amongst the social envelope departments because several of us are looking at delivering on-the-land types of programming in order to share best practices in this area and come up with some consistent baseline requirements around safety for on-the-land programming. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Deputy Minister. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the deputy minister for that answer. I guess what I heard from that is they are working on it. They are working on some baseline, but it sounds still like the government hasn’t established the full parameters of a safety baseline in order for any proponent to work under our guidelines and not the guideline of the proponent. We can just park that for a second, Mr. Chair.
My next comment is there has to be some kind of guiding framework for the government to have for those on-the-land programs.
Does the department have a full framework, tried, tested and true that if a proponent comes around, that proponent is working to our guidelines. Do we have a framework for the government to go by when it comes to on-the-land programs? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we do. That would have been part of the RFP package and something we would be able to share with Members as well. Thank you.
I appreciate the Minister’s response. Let me rephrase my question a little bit differently here. Are we expecting the proponent to come up with the guiding framework, the safety protocols and the therapeutic outcome, or is the department establishing the baseline? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It would be the department. Thank you.
So, given that, has that work been completed or is that still in process? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
That work has been concluded. Thank you.
Thank you to the Minister. So when we look at the budget line we have here for $179,000, what exactly is the expected result of that investment? Again, when we’re hearing the department say we couldn’t find a proponent or no one has replied to the RFP, could it be by chance that there’s not enough money on the table that any proponent would be of interest to invest? Do we have enough money invested in this very worthwhile, organic part of our court system? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We do have, in addition to this money which is there to help operators with small equipment purchases, about $800,000 under another line item in the main estimates to help us get an on-the-land program. This is a small component of that, but there are other components to it as well on other pages. Thank you.
It’s not that I don’t believe the Minister; I believe the Minister is being very upfront with that but, unfortunately, I can only go, and committee can only go, based on what’s in the activity summary for this particular line entry. With that in mind, Mr. Chair, I do have a motion here.
Please go ahead with the motion, Mr. Dolynny.
I move that this committee recommends that the government in the 2014-2015 fiscal year allocate an additional $300,000 to complement existing funding for on-the-land programming, to establish a guiding framework, including definitive safety protocols and tools, for evaluating outcomes of the planned program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The motion is being distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the ability to be able to bring this motion forward. The Minister has spoken to some of the components of this motion. However, committee still feels that we’re not quite there with having all those initiatives in place in terms of having a very successful on-the-land program.
It is also apparent that there isn’t a lot of uptake in the communities, albeit even in the Northwest Territories, because there has been no success in the RFP program, which tends to lend itself to the fact do we have enough money put in this program. That being said, I believe committee has still reached out to the department to formalize and to bring to the committee a very formal methodology and mechanism to, I guess, reassure us that we do have a guiding framework and a definitive safety protocol in evaluating tools in place. Up to this time, the committee has not seen these guiding principles, so it was with that in mind that committee and Members felt bringing this motion forward would help establish a more firm framework in order so that, collectively, we all want the same thing. We want to see a very successful on-the-land wilderness camp program.
With that, I’m sure other Members might have some comments. If not, I’ll ask for a recorded vote.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. I have Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Once again, because there’s a value attached to this and I’m extremely concerned about drawing down on the resources of government because we will have to, through a cutback exercise shortly, and everybody’s well aware that we did not have time to work in our $30 million that’s in this budget.
I won’t be supporting this motion, but this is a very important issue that the mover of the motion brings up, Mr. Dolynny. Giving the government $300,000 is just not going to work. There has to be a better way to address this very, very important issue.
To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be supporting this motion. I agree with Mr. Menicoche, it is, indeed, a very important program and needs the support that is required to make it successful. I’m confident that the Cabinet can find the way to make savings in the system to cover this.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate the Member bringing forward this motion. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, we have close to $800,000 earmarked for on-the-land programs in this year’s budget, $787,000 to be exact. I’ve also made a commitment earlier to provide the established safety protocols and the framework to Members, and we will get that to Members as soon as possible. Again, it was part of the RFP process. We also will continue to work diligently on finding a service provider for a wilderness camp here in the Northwest Territories, and again, we have to remain optimistic that that can happen, and it’s not because we lack the resources to do that. We have the resources in this year’s budget to allow us to do that and we are still going to pursue a service provider to allow us to do that. But I do appreciate the Member’s motion.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay.
Question is being called. All those in favour, please stand.
