The two legislative drafting positions that are sunsetting are vacant and the work is being covered off through contract drafters. The other legislative drafter, there was no funding associated with that position. Thank you.
Then as far as the other two vacant positions, would Ms. Schofield be able to let me know how long they’ve been vacant as well? Thank you.
I’m sorry; I don’t have that information in front of me.
Can the department provide it? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we can.
Can the department provide me the information on the summary of dollar value attributed specifically to those vacant positions and, obviously, what positions they are so we can stop calling them vacant positions? Thank you.
I thought we may have covered this off previous to this page, but yes, we can provide that information.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Moving on with questions on 9-13, I’ll go back to Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to follow up. I don’t feel like we’ve got to the end of our trail here at exploring this. We are taking on, from a major federal department, responsibility for planned water resource management, a substantial regime, and within that there are inspections to make sure that mines are operating according to law and guidelines and so on and there’s an enforcement requirement. Now, my understanding is departments don’t have their own legal capacity to do prosecutions that they would request. The legal division, as I understand it, is this page that we’re on, services to government. I’m really sure that five ATIPP positions will not address the needs that I’m trying to ask about here.
At the federal level, prosecutions frequently did not go forward, leading to a massive deficit in financial security and so on, basically liability and damage to the environment and so on without the responsible oversight and accountability. That’s what we’re looking for in this new approach through the Devolution Agreement, I believe, and it requires a recognition and preparation within the legal division to handle this extra legal workload.
An example might be MACA doing its prosecution work with squatters. I’m assuming they’re not doing that, that they’re getting the Department of Justice to do that. If we are in this division, I believe, on this issue, how and where are the dollars? Is this additional capacity being addressed?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our role as a department is to, again, provide legal advice and support to departments. We do have some new enforcement responsibilities. Those will be carried out by other departments. Our role in this was to add five new positions at our legal division and they’re not just the ATIPP position the Member referenced, but we have beefed up our staff complement in the legal division by five positions in anticipation that they will be busier after April 1st. As we go forward, if we need further resources in that area, through the business planning process we could certainly come back to Members requesting that we find some additional dollars to hire some more lawyers in the legal division. Thank you.
Thank you. This is not assuring, I have to tell the Minister, because we already have a large, high-capacity government that’s failing to do it. You know, making good promises but not doing anything. I know the Minister has the highest of intent here, so I’m just saying, this is a bit of a reality check here.
To start with, I wonder if the Minister would provide me with a description of the five positions and how they relate to the question I’m asking here, and any other thoughts he might have at the same time on how he is truly beefing up the legal capacity to deal with the sorts of enforcement or legal proceedings that come with the taking on of devolution and an entirely new management regime for water and resources. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, we haven’t even got to April 1st yet, so my caution to the Member is just let us get to April 1st. We’re trying to put the key pieces in place so that we have the manpower at the Department of Justice to handle the increased workload.
The Member asked for I believe it was the job descriptions or what these positions will be doing. They’re lawyers. One of them will be dedicated to the area of prosecution, one of those five lawyers. We currently have two of our legal team embedded in the federal Department of Justice, learning how that process plays itself out, so that they can come back here and be able to help us out as we move forward with devolution. We’re not even to April 1st yet, so it’s hard to say. This is our best effort in trying to staff up our legal division so we can have that seamless transition into devolution and have the legal advice and support for government departments that are dealing with newfound authorities. Again, if five isn’t enough, through the business planning process we can look at some increased resources in this area, but we haven’t even got to April 1st. We’re trying to plan it to the best of our ability. Thank you.
I appreciate the Minister’s comments. I have to say that I’m hearing and reading, in every paper there seems to be an insert that says seamless transition for devolution and well prepared for devolution. Those are the questions I’m asking here. I’m finding some unexpected soft spots now. I was told these were five ATIPP positions, but I would happily stand to be corrected and that might resolve some of the confusion here.
Again, I respect the Member, but we’re trying our best to staff and be ready for April 1st when we get the new responsibilities. We’ve also got $11 million that we’ve got set aside for shortfalls in our operation. If we need to look at increasing resources and getting a staff complement more than what we have put in place today, that’s money that will be available to us as we go forward. Certainly, we are going to be ready. The Department of Justice will be ready. It’s not a soft spot. It’s something we feel strongly about, that we can deliver services to government, to the departments that will need our assistance and advice. We’ve put a team together and we will be ready April 1st to deliver that. It’s not going to be a soft spot. It will be a strong point for our government. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that response. I want to, first of all, thank all our staff for doing the good work they’re doing. I know this is a huge undertaking. I’m not intending to slight the staff or the efforts put out there at all in my questioning here.
In the Minister’s response, I did not hear any clarification that these are ATIPP positions are not. I would still appreciate some more detailed information on these positions that would help inform me with respect to this question.
With respect to the $11 million excess so far, the cushion that we have, I would urge the Minister to move and ask him to commit to seriously giving some thought to, if these are not positions that address the question being raised here, that he put together a case to access that fund. I’m happy to leave it at that for now and look forward to some more information.
I apologize. I didn’t mention this in my response during my previous opportunity. We have five new positions in the legal division. We have one new position that is specific to ATIPP. So there must have been a little bit of a misunderstanding there. That’s five new lawyers, one of them will specialize in prosecution and one ATIPP position, as well, just to be clear. I thank the Member for his questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Committee, we’re on page 9-13, Justice, activity summary, services to government, operations expenditure summary, $12.471 million.
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 9-14, Justice, activity summary, services to government, grants and contributions, grants, $9,000. Committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 9-15, Justice. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to use the occasion to flush out the positions that we’re getting both increases and decreases. Earlier Ms. Schofield had mentioned that there were three positions sunsetting and I don’t see any negatives to the department in this area under services to government. I can only conclude as part of the last answer that there were new positions. So, maybe we could get a list of what positions would be sunsetting and leaving the department for whatever reasons as they will explain and what new positions we will be getting, for the record, because it appears that it seems to be a bit of a wash on the bottom line.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We could provide that information to the Member. Thank you.
That will be fine.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Page 9-15, Justice, information item, services to government, active positions. Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 9-17, Justice, activity summary. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to ask about the diversion program. I see in the narrative description here that this division includes diversion programs where communities assist youth and adults to deal with matters outside the formal justice system. Do we have diversion programs in all communities? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For that detail, we’ll go to the deputy minister.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Ms. Haener.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Unfortunately, it’s not a simple answer. We like to say that we have diversion available in every community. The reality is that diversion is usually associated with community justice committees. We do not have community justice committees in every single community in the Northwest Territories. The reason I say we have diversions available is that we work with the resources we have, with the RCMP, with court workers and with others so that if there are an opportunity to divert an individual in a community where there isn’t a community justice committee, we will work with people to make that happen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Haener. Mr. Bromley.
Thanks for that information and I’m glad there’s some flexibility there. I think we do want to take advantage of those opportunities when we can.
With respect to grants and contributions, I see one of the items here is YWCA of Yellowknife. They are provided funding as their role as designate under the Protection Against Family Violence Act. This is sort of representative. I see the budget hasn’t changed and I have brought this up a number of times and I know a number of people have. It is a serious concern of the Standing Committee on Social Programs. To that end, Mr. Chair, I would like to move a motion, if I may.
Go ahead, Mr. Bromley.
I move that the Government of the Northwest Territories develop a policy to ensure that non-governmental organizations providing essential government services receive annual increases for inflation and forced growth. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Just give us a second and we’ll circulate that motion.
The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
I don’t have any desire to go on about this. I think it’s a very straightforward issue, and it’s been noted annually at budget time for a number of years. I know probably all Members have heard from our non-government organizations and the difficulties they have in meeting forced growth when they’re expected to deliver often essential government services without the resources to maintain their capacity, and at the same time, of course, they see government departments very substantially increasing their budgets for forced growth reasons. I think we need to start recognizing that they live in the real world, too, and we need to adjust for the inflation and forced-growth costs that they have to meet to provide those services.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. Motion defeated.
---Defeated
Committee, we’re on 9-17. I have Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few concerns along the lines that Mr. Moses brought up earlier, is the sentencing that many of the people get, whether it’s through drug trafficking or bootlegging. I know some of the community programs through the local justice programming, they’re looking at ways to deal with, I’m not sure whether it’s these issues, but I think we need to look at a different direction, and I think that we need to increase jail times. These are pretty serious things that are affecting our territory.
If you look at other jurisdictions, whether it’s Alaska or further down south, they don’t tolerate these sorts of actions. First, second time offence, some places look at 10 years. I think people will learn once they get charged like this. Right now a person gets charged, they might get a couple hundred dollar fine. That’s nothing for them. They make that amount of money in a short amount of time and they just keep carrying on with what they’re doing.
I know up in this jurisdiction I believe it’s classified as Aboriginal law or somewhere along those lines, but it doesn’t matter what jurisdiction you’re in, drug trafficking is drug trafficking, and I believe that we should be having the same sort of legislation and laws as every other jurisdiction in the country. As we move further down the road I think that we need to seriously look at that avenue.
The other thing that I wanted to bring up was through the jail system, I know that last year I saw, it was like a request that went out to the communities in the newspaper, and I wanted to get an update on that. It was sort of an on-the-land programming that’s through the justice system. I know it was for the Beaufort-Delta region. I’d just like to get an update on that. As far as I know, there’s nothing there at the moment.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Minister of Justice, I think I have to be very careful on getting involved in the Criminal Code side of things or sentencing. From my perspective and the department’s perspective, it’s very important that we look at opportunities to divert people away from the mainstream court system. Oftentimes, having communities deal with sentencing and issues at the community level is far more effective than locking somebody up in an institution, and we have had some success there. We made a presentation to the standing committee this morning on wellness courts, and that’s something that we’re very excited to see move forward to try to get to some of the root causes of why people end up in court in the first place, and that’s mental health and addiction issues, and that’s something that we’re hoping is going to be very beneficial to residents here in the Northwest Territories once we get that wellness court up and running.
As far as on-the-land programming goes, I think I may have mentioned this in my response to the opening comments from committee, was that we had an RFP that went out late last year. We did not have any successful proponents on that RFP, but we still are very much interested in seeing on-the-land programming and looking for interested parties in the territory that may want to look at that opportunity. We’re going to regroup at the department. We’re not sure whether we want to go back out to another RFP or if we get some folks that are interested and just talking to them and sorting out how best we can deliver that type of programming on the land. That’s something we’re still very much interested in and something we’re going to continue to work on and pursue.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Continuing with questions on 9-17, I have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Community Safety Plan, I was just wondering if there was an update on how many of our communities across the Northwest Territories have a safety plan, and also looking at the recommendations from the report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations about trying to include some type of safe houses in some of the small communities that would protect some of our people that are in need. Maybe I could just get a little update on that and what kind of support is being put in place for those community safety plans.
