Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister of Justice. I’d like to follow up on my statement and ask him a few questions about whether or not we can do something about providing will and estate planning for our residents. I know it will take some time to establish a program, but in the meantime there are certainly some tools that are available to our residents, or could be available to help our residents.
I refer the Minister to the GNWT public trustee web page. It’s under the Department of Justice and it states: “The public trustee is independent from the Department of Justice. The Department makes this web section available on behalf of the public trustee. A separate website will be established in the near future.” This is a huge opportunity for Justice and the public trustee to provide information to residents on wills and on estate planning. I would like to know from the Minister when the public trustee will have its own website. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Justice, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can get that level of detail for the Member. In regard to will and estate planning in the communities, we did hire a new lawyer in August of 2010. We do have a Community Outreach Program at the Department of Justice. We’ve been to all communities in the Northwest Territories with the exception of, I believe, three. In January we were again in Wrigley, Fort Simpson, Gameti and Fort Smith. When this Outreach Program is in the communities, anything that community members want to raise through that program is available to them. That includes will and estate planning for folks who need that type of assistance. So we do have that available to residents around the Northwest Territories.
On the website issue regarding the public trustee, I will get that information for the Member. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that and I appreciate his commitment to get the information. I do appreciate the fact that the government has a community outreach lawyer, but when a community outreach lawyer goes to a community, they aren’t just dealing with wills and estates. They are dealing with any legal service that a resident in a community needs and I think we need to specifically target will and estate planning. In the end, we will be saving money because the office of the public trustee will not be dealing with people who die intestate.
I’d like to know from the Minister if he would consider, he and the department, looking into a different kind of program to provide lawyers to residents. We need education and we also need access to lawyers. I think via an NGO, it’s possible we could do some of that work.
Would the Minister consider dealing with NGOs or negotiating with NGOs to provide will and estate planning assistance to our communities? Thank you.
That is a good suggestion. Another opportunity may exist through on-line information and services provided to residents across the Northwest Territories on will and estate planning. I will certainly check with my officials at the Department of Justice to see what information is out there for folks. If we can look at providing more opportunities to have questions answered with regard to will and estate planning around the territory, that is in our interest to do that. I would certainly look forward to any further discussion I could have with the member and the Standing Committee on Social Programs as we move forward to try to address her concerns. Thank you.
It’s nice to know that the Minister and I are on the same page. My next question was going to suggest that the Minister look at our neighbour to the west, the Yukon, who have some excellent information on-line. They have plain language information for residents. They have a fact sheet on estate planning, which is one of the resources that they have there and I think that’s something that we certainly could do. So I appreciate that the Minister has indicated that this is something we can do.
Is the Minister making a commitment to do some of that work and to provide some of these resources? Can he give me any indication of when we might be able to see something concrete? Thank you.
This government has made a commitment to improve services to residents around the Northwest Territories and a lot of that has to do with getting the good services available to folks on-line. I know we’ve just recently done some with legal registries; I know there’s registration now on-line at the Department of Transportation. We are making an effort in that regard, and certainly if there are examples out there and if the Yukon has an example of how that information can be put on-line and utilized by people in that territory, that’s something that we could certainly look at.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Yes, I figured that you really weren’t going to give me an answer right now, but I appreciate that you will come back to me at some point in time and advise when I might be able to expect this kind of a program.
I imagine the Minister doesn’t have this information with him, but I’ll ask the question anyway and he can hopefully get back to me. Do we have any idea of what the average cost is to the government when somebody dies intestate? Thank you.
Thank you. I don’t have that detail with me, but again, I’ll make a commitment to get that information to the Member and to the House. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
