Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Minister Abernethy, do you have witnesses that you’d like to bring into the Chamber?
I do, Madam Chair.
Committee agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you would please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
Minister Abernethy, please introduce your witnesses to the House, please.
Thank you, Madam Chair. On my right I have Sylvia Haener, deputy minister of the Department of Justice; and Kim Schofield, who is the director of finance with the Department of Justice.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Members, we will start with general comments on the Department of Justice.
Detail.
Are we agreed that we have concluded general comments?
Agreed.
General comments are concluded. We will defer page 9-7 and go to page 9-8. Justice, information item, infrastructure investment summary, any questions?
Agreed.
Page 9-9, Justice, information item, revenue summary. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I notice we are a half a million down for youth justice services. I wonder if the Minister could tell me what that’s about.
Thanks, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
That reduction is a result of a decrease in funding provided by the federal government in that particular program area.
What are we doing about it? Is this just a, sort of, ephemeral program? It seems like a basic program that we want to maintain. Do we have any information? Why is it declining?
This reduction is across Canada. It’s affecting all jurisdictions. For the specific impact on our programming and what we’re doing here in the Government of the Northwest Territories, I’ll go to Ms. Schofield.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Ms. Schofield.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There has been no direct impact on the programs provided for youth justice services. It’s just a reduction in revenue. So the impact is just to the government as a whole.
Thank you, Ms. Schofield. Mr. Bromley.
I recognize magic when I see it. I have no further questions.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We are on page 9-9, Justice, information item, revenue summary.
Agreed.
Page 9-10, Justice, information item, active position summary.
Agreed.
Page 9-13, Justice, activity summary, services to government, operations expenditure summary, $10.925 million.
Agreed.
Page 9-14, Justice, activity summary, services to government, grants and contributions, grants, $49,000. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to ask the Minister of Justice, with the impacts of the Sahtu oil and gas play and the activity that’s happening in our communities, I do appreciate and the people appreciate the additional RCMP and victim services coordinator. Just on the RCMP stats with the activity that’s going up and happening in the Sahtu, and I want to be more specific when I ask this to the Minister in regard to the lifting of the rations Norman Wells Liquor Store. Has the RCMP seen an increase in the percentage of criminal activity, crimes with alcohol happening and how steep of a climb has that been since the lifting of the liquor ration in the Sahtu?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. That is a great question but what page are you on?
Page 9-16.
Mr. Yakeleya, we’re on page 9-14. Mr. Yakeleya, you can hold your question until we get there. Page 9-14, Justice, activity summary, services to government, grants and contributions, grants, $49,000.
Agreed.
Page 9-15, Justice, information item, services to government, active positions.
Agreed.
Page 9-17, Justice, activity summary, community justice and policing, operations expenditure summary, $3.837 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Could I just get a little reminder of what we’re doing in the protection against family violence with that budget? I notice there’s a small increase there this year. I know this is recognized as a priority for the government and across many departments. If I can get the Minister to give me some detail or some information on what that is being used for.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a number of things happening in this area. We have a – I’m going to pronounce it poorly and I apologize for that – it’s Wekeahkaa: A New Day, which is a healing program which we have available and we’re just rolling this out as a pilot right now. We’ve done some contracting on there. It’s for men who have used violence in domestic relationships or other relationships. That’s rolling out right away. We continue to have – I’ve just blanked. I apologize. We have the Wekeahkaa.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. I promise I won’t call you a blank later on. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of questions here. First, it has to do with the great work the community justice committees are doing in our communities, and the Minister, again, came into the Sahtu and saw the work that was done and the help that the communities are looking forward to. One of the things that they impressed was the need to get people back on the land and do some reconciliation out there in the healing process. I know the Minister is very keen on this and, again, I just came back from Tulita with the leadership meeting there of the Sahtu. I let the Minister know that Fort Good Hope is wanting to do something there. I hope they get in touch with the staff shortly.
Are we going to see an increase to the community justice in our communities where there’s lots of activity and things are happening and the type of work that is going to be needed in the next couple of years?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The community justice committees are an incredibly valuable resource that’s available in the communities. We provide funding support to the communities. It is limited but the committees have been very creative with what they are able to accomplish with those dollars.
In addition to dollars to support the committee, they can apply for funding to do special activities like on-the-land programs or whatnot. Many, many communities take advantage of that. We don’t tell communities what to do. These community justice committees come up with ideas based on what they know about their community, and the people in their communities, and what they think will work.
We would like to see a community justice committee in every community in the Northwest Territories. I continue at every opportunity I get to talk to communities that don’t have a community justice committee, and encourage them to put one in place. I direct them to community justice committees where we’re having significant success and where we’ve had really great results. One of them is Deline. Deline has a fantastic community justice committee with real, real talented people doing really creative things. I often refer people to look at what’s going on in Deline and see if they can build on their model.
Having said that, we don’t have community justice committees in every community. We’d like to. As a result, there’s always a little bit of money available that we’ve been able to roll out towards the end of fiscal years that goes above and beyond what an individual committee can get. That’s because we do have some vacancies. We will roll that out. We will make it to communities on an application basis as they see fit to use on these exact programs that you’re talking about. We see it as a real valuable service. We get great results from the communities where they are. We would like to see them in more.
Begging committee’s indulgence, my brain is no longer blanked. I’d like to go back to a few things on Mr. Bromley’s question because I completely lost it halfway through there. It happens.
The Department of Justice completed two projects evaluating protection against family violence legislation, and it’s impacted and found that the act is meeting its goals, and increasing awareness and protection. In 2011 the Protection Against Family Violence Act Evaluation Report is available through the Department of Justice website. I think there were a lot of questions raised about that.
The NWT, as you all know, has one of the highest rates of family violence in Canada, and the future health of our territory depends upon successfully addressing some of these violence issues in our homes. The department is focusing on protecting victims and their children, holding violent people accountable for their actions while providing them opportunities for change. We do have emergency protection orders, and there were some concerns about those and some recommendations came forward. We’ve worked on fixing that, where appropriate, and we’re also focused on educating the people who use these tools so that they know when they should be used, and how they should be used and what is appropriate. We also have the Wekeahkaa that we talked about earlier. We have the Domestic Options Court available to us as well. We’re always interested in new and creative solutions to help us combat family violence. There’s a number of good organizations who have been working on this and they continue to provide us recommendations and, where possible, we look at implementing them to find some of those solutions. I apologize for my earlier blank, but I hope that answers the previous question.
Maybe I can ask some questions now that the Minister’s mind isn’t blank anymore. I want to ask the Minister with regard to the justice committees’ strategies and philosophy, and Tough on Crime Initiative by the federal government and the way things are looking around the community with regard to what he heard from the Sahtu. Maybe he heard different in the other regions.
Is the department looking at the way restorative justice is looked at, the diversion programs, the restorative justice healing programs, victim services?
I say this, and also with crime prevention, because I’m reading a book for the second time called Return to the Teachings by Rupert Ross, who was an assistant Crown attorney who did some work. He wrote some very good articles and discussions with elders on justice. It was an eye-opening experience for him. He takes it from the point of view of being a non-native, white lawyer going into Aboriginal communities to administer the justice that we have now and the different philosophies, and the way that the Aboriginal communities look at justice, and how he’s looking and saying this makes sense. What we’re doing doesn’t make sense.
Coming in, getting off the plane, going to the arena, doing our five minutes with the people, going to court, then take off into another community. It’s just not making sense. Is there somewhere in the strategy, within the life of this government, the Minister could think of maybe using that one book as a reference and having a strategy for the future? Are we going to continue with what we’re doing now and have our community justice play a more prominent role in restorative justice, the diversion programs?
Because we send them here to the North Slave Correctional Centre, we taxpayers are on this table, around this room here, are paying $106,000 for one person to stay there. We feed them, we clothe them, we keep them warm, we give them a few dollars to make phone calls to home, then we send them out after a year. Have they come out better or worse? Will we see them again?
We have to look at if it’s efficient and effective to make a contribution to our community with the people who have done harm to us. Isn’t that better than costing us? It may require a little more work, but the elders and the people know that.
We need to work on it. I’m looking for that. We have two more years left in this government. Is the Minister looking at this option here? I think this is the way to go. This means leaving a long-term legacy. We know what it costs us as taxpayers to put these people in our facilities. It’s great for the economy in Yellowknife, Hay River and Fort Smith, because we’re putting millions of dollars into their economies and putting, what, half a million at least into a region if you want to look at this initiative. I’m looking for that type of thinking moving forward. It will take a while. It will take a long time, but we have to start somewhere. I think that’s something I would like to have some discussion come by the Minister saying this is what we’re looking at. It might be done in 10 years.
I believe that’s the direction that we’re going and I look forward to the Member sharing that book with me once he’s done reading it. We have a 10-year strategic plan and we have a five-year implementation plan, and a lot of it is about prevention, quite frankly. We need to find ways to keep our jails as empty as possible.
We are working on a Community Safety Strategy which we have had a lot of discussion about and a draft strategy has been developed, and we’ve got a general idea of what it’s going to look like and now we’re looking at doing some piloting around that. I would be happy, obviously, to talk to committee more about that if they’re interested.
Diversions are huge. Diversions could happen at many different levels. The RCMP over the last number of years from 2003, 2004, when we probably had our highest number of diversions, diversion levels have been just plummeting. Since I’ve become the Minister, and in working with committee, it’s become so clear how important these diversions are and that we really need to get back to where we were, because it helps keep people out of our facilities where appropriate. Bad people still are going to need to go to jail when they’ve done bad things, but we can work with individuals where appropriate.
I am happy to say we will provide committee with more numbers as we roll up at each of the end of the fiscal years, but since ’11-12, diversions have gone from a low of under 100 and just above 50, to almost where we were in 2003-2004. Our numbers right now are looking to be just almost 200, which is a significant increase just in the life of this Assembly.
I’ve had a lot of conversations with the commanding officer at “G” Division. He agrees wholeheartedly that we have to do more diversion. He’s making it happen and he wants to see more. He’s not happy with just getting back to where we were. He wants to see increases as well.
The community justice committees, we’ve already talked about how valuable they are. We’ve got youth justice committees as well. We’ve got a lot of things where we’re getting input from the communities, because that’s where the solutions are. This would be something more appropriate for when we get to corrections, but we want to do on-the-land programming, and the Member and I have had a significant number of discussions in the House, and he knows that this department is committed to trying to make that happen. He also knows that we’re committed to doing rehabilitation or reintegration programs, and we’re starting to have some really great conversations around that.
The types of things the Member is talking about are the things that, I feel, we’re pushing hard in this department and we’re going to see results, and we’re already starting to see results. I thank the Member for his comments, and I look forward to working with him in committee to make these things become a reality.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Committee, we’re on page 9-17, Justice, activity summary, community justice and policing, operations expenditure summary, $3.837 million.
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 9-18, Justice, activity summary, community justice and policing, grants and contributions, contributions $2.091 million.
Agreed.
