Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week during the review of the Main Estimates for the Department of Justice we discussed the government’s plan to eliminate the law bursary program for aboriginal students.
Mr. Speaker, the department’s reasoning for the reductions centred on the reality that very few of the students who had received the bursary returned to the North to work after completing law school and that the department would not be able to guarantee articling positions and summer employment opportunities.
I’m aware that the Standing Committee on Social Programs accepted at face value and reluctantly supported the department in phasing out the law bursaries for aboriginal students. Since then, Mr. Speaker, I’ve been contacted by one of the recipients of the bursary, who raised some interesting issues with me that indicate there may be more to the story than the department has indicated. My constituent pointed out to me that upon receiving the bursary, he was promised communication with the Department of Justice as to summer employment and articling opportunities. As he put it: “I went eight months without hearing from them. They just tossed money at me. I do not know if they are even looking for lawyers in the NWT government. On the other hand, I know that the Saskatchewan, Yukon, Nunavut, Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta governments are looking for lawyers, because they advertise on my school’s web site.”
So it appears, Mr. Speaker, that one reason the program was unsuccessful in encouraging bursary recipients to article and practise law with the GNWT was the apparent total lack of effort in keeping lines of communication open with their bursary students.
Mr. Speaker, I’m also concerned with the lack of effort put forward by the Government of the Northwest Territories to recruit law graduates to the North. If other small jurisdictions like Nunavut and the Yukon can make this effort, and obviously have available articling and employment opportunities available to law school graduates, I have to wonder why we don’t.
There are many examples of programs in government that have failed because a department’s priority has changed, and this may have been what happened with the law bursary program for aboriginal students. It is apparent that the department may have, through its own inattention, contributed to the lack of law bursary recipients returning to the North. Mr. Speaker, I believe this is a shame, and I will have further questions for the Minister of Justice at the appropriate time today. I am particularly concerned about my constituent, who is an aboriginal law bursary recipient now just in his second year. By pulling this out, what other opportunities will he have to continue in law and graduate and come back to work in his home territory?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
