Thank you. I’ll be sure to relay the Member’s concerns on to the TSOs. Again, the TSOs have their processes of selecting athletes for some of the smaller teams. They may train in the region. I’ve seen cases where they’ve gone out into the region and had their training camps. But this is a serious concern and I share the Member’s views on this. I’ll be sure to pass his concerns on to the territorial sport organizations and see how best they can maybe accommodate some of the athletes in some of the more rural ridings or communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
QUESTION 540-16(5):
LACK OF RECIDIVISM STATISTICS IN THE NWT
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice, getting back to my statement and a topic that I’ve brought up in the House numerous times during this sitting of the House and in previous years. When you look at recidivism -- and that is the amount of times a person comes into contact with the justice system -- and you realize that in the Northwest Territories we don’t keep statistics on the level of recidivism, and if you look at some of these high profile cases that have just happened where you see an individual convicted the 16th or 17th time for a violent offence, you start to ask yourself, well, how come the Department of Justice doesn’t keep statistics on recidivism. So I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice why it is that the department doesn’t see fit to keep statistics on the level of recidivism here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. In this particular area, recidivism is a complex issue and there are currently no national rates or indicators as it stands. Also, it has other complicated issues such as family violence. We also, as the NWT, work with the Canadian Centre for Justice stats and other provinces and territories to develop nationally accepted recidivism indicators. This work has been discontinued because of the funding cutbacks. So we are exploring different areas on how we can highlight these key indicators for our Justice department in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.
Thank you. In the absence of any meaningful statistics or data, I’d like to ask the Minister how it is that the Department of Justice measures the success or failure of the current programming that they have in place in their correctional system and specifically at North Slave Correctional Centre. Thank you.
Mahsi. We do collect the information on inmates that pass through our institutional services throughout the Northwest Territories and that gives us a caption on where we should focus. If it’s going to be a reintegration model, we’ve made some changes to our reintegration model as well as the programming and we’ll continue to do that. We feel that reintegration back into the community they should be prepared to walk into a community.
So we have some information on file that we collect over time and based on that we develop programs or make changes to our programming. There is also federal programming that we’ve initiated, whether it be a workshop of a few days. So those are the ongoing initiatives and the workshops that we continue to deliver on an as-needed basis. Mahsi.
Thank you. In response to some of the questions I’ve had and correspondence I’ve received from the Department of Justice, it would seem that a cursory review was done on the programs at North Slave Correctional Centre in 2008. I’d like to ask the Minister who he has shared those recommendations with and what work has been done to address those 18 recommendations the he and the department speak of. Thank you.
Mahsi. That review has been undertaken, as the Member indicated, in 2008, and that information is within my department. If it hasn’t been shared with the standing committee, then I need to find out what we can share with the Members; what we’ve done to date since the review was undertaken, what work is ongoing and the future amendments that need to take effect. So, Mr. Speaker, I can provide that information to the Members and I’ll find out more about the specifics of the program. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In some correspondence I received from the Department of Justice it would indicate that Members were provided copies of that report in May 2009 and I’m not a member of the Social Programs committee. I’ve had our research staff looking for it. I’m not sure if the department actually gave it to us, or maybe that’s an error in the correspondence. I’d like to ask the Minister, were Members provided copies of that report in May of 2009. Thank you.
We’ll definitely verify that. The report may have been given to the Standing Committee on Social Programs because my department deals specifically with the Social Programs committee, but if the Member didn’t receive that, then we can provide that additional information that was shared with the standing committee. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the need for a convention bureau and the fact that I believe we could do more in attracting tourism from a convention marketing point of view. My questions would be to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment and I would like to ask him what work has been done by the Department of ITI in regards to establishing a tourism bureau. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Through our association with NWT Tourism, ITI has been actively engaged in promoting the Northwest Territories as a meeting and convention destination. The NWT Tourism has come out with a conference guide so that we promote all the communities in the North that have the capacity to host conventions.
I want to thank the Minister for that particular answer. The fact is that industry is concerned, that being people in the tourism industry as well as the hotel industry, and believe that more could be done. The Yukon is leading this particular type of initiative with a very focused convention bureau. There are hopes in the tourism industry that ITI could support a similar initiative and establish an office in the NWT Tourism office to target and market the North as a place to have conventions. Has the Minister considered that particular concept?
I think we’re talking semantics. NWT Tourism is actively promoting the Northwest Territories as a great place to host meetings and conventions. We’ve come out with a conference guide that has been endorsed by the Yellowknife Hotel Association and other tourism operators. They also promote all of their products through this process. I think NWT Tourism is already doing the work of a convention bureau.
I won’t say that the Minister is incorrect, but I’ll certainly say that I don’t necessarily quite agree with the perspective. What I would like to say is it’s more of a passive approach that’s taken right now, providing information as opposed to an active market campaign to get out there, whether talking to the CGA Association of Canada, by way of a simple example, or going out to other types of associations of similar manner and saying you’ve got 300 or 400 members, why don’t you schedule your 2015 conference in the Northwest Territories and we’ll build that.
I would agree that the Minister is correct, but I would define it more from a passive point of view. I’m suggesting a more active, focused point of view. Would the Minister be willing to support a position or marketing team that actively sought after conventions in an aggressive way to bring them here to the Territories?
I think the operative word is “actively engaged” and NWT Tourism is actively engaged in promoting Northwest Territories as a meeting and convention destination. Not only have we established a conference guide but we have it on our NWT Tourism website and communities in the Northwest Territories that have convention capacity and tourism products also spend resources in promoting their communities. As well, NWT Tourism attends conferences and shows on a regular basis to promote the Northwest Territories as a great place to have a conference.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My concern and the Minister’s answers are not necessarily so dissimilar, but there is a divide between the two particular issues. I can’t argue in the sense of saying that he’s incorrect about a booth at a convention, whatever convention it may or may not be that they happen to send someone to. There is a big difference between parking a booth and saying would you like to come to the Northwest Territories as opposed to calling organizations, challenging them and trying to see if we can actively meet their needs so they can draw their membership in a very active and aggressive way. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s slightly different but I think it’s very important. Would the Minister be willing to consider that concept and see if there’s any work done on that type of evaluation and see what the department could commit on achieving that type of goal?
As I said, we are actively engaged in attracting groups that come and host conferences in the Northwest Territories. That involves calling groups. I’ll pass this on to my Tourism Marketing Advisory Committee and see if they come to the same conclusion that we’re both talking about the same thing.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Executive. They are on the voluntary sector. I’d like to start by just quickly looking at our record during the life of our term. The first thing we did was cut out the Volunteer Support Initiative. Now we’ve dropped the multi-year funding for those providing critical services; that seems to be on hold. We’ve continually refused to install an office of capacity building in the Department of Executive, as the sector has called for repeatedly at committee and by Members. We’ve established a modest Stabilization Fund which is directed by the Premier, not by the voluntary sector, to where the government sees the need, not where the voluntary sector sees the need.
This is to me one of the biggest areas of our failure by this government and I’d like to ask what the Premier is going to do to pull us out of the fire and at least let us walk away without hanging our heads in shame here.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member may hang his head in shame but quite clearly the Government of the Northwest Territories had some difficult choices to make around both the volunteer sector, which is appropriately held in Municipal and Community Affairs, and the non-government organizations that we work with through Executive. The Member has discussed in contribution funding we’ve put in place for stabilization. Quite clearly, we have a difference of opinion on the volunteer sector. Within Executive we deal with those NGOs, as we call them, non-government organizations that we contract services for and we’ve been trying to come up with a program that works for those groups but at the same time benefits us as the Government of the Northwest Territories. We’ve been trying to do it within our existing resources and trying to use our own systems more effectively and efficiently.
Society, really, is represented by a delicate balance between government, the marketplace and civil society, which includes the voluntary sector and requires strength in all three. I have no doubt that the government listens to itself and I can testify that we don’t dictate the market. When will the Minister start listening to the voluntary sector and the civil society when they’re speaking out on this issue and making demands that are clear and consistent like multi-year funding and establishing an office of capacity in the Executive?
We do have multi-year funding processes in place. Some organizations, again non-government organizations, as we’ve heard from the Minister of Health and Social Services are doing their review of how they would continue with that funding process. Clearly we do have multi-year funding in place.
I could have sworn I heard a Member of the Cabinet say that was on hold. Repeatedly say that, in fact. I’d like to point out that these things have been continually raised. The Premier or Minister of Executive continually deflects things by saying this is a responsibility of MACA. I admit MACA does have some pretty modest voluntary sector programs in the area of sports and so on. In the area where we have voluntary work on critical services like mental health, harbour from family violence, accountability on behalf of the land, and so on, these are served by many other departments. There’s a clear role for the Department of Executive and again there’s been a clear call for establishing an office in the Department of Executive for capacity building. Will the Minister get this done by the end of this term?
Well, the Member knows that the Department of Executive budget is up in front of committee later on today and we can go through that detail at that time.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, we can talk about that later. It seems to be typical to procrastinate on this request. If it’s lack of commitment that is going to make this not done, if it’s going to prevent this bit from being done during the life of this Assembly, will the Premier at least establish this on the transition document as a priority for the 17th Assembly?
The simple fact is that I’ve said many times in this House, and the Member may call it procrastinating, but I’ve talked about the fact that if it’s the will of this Assembly when we do initiatives, then we’ll look at how we put them in place. The transition documents we would be working on together. If it’s the will of the Assembly, we’ll be prepared to look at that.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and relate to my Member’s statement where I was talking about the reservists. Every other jurisdiction in this country with exception of the Northwest Territories has clauses within their Employment Standards Act which support reservists and their employers. I understand in the 15th Assembly there was some work done on the Employment Standards Act and at that time it was considered to put those clauses in our act. Unfortunately at the time there were no reservists so it was unnecessary.
Times have changed and we now have reservists in the Northwest Territories. I’m wondering what work, if any, has been done by Education, Culture and Employment on the Employment Standards Act to go back and pull out the work they’ve already done and reinsert it into our Employment Standards Act so that reservists and their employers have some protection in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My department has been working on this particular file on the reservists. Under the current act and other legislation that may be before us, individuals serving as reservists may be protected by other legislation or collective agreements providing greater benefits than our act. Those are the areas we are currently exploring.
Not only that but we haven’t to date received any inquiries on this particular matter. There are, from the information that we have, approximately 26 current members of the Yellowknife reservists. We’re fully aware of that and we want to work with that within our department. If we need to make some amendments to our current act, then we need to develop a legislative proposal that may come into this House before standing committee. We need to gather that information first.
To the Minister’s point, in the GNWT we already have collective agreements and rules and regulations that would obviously support reservists from the GNWT participation. That doesn’t help all employees and reservists in the Northwest Territories. The Minister is right that our numbers are low; 26 doesn’t seem very high at this point, but the reservists want to get to a contingent of over 100 people here in the next couple of years. Now’s the time. They’ve done a bunch of the work already. I’m happy to share with the Minister some comments that were brought to me from constituents and concerned people about this particular act. I think the work’s already done. I’m wondering why we can’t take the work that’s been done and get it in front of us right away.
I look forward to the Member’s information that he’ll be sharing with us with my department so we can move this file forward. As I’ve stated, we’ve gathered most of the information, but any information that the Member can provide that would be available to us to proceed with this file so we can deal with this matter that’s been before us within our department. I’ll commit to this House that we’ll continue to work on this file with that information.
On May 14, 2009, the Yukon actually sent it to a bill that amends their Employment Standards Act in this particular area. In this particular act this amendment I thought was quite good, because it actually addresses not just reservists but Rangers as well to provide some protection for private employers. I was wondering if I could get the Minister to commit to having his people review the Yukon amendment and see how applicable it is here in the North as they move forward.
We did have some review of the Yukon within their act and there are some implications in there or some areas that we can definitely look at within our existing act, if we could change or make some amendments that reflect on what the Yukon has. But there are some areas that they do not have, such as imposed penalties for noncompliance or other areas that may not be in the best interests of the Northwest Territories. But definitely, those are some of the key areas and indicators that we need to take into consideration. If we need to make amendments to our act, then this will be before the standing committee if we need to pursue it further. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just in closing, a final question. This is important and timing is essential on this. The reserves are trying to increase their number up to 100 in the next couple of years. If we don’t put this in place soon, there will be disincentives for individuals that are considering joining the reserves due to the uncertainty about protection of themselves as well as their employers. I’m wondering if we can get the Minister to commit to get some action on this file right away and, hopefully, get a legislative proposal in front of committee in the life of this government so we can see something either late in the life of this government or very early in the life of the next Assembly. This does have value. It will help create incentives and it will help protect employers and reservists today, tomorrow and in the future. Now that we have reservists in the Northwest Territories, it seems like now is the right time. Will the Minister commit to getting some action on this in the life of this government? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I believe in due time that will happen, whether it be the end of this government or early next government, but we do have that information that we need to share with the standing committee and providing that and possibly delivering a legislative proposal as the next step. I have committed that to the Member already. Mahsi.
