Debates of March 7, 2005 (day 50)

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you. I spoke earlier today in the sitting of the Legislature about how I feel about the way casual and term employees are treated by the government. Some of these people have been there for quite a long time, particularly in Dene K'onia, not so much for the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre. Even there, though, there are some very long-serving casual employees. How would casual employees then plan their lives, livelihood and their incomes around this fact that they might just be called in less? What kind of consultation, counselling or planning has taken place with our casual employees to make them understand and aware of how these changes are going to potentially impact them? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In general, because it takes 5.5 PYs to fill one position on a 24/7 operation, what we are talking about is generally one. If there had been in the past, two casuals called in per shift on average, now we are talking about having only one called in on average. I’m afraid I don’t know what the average has been or how many are called in on a regular basis, so I don’t know what the impact is going to be. But it would certainly be something that we could find out from historical data and ask the warden to advise the casual contingent what the likely impact is going to be.

As Mr. Roland pointed out, with casuals, there is not ever a guarantee of a long-term position, so we don’t have the same sort of provisions as we have for full-time staff in terms of layoff.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Now I would like to recognize Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to start off with the comments about the Justice’s opening remarks. First and foremost is the new courthouse proposal being built here in Yellowknife. I don’t know if that is a good idea or not. I just want to ask the Minister about one of the programs that Justice rolled out in the 13th Assembly. It was the pilot project on-the-land justice program that was introduced and there were a couple of communities. Fort Resolution was one; I think Aklavik was the other. They were designated as communities where they would carry out the pilot project. I know there is something in the area of about $900,000 that was allocated to fund this program. What is the department’s direction now so far as funding that program? Is it still ongoing? Is it gone? Has it expanded? Are you going to take some recommendations out of the program? Is there going to be a review of the program? Has it sunsetted? I am not really sure what is happening. As far as I know, there is still on-the-land programming happening in my community. It seems like the program funding just keeps getting cut back every year. I just want to get Justice’s input or a status report on what is happening with that program. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I suspect that the Member is referring to the correction service Wilderness Camp Program. We have a number of those in operation. They are not specifically tied to those two communities that the Member has mentioned, but the program’s budget is a little over $1 million a year. It involves trying to get inmates into on-the-land camps. We have recently concluded a request for a proposal, where we were asking for proposals from potential operators from across the Northwest Territories. We have had a number of proposals come in for operations. We will be taking a look at those.

We have had a couple in operation, particularly for adults in the past little while. The big problem we have had is convincing enough inmates to actually take the program. What we were sort of doing is almost a marketing program in the jails. We have had a little flyer developed. I would be happy to share copies with all of the Members. The staff hand them out to inmates. They are encouraged to consider moving to a wilderness camp. We have also increased the incentive pay for inmates who will go out to wilderness camps, because, I agree with the Member; this is actually a very good way to have people get back into understanding themselves, their cultures and becoming more productive citizens. We increased the pay. The staff is quite aggressively marketing the programs now to inmates. As I said, we have two in operation in the Northwest Territories right now. We are looking at others. But we need to get more inmates prepared to go into these facilities in order to justify their operation.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One question I would have with regard to the program is I don’t know why the department would be marketing the inmates. Why even give them the option or the choice of either on the land or jail? Why not market the judges who are handing down the sentences and say, you are going out to the bush camp whether you like it or not. It is a done deal right there. I think the justice here in the NWT is starting to cater more to the inmates as opposed to the justice system itself, and always seeking more inmate approval for where they want to go, how they want to be sentenced, how they want to carry out their sentence and all that. I don’t think that all of these options should even be put forward on the table to any inmate that is breaking the law. I don’t think he should be given an option of where he wants to serve his sentence, how long he wants to serve his sentence for, and where he wants to go, whether out in the bush camp in Aklavik or out in the bush camp in Fort Resolution. I don’t think that should be something that they should be even given any input into. That even goes so far as the incentive pay. I am not sure what that incentive pay is for. Is it for the people who are running the camp or the people who are going to the camp? I am sure that if people are being paid to go out on the land, that is a given. They are just going to be there. I know there is no monitoring with a lot of on-the-land programs here. There is no justice official or RCMP officer that goes out and visits these camps on a regular basis. There is nothing like that that ever happens. Basically, these people are just out on a holiday. It is just like going out to a tourist camp. They do a little bit of hunting, lots of fishing, just kick back and relax in the sun until they do their sentencing. They can meet up with other people from the communities while they are out on the land and touch base with them and get their supplies through those avenues. There is no security when they are out on the land. If it is not the way it is should be run and the government supports it, then I can see it just taken right off and getting right out of control. A lot of community justice workers are coming back to me and saying I go out on the land and I see these guys who are supposed to be in jail. They are just enjoying the life of three squares a day and all you have to do is hunt and fish. That is just perfect, as far as I am concerned. I just have a problem with that kind of a justice system or program like that. There has to be more stringent controls put in place and more monitoring, like even getting an RCMP officer out there every other week or something just to make sure that everybody is still intact and there are no alcohol and drugs in these camp setups. Something like that is what I would like to see moving forward. But enough with that, I guess.

I just want to talk a little about these services to the government that the department provides with legislative drafting and whatnot. I am just looking at the activity summaries from past years. It looks like the contract services have gone up and compensation benefits have also gone up. How many services do this department’s own lawyers provide so far as legislative drafting? I know this was a discussion item in one of the committee meetings where a lot of this legislative drafting is contracted out; the majority of it is, anyway. Many of the lawyers in the GNWT don’t even provide a service to the GNWT. A lot of them are actually more of a disservice. More of them are on stress leave, sick leave and all kinds of leave. I guess the lawyers know what is good and what is not. I just think there has to be more accountability in that department as far as legislation goes and everything like that, a legal counsel to the GNWT departments. I think the legal counsel should be a given for everything that this government…Any program or initiative that it decides to undertake or direction or implementation of a policy that it wants to implement, legal counsel should be a given. I don’t even know why the government has to ask its own lawyers for legal counsel on anything. They say we always have to go back and get legal counsel to look at this. That should all be a given. That is part of the homework and the whole government process of rolling out any initiative or program. We have to have your legal opinion already nailed down. I think it is always cumbersome for any department to carry out any kind of initiative or direction without proper legal counsel.

Other than that, I think the courthouse thing is just going to…I don’t know what business plan that was put in, made how many years ago, was in the books. But if it has been in the books for a few years, I can’t see holding it off for another year or two being a real hindrance to this government’s or the department’s vision or mandate anyway. I just couldn’t support it because, as far as I’m concerned, it is just opening the door to make it easier to shut down all the other court registries, court buildings and VP offices in all the other regions and just bring it all here to Yellowknife. Like my friend from Hay River South was saying, you can just make it all here in Yellowknife, and you can justify it because that is the way it looks like it is going. To me, it doesn’t look good for the department. I know you are not going to get any support from the people of the NWT. If that courthouse even breaks ground, you would have a lot of public outcry on why that has come about. There has been no consultation whatsoever, as far as I am concerned. Maybe the Minister can give me some of the insight into some of these issues. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The on-the-land program that the Member asks about, a judge can’t sentence an offender to go to this kind of program. It has to be a situation where the offender chooses. They can only go if they are already ready for a temporary absence. They have to be approved for temporary absence from a secure facility to be sent to one of these facilities. Basically, they have to have concluded one-sixth of their sentence and be judged to be a good security risk before they can be sent out to them, because they’re not prisons. There are no fences and inmates are using firearms and so on. You basically have to be ready for full release before you’re allowed to go out on these things.

The whole purpose is to have elders work with the inmates and have inmates reintegrate into their traditional lifestyle. That’s the basic premise to an on-the-land program. It isn’t the sort of situation where you would want an RCMP officer showing up to police what’s going on. This is supposed to be something that’s driven by elders and respect for the land.

The programs are generally pretty successful with the guys who agree to take the programming, but it’s not easy. This isn’t like a tourist lodge, and we haven’t had people jumping up and down to go out to them. That’s why we’re trying to market it, because we think it’s a good idea. We think it’s good to get people out on the land. We’re prepared to increase the amount of money that we pay the inmates, not the operators. We increased the funding for the operators this fiscal year and now we’re looking at increasing the incentive pay that we pay the inmates for attending this kind of programming. In fact, if they work for one of the operators and provide services over and above what is typically expected, they may even be paid more by the operators.

So it is an opportunity for the inmates to, when they finish their term, actually have a little bit of change in their pocket so they have more options, too. They’re not just out on the street with nothing in their hands, which could lead to a lot of problems.

The Member asked questions about the legislative drafting. I want to make it clear that most of the drafting of legislation is done by our government lawyers in-house. We have four. If we wanted to do it all in-house, we’d have to increase the staff. As the Member will be aware, when you have legislative proposals that go through the system, sometimes we get hit with five or six bills that need to be drafted. So we have a real demand. But then there may be a couple of months that go by and we don’t have that sort of thing coming up for awhile. If we were going to staff up to deal with all the peaks then we’d have a lot of lawyers sitting around doing nothing when we have those valleys. It’s more cost-effective for us to contract out some of the drafting. But I want to make it very clear that we don’t do that much. Most of the drafting is actually done in-house.

And we don’t charge for legal counsel. So if a department needs advice, all they have to do is ask for it. The legal counsel is given. But we don’t send a lawyer along with everybody in government when they’re talking about things; we wait for people to ask for the advice. As soon as it’s asked for, though, it’s responded to. So that’s the way the requests for legal advice are handled.

In terms of the courthouse, we have space issues and security issues that we have to address. We’re finding more and more often that we don’t have the space for the courts to operate in Yellowknife. We had to rent out and fit up some premises this last year for about $350,000 for just one trial. We had to rent space in a hotel in Yellowknife a couple of weeks ago for another court case. We know there is another case coming up this year that we are going to have to rent more space for because we can’t accommodate it within the space we have in the courthouse. The issue is one of not having the space right now and we’re going to wind up paying more and more for rental space around town and still not really deal with the issue. So eventually we have to start dealing with it. If we’re already at that point right now, we’re talking about not having a courthouse in place, if we start this year, until 2010. By 2010 it would be an impossible situation if we didn’t start the process now. So that’s the reason we’ve advanced it at this point. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Next I have Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, have a few different areas to comment on, but I would perhaps switch the format here and see if I could put them out one at a time and see if the Minister would engage in how much ground we could cover in the 10 minutes allotted here. I’m going to be repeating a number of areas, but I do want to get a couple things on the record here.

To the number of police we are able to staff in the Northwest Territories and specifically to the police in the smallest communities, they too should have a police presence. It’s something that’s certainly very desirable. Is it warranted? I know that in previous discussions of this nature the department has come back and often said, well, you know, given the volume of crime or the kind of things that an RCMP officer would be called to attend to in the community, it has been very difficult to justify. But the presence of police in small communities means so much more than being able to act for or when offences occur. There’s so much more about community building and sovereignty. So I am certainly a fan of trying to increase the number of officers we have in small communities.

There’s been a call to put together a business plan that would see what the commitment is that would be required for the Northwest Territories to do this. I’m under no illusions that it would be a huge bill of tens of millions of dollars to try and do it all at once, but maybe there is a way that we could, in a planned and more strategic way over perhaps a period of several years, we could achieve this.

The news that the Minister provided about the federal government having to supply 30 percent of the staffing dollars, I guess here’s where I’d put a question out. Would that include the cost of overheads and building and operating police barracks and offices in the smaller communities? Where would the revenue come for that, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Certainly I’ve already committed in the House that I will be working on that sort of capital plan, that sort of business plan that the Member has talked about. I’ve already started a discussion with the deputy and directed him to start some work at moving this forward. The Member makes a good point. I talked earlier about Tsiigehtchic and it being on the highway, so that would be a good opportunity for us to perhaps examine whether or not there wasn’t some justification for making sure that not only was there some RCMP there, but if there isn’t, a lot of business for them may be they could spend some time on the highways. Highway patrol, intersect some of the people coming up with drugs.

The Member talked about sovereignty. Clearly, I know, Mr. Chairman, this will be an area that’s dear to your heart. I think Sachs Harbour is a good example of where we need to make sure that we’re flying the flag.

I think there are a number of cases where we can make that sort of argument, as well as the one that the Member talks about in terms of community development, community safety. I am prepared to advance that and come back to the House with some numbers. The process is likely to wind up being one that will wind out over a number of years. I can’t see us being prepared to necessarily jump in right off the bat or in a one-year deal with it. It may be too much of a shock to the Finance Minister to propose that. We’ll make sure that we sort of try and move things along on a basis that we can sell.

The specific question the Member asked was in terms of the other resources. The federal government would pay for the full cost of the capital and I guess we’d have to talk to them about when and how they would proceed with the building of a detachment, if that’s what is required. We couldn’t necessarily just arbitrarily do that with them, but we could work with them on that. Once the building is built, our contract then, we pay for the use of the infrastructure at $107 a square metre or 70 percent of $107 per square metre. So it’s costed out in the operation contract at that price and we pay 70 percent. But we would have to negotiate with them the building of the facility, because they pay 100 percent of the capital cost.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Braden.

Thank you. The scenario there was better than I might have imagined. I can only say that I do look forward to the business plan. Related to that, Mr. Chairman, are the ample signals, the very clear and loud signals that we’re getting about the anticipated increase in crime and the need for policing caused by super-development, the huge developments that we’re on the cusp of. The proponents for the Mackenzie Valley pipeline at a workshop in Inuvik in December made no bones about it that with the level of activity, the number of workers concentrated over a relatively short period of time, that there will be the need for additional policing. With this hopefully a reality in our near future, Mr. Chairman, will it also be included in the business plan for additional policing services that the Minister has talked about? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m not sure that any response to the pipeline construction process would be included in the next business plan we look at, because we know the timing is such that it wouldn’t be the right time to necessarily have it there. I’ve started the discussion with the RCMP and we will continue to monitor it and we’ll look for when the right opportunity is to respond. The RCMP are aware that we have the concern and have agreed that they will start to examine what would be an appropriate response and discuss that with us in the not-too-distant future.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Braden.

Mr. Chairman, also on a related line, and I think our colleague Ms. Lee spoke to it as well, is the very large question across Canada of growing crime related to substance abuse. We were, of course, all witness to a horrible event in Alberta a few days ago, so there is quite a level of sensitivity about this. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice for Canada, Anne McLellan, went into what I found a very interesting and appropriate kind of discussion over the weekend to urge, I guess in a ministerial way, our justice community to take a tougher stand when convicting people of drug-related offences, and reflecting as much as they can, the protocols that exist between the political and judicial arms of our government, Mr. Chairman, but also trying to send a message that society has, I think, a greater tolerance now for a tougher stand on this and certainly a lower tolerance for the explosive growth in what is seen to be the availability, the ease, and the consistency of illegal substances. My question here, Mr. Chairman, is to what extent can Mr. Dent, as our Minister of Justice, consider sending that kind of a signal to the judiciary? Because it is certainly one that I feel is very much warranted. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to send that message to the judiciary. If this Assembly feels strongly that the Canadian Government needs to make the laws tougher in this area, then I could certainly raise the issue at the next federal-provincial-territorial meeting of Justice Ministers with Minister Cotler. I believe he is the Minister of Justice now, so that would be the appropriate Minister with whom to discuss it. Or I could send a letter. It is exclusively an area of federal jurisdiction. I could certainly make this Legislative Assembly’s feelings and concerns known to him, but it would be incumbent on the federal government to deal with the laws and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to be telling a judge that I thought sentencing should be more harsh.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. I have Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A few comments to the Minister and officials. Mr. Chairman, the issue of justice in the communities and the regions has always been an interest of mine and I’m encouraged to hear the Minister has taken some initiatives and some new ideas, I think, to promote the wilderness camps. I think it’s a good move. I told the Minister, Mr. Chairman, that I’d be happy to work on those initiatives and get them closely into the region as much as possible for the inmates. I also understand, Mr. Chairman, the difficulties of having the inmates going to these bush camps and any way that they could go into these bush camps to do their time and do some other work besides doing their time in terms of healing and making some contribution to the community, I support that. I’d like to commend the Minister on that move there to initiative some of the promotion in terms of these wilderness camps.

The difficulty I have with this budget, Mr. Chairman, is with the timing of the new courthouse into the process here. I understand the courthouse is almost 30 years old and there is lack of space and it’s been determined that the existing courthouse is inadequate and that in the past years, extensive and expensive renovations have been done. To do some more just doesn’t make sense. So we’re told today that it would make more sense to build a new one, that it would be more beneficial to our government and to the court systems. I’m not arguing the point. I already told the Minister, pay ourselves rather than pay somebody else. The difficulty I have is the timing when we’re making cuts in the system and our community justice programs have been inadequate for a long time. I know we’re making some improvements, but I’ve been in the communities and the communities are struggling with proper facilities to hold any type of community justice hearings. I’ve been in there, where there’s no thought to, I guess, the courts coming for a day or a couple hours and doing their court.

The Minister has talked about security risks. There are lots of security risks in the small communities. I guess I’m looking for some things in terms of when is it that this department is going to have any plans in terms of looking at some decent facilities where they can have some good court hearings in the communities. Right now they’re renting community halls, they’re renting band offices, band halls, municipal buildings. People are waiting outside. There are no private areas where they can interview clients. Witnesses are being interviewed outside. Anywhere. You have the accused and complainant almost in the same room. There are lots of deficiencies in our small communities in terms of court.

So I think that this government here has to really look at properly funded communities and regions in terms of justice. There are lots of deficiencies in the report I saw that could easily apply to the communities in the regions.

Where is the money going into the aboriginal justice system? We say we promote aboriginal justice, but it’s a small fraction that goes into it. I’m not yet quite convinced this is the way to go. There is some justification in terms of the courts that are happening in Yellowknife that needs to be reviewed or looked at and that’s where they get their numbers to warrant a new courthouse.

Mr. Chairman, for the record, I do not support this now. Maybe next year. Right now, for the record, I can’t see having something like this in the community while the facilities in the regions like Hay River where you’re closing the facility down, you plan to open one up here. I’m having a hard time here with this. The timing is bad on this one, for me. You’re eliminating some regional justice coordinators. Are we confident that these justice coordinators can do the work in the region?

Again, I think we’re spinning our wheels. Over the years you look at an adult facility here in Yellowknife, you look at a young offenders facility here, and now you’re looking at a courthouse. That’s a few bucks going into Yellowknife for the Northwest Territories. We just barely scraped by with the court registry not being moved here. I say that in due time the court registry will possibly move here. It will continue with the courthouse process.

You have to justify. You have to use that money. Look at the money they spent on the adult facility here. That money could have been used in the communities for setting up bush camps. That’s where my struggle is. I have to go back to the region and not defend, but tell them that’s where the government’s money is. That’s where their priority is. It’s about timing, Mr. Chairman. I think the timing of this courthouse facility being proposed right now before the Territories is not right.

For myself, Mr. Chairman, I just want to make those comments to the Minister. I’m not looking for a response from the Minister. If he chooses not to, that’s okay. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In terms of community justice, I would agree with the Member that it would make a lot more sense if we could get community justice committees to do even more than they do. But you know, we’re actually quite lucky in the Northwest Territories. They are very active. We have committees in 30 communities in the Northwest Territories. So we have managed to get them set up and active in pretty well every community in the Northwest Territories. We are going to be, this year, adding $237,000 to make it available to communities that have community justice committees to apply for so they can get extra funding. We are still going to have one community justice coordinator who is available to support committees if one of the committees gets in trouble and needs an extra hand.

What we were hearing from most of the communities was that they were doing enough business that they needed more money to be able to take on more cases. So now we’re going to make it available for communities to do that. I can tell the Member that if it comes to pass that we’re finding we still don’t have enough money, that I will certainly be prepared to go out to look for more money to support community justice committees. I think they do a tremendous job. Diverting people from the court system and keeping them out of the courts is a better way to deal with offenders than it is to stick them into the system. So that isn’t something that is in danger of being cut on my watch. It is something that I am quite prepared to support further investment in as communities show they can put the money to good use.

In terms of the Member having pointed out that in smaller communities we face many of the same security risks that are faced by the people attending court in Yellowknife, he’s absolutely right. That’s true. It’s a situation where we are using whatever buildings we can to provide the courts in those communities. The real problem though is that in Yellowknife the courts are sitting here for 267 days a year. Most communities they’re only sitting a dozen days a year at most. So it’s pretty tough to deal with some of those capital issues that we would have for that level. Unfortunately this isn’t something that anybody from Yellowknife can be proud of. That’s the nature of the operation of the courts here. We’re talking about a huge number of sitting days in Yellowknife in comparison to anywhere else in the Territories. So we have to deal with that somehow.

As I’ve said, we have started to rent more and more space in Yellowknife to try and deal with the space shortage, but in the long run it doesn’t make sense to keep doing that. As I’ve pointed out, if we start with this planning money that’s in the budget right now, we still won’t have a courts building until 2010 and by that time it will have become way more of a crisis here to deal with the shortage of space.

The Member asked what we’re doing to assist with the administration of justice in the communities and I think it’s important to remember that we’ve invested some of the new legal aid money in providing advance travel for lawyers to visit clients in the communities. The clients in the communities are now not just faced with seeing the lawyer the same day of the court sitting, but they get the chance to meet with their counsel before the courts are held in their community. I also want to say that I don’t expect that we will be talking about consolidating the court registries here in the foreseeable future. So it’s not an issue that this is being done for that purpose. The government has agreed to continue with the court registries in Inuvik and Hay River. We have no plans to put that one back on the table.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did have a chance to comment on Friday. I do have some further comments for the Minister with respect to a few different items, Mr. Chairman. Maybe I will start with the courthouse.

The perception in the communities I represent is they are very concerned that such a huge capital investment is happening in Yellowknife. It looks like we are spending all this money in the capital centre and we are taking away…just because of programming and things that happen in the communities. You take away the regional justice coordinator which has a big impact in the smaller communities like Jean Marie and Trout Lake. So it’s very visible.

Throughout the North, people check out the news and they see $40 million being spent in Yellowknife and that’s a huge concern. They want to know what the department is doing and why are they spending all this money in Yellowknife. Why can’t they be using those resources in the community doing justice programs? So they are very concerned and they asked me to speak about it here today.

So if we can get the department or the Minister to say we hear the needs of the communities and we will start to direct some effort towards that. I don’t know why that exists in terms of justice, but that’s the initiative that I would like to state here for today. We have this nice new courthouse, and another interesting thing is the court system decided to lengthen the court circuit. I think it’s at six weeks now and it’s having an impact on the communities. The way it’s impacting is the JP court dockets are overflowing. It might have lessened the work for the justice system but, back home in the communities, the JPs are swamped with all these works and they are volunteers. They work until 2:00 a.m. on Wednesdays and they still have to make it to work the next day. They play a huge part in our communities. Maybe at this point, I will thank them for taking the time out to be JPs in the courts and trying to administer local justice. They are actually doing a lot more than they are trained to handle. They are trained to handle full court proceedings and trials and now that’s what is actually happening. Particularly in Fort Simpson I hear that because they are actually doing court proceedings. They can handle it and probably welcome the challenge.

I am not sure if there is a backlog in our regular justice system as well. People don’t like to see justice delayed too long, because it just allows individuals to keep putting it off. The victim, too, would like to see their needs met, the sooner the better, so they can get on with their lives. The further we drag it out and in a six-week circuit, it doesn’t take very long for the issue to be in the courts for six to eight months. It used to be concluded within six months or even four months. Now it just seems to be longer and longer and people are getting concerned about that.

While I am on the courts, Mr. Chairman, one other thing that came up early on in my tenure when I was elected was the issue of translators around the court systems and JP courts. What’s really blatant is at one point there was an elderly fellow, and people assume that they speak English once they make an acknowledgement sound. It happened in Health and Social Services. That’s why I pursued cross-cultural training because people were insensitive.

What happened was the fellow was an elder. He had an impaired charge and he had a hunting rifle in his truck. Because of the new gun legislation, RCMP arrested the fellow, took him in and took his rifle as well. They said here is a piece of paper. You don’t have the right paperwork for it. You don’t have your permits in place. We are going to have to destroy your gun, do you understand? He says, “uh huh.” He put his X on it. About a week later, he was asking around. He said the cops took my gun. I wonder when they are giving it back. It turns out what he signed was permission for the cops to destroy his gun. He said I didn’t tell them to destroy it. The fact is he didn’t understand what was before him. They assumed that he didn’t need a translator. That is only one instance and there are many other instances that go unreported. People say that happened, but the fact is we have to make more use of translators. We have to be more sensitive in our justice system and say there is going to be a need and it has to be addressed.

I would like to point out that gap to the department. I know at one time, we used to have full-blown translators that traveled into the communities. They probably felt that there wasn’t a need for full staff translating positions. I am not sure what their plan is now or how they are addressing those needs. If it has happened once or twice in my communities, I can just imagine what it’s like in other regions.

Another thing that concerns me too is I am reading our business plans here and there is a big gap. The targets for affirmative action aren’t listed in the business plans. I said before if it’s not written down, then it’s not a goal or objective. So you are going to have to write these things down, because that’s how bureaucrats or staff do their work. That’s how they measure themselves. They say I am achieving these things and send it in to their boss. If it’s not there, then that’s direction that they are not getting. They don’t have to do it if it’s not there. We pay them well, they are good workers but, like anybody else, they are not mind readers. They have to be given direction and told that affirmative action is important to our government. In fact, we have to have a representative workforce, much like we have a representative elected body. People who work for us should be from the North and northerners.

My last comment is on January 25th I had the opportunity to tour the remand centre in Hay River and see how it operated. I don’t see how the savings are going to take place. I was there with the same amount of staff members who were there. I saw the control room and now I really believe the report, that it was there for a reason. People are being put there and previous to that, they put the people in remand and kind of watched them, but then apparently this one lady killed herself. They spend lots of money on it. It’s suicide free. We saw the retracting coat hangars and all the round corners, so to speak, Mr. Chairman. But the plan is not to destroy any facilities or take down any walls. We are still going to be there. We are going to have the same staff. I am of that persuasion too. What are we really going to change if we are going to send some to Yellowknife and keep some there? What process are we saving? I am kind of concerned about that, too. With that, Mr. Chairman, I will conclude my comments.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member talked about the community justice coordinators and the reduction in those positions having an impact on communities. One of the reasons we have gone ahead with reducing coordinators was that we have got the committees up and running in the communities. If they need support, we are keeping enough resources to have one person who can go into a community and help them get things back on track. What we are doing is taking $237,000 from the savings and reinvesting that and making it available to the communities, so that those communities who were finding it difficult to do the good work that they were doing with the money that was available, they now will have an opportunity to apply for an increase in funding. We think that’s important because a lot of these committees were taking on a lot of work, so it’s essential that we support them to do the job properly.

The Member made a comment about JPs being volunteers. Just so that we don’t get it wrong here, we actually pay JPs $55 an hour, so they are paid for their work. The lengthening of the court circuit or the change in the time of the court circuit hasn’t really impacted on JPs, because it’s really the judges who are on the court circuit. By the way, it wasn’t the government that did that. The change in timing for the court circuit is entirely decided by the chief judge, and it’s based on the demand. I have been assured by the previous chief judge that if there was demand, the timing and the court circuits could be changed and would be changed if there was demand for that. By demand, I mean the numbers of cases built up.

The Member talked about the length of time for clearance of cases. I am advised that the Northwest Territories has the shortest time in Canada for clearing cases from time of charge to final disposition. So we are doing pretty well in comparison with everyone else. It’s a much more decentralized approach to justice here than you will find anywhere else. None of the provinces send courts around to all the communities. The accused will wind up going to a larger regional centre for courts, rather than it being delivered on a regional basis.

The Member brought up the issue of interpreters at the RCMP. I believe, in that issue the Member talked about, the RCMP responded fairly to that situation. I believe that they were concerned about the situation and that perhaps the individual hadn’t understood what was going on. I believe that they were fairly quick to respond in that situation.

The Member brought up the issue of affirmative action. The department wouldn’t have a problem putting in our business plan the government goal of a representative workforce. I think the department feels it’s bound by the government policy, as all departments really are. But if Members feel that it's something that should be stated in the business plan, we certainly don’t have any problem adding that to our business plan.

Then the Member asked about the remand savings. What is the difference? You are familiar with the facility and where the control centre is now for remand. It’s staffed 24/7. There wouldn’t be staff 24/7 and anybody who was in that section would get the same sort of supervision that happens in other areas, which is where corrections officers make their rounds every 10 or 15 minutes, rather than somebody being there 24/7. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I have Mrs. Groenewegen next.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to pick up where I left off last time I asked questions and made comments. It’s been awhile though since I was talking about that, so I will try to pick up my train of questioning.

I was talking, Mr. Chairman, about the casual employees at the SMCC that are going to be impacted by the change in designation for remand inmates at SMCC. I had indicated to the Minister, and I don’t know if he confirmed this or not, but that it would seem that there would be about nine casual employees who would be impacted by this. He said the casual employee pool would stay the same but they would probably get called in less to work. How have the casual employees been notified or advised or counselled in terms of what they can expect their earnings to change to as a result of these changes? We certainly heard a lot about some of the counselling and requirement for the indeterminate positions that are going to be eliminated through layoff and all other legal ramifications and obligations around that, but here we have in Hay River quite a dedicated workforce in terms of casual employees who, in some instances, it’s their sole source of income. So the Minister said maybe the warden should talk to them. Well, yes, this is March 7th today and with this change, I would have thought that that discussion with casual employees would have taken place by now. It’s not like casual employees get any kind of severance or departing cushions to help mitigate some of the changes that they will be experiencing in terms of income.

As I stated so many times before, there are only 280 government jobs in Hay River. It’s not like you can just waltz down the street and apply for a different one; unlike Yellowknife, where there are 64 vacancies in Justice right now. I am going to ask the Minister if he can confirm that too. I was thinking that perhaps rather than taking jobs out of Hay River, he might consider leaving some of those jobs unstaffed since they seem to be able to operate their facilities with somewhat less than a full complement of staff.

Has the warden at the SMCC had any discussions with the casual employees, some of whom have worked there for some time, with respect to what they might expect in the future as a result of this change in the remand? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not aware of any direct approach that has been made to the casuals on this issue. There may have been some present at the discussions that would have happened with the staff about the proposed staff reductions at the facility, which would have made them aware. I doubt that they have been directly or purposely approached and advised about the potential impact on their employment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Well, that is concerning to me because there are many casual employees who derive at least some or all of their source of income from working there, and the Minister says they might have been included in meetings when the impending changes were discussed between management and staff. It doesn't seem like the Minister actually knows. Doesn't the Minister think that it might be appropriate to have that discussion with casual employees, so that he knows for sure that they are fully aware of what changes are coming and how it might impact them? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The announcement will have been made to employees in the same sort of format, whether they were full-time employees or casuals. So a number of them will have probably been contacted that way. They are all members of the union, so the union will likely have worked with them. But I would be happy to take the Member's advice and make sure that we have our staff talk to the casuals directly about what the likely impact will be on their employment with the closure of the remand facility. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There was also some reference with respect to integrating casual employees into the main workforce of the SMCC. Could the Minister elaborate on that and tell me what he could possibly mean by that? If they're looking at eliminating the equivalent of nine casual positions plus 5.5 indeterminate positions, what does that mean when the report says they will work at integrating casual employees into the mainstream workforce at the SMCC? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not aware of a plan to integrate casuals into the full-time workforce. If the Member is talking about our human resources report, we're talking about making sure that casuals are better trained. So, for instance, that would like mean that as positions came open in the regular workforce, casuals would more than likely be qualified for the positions in the future, but the human resources plan did recommend that we increased the amount of training for our casual workforce.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just as a side note then, I just want to make a comment here and I hope the UNW is listening. I hope that they're taking note of how this department treats casuals and term employees, because I think certainly they could not operate their facilities without casual employees and I think it's a rather abysmal oversight for the Minister to not even be aware whether or not they have been consulted about changes that are coming in such a short time, in three weeks from now, and can't speak to that definitively.

Mr. Chairman, can I just move on to the issue of the assertion by the Department of Justice that they don't think that demand for services is going to be impacted by resource development. I had posed that question to the department and had got that response back. We are talking about infrastructure on the ground, in the community, with the attendant employees in order to deliver those services. I recognize that nobody can foresee the future, but, Mr. Chairman, I think that pretty well everybody in the Northwest Territories knows that barring unforeseen obstacles, there is going to be a surge in activity and population, particularly affecting communities like Hay River. Associated with that activity, most often the traditional, conventional thinking is that that kind of surge in activity and population would impact social services, including justice services. So I would like to ask the Minister what kind of consultation his department did in looking forward and being farsighted on these reductions as to what was going to be happening in Hay River with respect to the Mackenzie oil and gas pipeline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't think the department said there would not necessarily be an increase in crime. What the department said, I believe the Member is referring to a response to a question asked through research, that there wouldn't be an increase that would require the re-opening of the facility, the Dene K'onia in particular. So that is not the same as saying that there might not be an increase. It's a question of the volume that we're expecting and how that might impact. There may be an increase in the future. It's hard to predict whether or not there will be, as the Member herself has said. The response said that the department does not anticipate than an increase in crime, as a result of the pipeline or other major resource developments would require re-opening Dene K'onia. So it's not a situation of saying that crime won't necessarily increase; it's a question of the response to that increase should it happen and what might be required.

There may be an increase, and it's certainly something that we're working with other social program departments to take a look at what our response should be. We're doing that in concert with Minister Bell as the lead in the pipeline committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I have Mr. Hawkins next. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to definitely speak in support of the Justice Minister's move to revert the court registries cuts both in Inuvik and in Hay River. Although this decision was done a little while ago, I wish he would have continued the tone of access to justice and how I often speak in favour of that, the fact that justice is often served better by the people and when the people can get it. Quite often that is a problem.

I did speak the other day in regard to my support to see action with the legal aid office getting that future support, again continuing that concern that I have about access to justice. So I wish to emphasize that. So those were definitely good changes. Those changes have far-reaching impacts into the communities. If you start eliminating jobs of that magnitude in a community, that has a far-reaching effect on the spirit of the community. I would go into details which I don't have, but the multiplying factor of what job effects and how it affects the community, but I know it's in the range of three to four. So one job loss has a multiplier of three to four people out there.

But we all know, if you've lived in a small community, you realize the change of one or two jobs does have a ripple effect in the community. So you don't have to throw a big rock into the pond to see the water move. So I wish to emphasize my support for those two changes that went to the court registries.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to hear more about what the Minister plans for further additions to the RCMP over the long term. I was just reading the CBC web site and it talked about a break-in in Fort Good Hope. As I understand it, Fort Good Hope has three RCMP officers at this time, and there's a quote by the acting commander which is, "It comes as a surprise to many people that police can be victims of crime, as well, and it's rare but it happens." That's a quote from Inspector Greg Morrow with regard to someone breaking into the RCMP station.

Simply, I would like to hear what the Minister is doing to support the communities that don't have an RCMP presence on a regular basis. So if an RCMP station in a community with three officers can be broken into and stuff happens, what are we doing actively to help protect and support the RCMP in the area of a community that has no permanent RCMP presence? I would like to hear some thoughts from the Minister at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.