Debates of March 7, 2005 (day 50)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman I had an opportunity to just do a little bit of research. I had talked before the break a bit about the treatment of the casual and term positions and with respect to particularly the casual employees who worked at the justice and corrections facilities in Hay River. I was able to determine that when the Department of Justice went to Hay River to notify the employees verbally for the first time, at Dene K'onia, and they asked the casuals to leave the meeting. However, the casuals refused to leave the meeting and the indeterminates wanted them to stay, so they did.

My information, Mr. Chairman, is that never have the casual employees at Dene K'onia ever received anything in writing saying that their jobs were terminated or finished. I would like the Minister to confirm if that is correct. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said earlier, I had no expectation or I had no understanding that there had been a direct approach to the casual employees involved in this. I did say that they may have been in attendance at the meeting that full-time staff were notified at. I would expect that through the union they would have received some notification but, as I said earlier, I didn’t expect that there had been a direct approach from the department.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to, for the record, indicate that of the 10 casuals that worked at Dene K'onia, these are the lengths of services for the 10: two months; four years and two months; one year and two months; three years and seven months; seven years and two months; seven years and six months; four months; three years eleven months; four years eleven months; and five months.

That is the length of service for the casual employees at Dene K'onia. I think the record indicates here that several of these employees -- at least more than half of them -- that had been there for four years or more. I guess the message is that when the government needed them, they were there; but when the government didn’t need them, they were not even owed the courtesy of being told that the facility was closing down in any formal way or that their jobs were going to be gone. Even after eight years, they would not be notified that they didn’t have a job anymore. Oh, it was only a casual job though, so…

Mr. Chairman, also with respect to the remand unit at the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre, the casuals were included in the meeting when the employees were verbally advised of the 5.5 positions being eliminated through attrition and nothing was ever said about the casuals, nor did they ever receive anything in writing. I just want to say that this is a bad mark on this government as an employer, that you could have people that were that dedicated to making themselves available to work for us, but we couldn’t even take the time to notify them of what our government's plans were, so that they could make plans.

Now today, Mr. Chairman, the Minister says that he will talk to the warden and, three weeks before the changes are about to take effect, they will be notified. I wanted to put that on the record, Mr. Chairman. I think that that is not a very good reflection on us as an employer. I don’t think that the private sector would ever do anything like that.

I would like to ask Minister Dent, Mr. Chairman, if there are any other changes anticipated. Of course, we went through business plans and the main estimates and now we are into already our first supplementary appropriation in this House and there are new changes that were not reflected in those business plans, which are taking place. I want to know if there are any other anticipated changes being discussed within this department, with respect to the delivery of correction services in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Neither Mr. Cooper nor Ms. Schofield can think of anything that has even been looked at in terms of moving into a supp.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask the Minister, Mr. Chairman, if after we shift in the fiscal situation, as everyone knows the way our system works, the business plans come out in the fall and there is quite a bit of time between then and when the budget session is held early in the year, if there was ever any thought given to putting any resources back into Justice as a result of new federal money which became apparent we would be receiving in the near future. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Members will know, following the review of the draft mains, the standing committees gave the government some advice on reinvestments or putting money back into the budget. The government did respond to some of those, but that was not specifically as a result of any specific pot of money. Obviously any new money that we had would be part and parcel of the reason for agreeing to it, but that was the process that was followed.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, what would it take to get the remand services in Hay River reinstated? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this point, the department has had $400,000 removed from its budget. The first year savings were only going to be $267,000 plus the $30,000 or so for the fencing, so we are about $300,000 below, or in savings this year. That would rise very quickly to $400,000 in future years. So it would be an ongoing $400,000 additional funding that would be required in order to put it back in. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Minister has heard the recommendation of the standing committee for the reinstatement of these services at the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre. Just about every Member of this House tonight has spoken of the desire to see services and programs stay close to the people that they serve. While we understand that there are different designations for different corrections facilities in the Northwest Territories and that theoretically they do serve people from across the Territories, depending on the classification or the security needs for that particular individual, Mr. Chairman, we’ve heard fairly widespread support here from the Members tonight.

I would like to know from Mr. Dent what the process is to get money back into the budget to reinstate the remand services in Hay River. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The bottom line is that the department doesn’t have that $400,000 in the next year, which is in this budget that is before the Legislative Assembly. I have heard, from around this table, an awful lot of requests for more spending in Justice; a considerable amount of spending in Justice. I know that the members of government have heard that request as well, but we are going to have to examine all the requests for spending and then try and respond as best as we can within the resources that we have during the next business plan process.

At this point if we were to keep going with that operation, then we would have to cut something else in the department. Would that be in drafting of legislation, would it be in legal advice to departments, would it be to our lawyers at the devolution table? It would have to be someplace where there was some reduction in services. In terms of government priorities and government spending, this clearly wouldn’t have been something would have come forward if we hadn’t had a reduced target to reach. Given the target that this government has set for itself in terms of the savings, if we have to take $400,000 out of the department, with what is left, this is the place to do it.

That doesn’t mean that it’s one that we are happy about or one that we would have proposed if we weren’t challenged to make reductions. Any time you have to lay off experienced and dedicated staff, it is not something that makes you happy. We were challenged to come up with the reductions and this makes more sense than cutting somewhere else. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the topic of the proposed new courthouse; this, too, has been something that has occupied a fair amount of the committee’s time. The expenditure of this amount of money on one facility, no matter what it is for or where it is going, is a very big piece of change for us.

Through this discussion, I have been more and more convinced of the need for this and the program that the department has laid out for bringing this project through. I saw efforts that the department had tried to do something collaboratively with the City of Yellowknife on an available piece of ground; regrettably, that hasn’t come forward. We do, though, have the option of the land that the Commissioner already has access to and that is very close to the site of the Legislative Assembly.

Mr. Chairman, we looked at the revised feasibility study that was done in 2003. It very much echoed the findings of a study that was done in 1999 or 1998, which said virtually the same thing; of course, with a few more million dollars added to it. The judiciary is the third foot of our governance system in any parliamentary democracy and I am quite convinced that the financing of the building is something that, in the long term, is the right way for us to go. The sensitivities that have been expressed; the debate about whether this kind of money would do us better out in the communities or in the streets is a very good one. You can never argue against investing more money on the frontline, but the reality is that we do need an efficient, modern courthouse.

It is not a matter of having $41 million to spare and can we put it out here. It is an expenditure that the government would be making regardless. The factor that is the most convincing one for me, Mr. Chairman, is when we put the element of time into this and not just over the next couple of years; this is a building which I envision would be of a calibre of this building here or of City Hall or the DND building. They are substantial public institutions, they are built to the best of technology and they are going to be with us for many, many decades.

This is the element that I believe really turns, for me, the argument in favour of investing in this new facility and doing it now. We are also in a lease situation with our existing territorial courthouse facility, Mr. Speaker, that compels us to make this decision now.

The expectation that our justice system has is that the facility is being built in Yellowknife for sure, but it is not a Yellowknife facility; it is a territorial facility. I would ask people to give it that consideration as well. As much as I want to see and will continue to press for programs at the community levels in all our towns and cities and villages, this is an expenditure that we really should continue to proceed with. We have managed to do with the existing courthouse for 20 to 25 years now; the Minister has indicated that we find ourselves more and more going off-site to rent facilities. Consolidating this into one building is indeed the way to go.

I think the department does have a responsibility here or an opportunity to do some communication on this; to show us Members of the Assembly…We have seen a fair amount of paper on this and I would like the opportunity at some time, hopefully in the near future, to perhaps have a walk-through of the existing courthouse for as many Members as possible, to really see what the situation is there and where some of the improvements are going to be needed.

I would like to see some explanation and a communication plan that MLAs could take to the communities and show them and at least help people be better informed of what the need is. As I say, this is a major expenditure. Let's be sure that we do understand and see the need for it, and make the effort to help people be better informed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make it clear that what we're proposing is not a monument, it is actually something that is intended to be practical. It will have a number of courtrooms that are extremely small, about the size of our Committee Room A in this building, as well as the bigger ones that are needed. But it's not a question that we'll be building a whole bunch of great big courtrooms here if they're not necessary. What we've looked at is what will be necessary over the next several generations, and then the plans are going to be developed to reflect that. The judiciary have agreed to a number of approaches that are going to help keep the costs of the building down. In the past, they have had totally separate administrative areas. They have agreed to share mail and workroom areas in this facility, as well as their offices are going to be designed pretty much the same shapes as they have right now, so that furniture can be taken over. So it's not a situation where we're going to be trying to build a new edifice and outfit it with all new furniture, as well. So they are, with the judiciary's assistance, working at something that is as reasonable as possible, given the size of the building that we're talking about. If Members are interested in having a tour of the current facility, we would be happy to arrange that at your convenience.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I have Mr. Pokiak next. No? Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to speak to the Yellowknife courthouse for just a minute too, since most of the Members have touched on that. I think there is a business case and an argument to be made for the fact that Yellowknife may need a new courthouse and that we've been in leased space and there are issues of security and there are issues of access and interview rooms and accommodating people. I haven't read the report in-depth. I think there's an argument to be made for owing a standalone court services building in Yellowknife, as opposed to leasing something and spending a lot of money modifying it over the years. But the price tag of an anticipated $41 million, I don't know who came up or dreamt up the plan for this building, but just to put in on an order of magnitude with other buildings in Yellowknife that would cost around the same amount of money, I think the Stanton Territorial Hospital probably cost -- mind you, a few years ago, but not that long ago -- maybe in the neighbourhood of $50 million. I think the new Inuvik hospital cost around $50 million, more recently constructed than the Stanton hospital. We know what the North Slave Correctional Centre cost: almost $50 million. But when the Minister says that we're not building a monument and we're going to bring our old furniture over and that's going to save a lot of money, I'm sorry. A $41 million building is an astronomically expensive building. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it right and do it once and make it what we what we want to make, but make no mistake. The building that we're sitting in tonight was about a $26 million building 10 years ago, and there's nothing but the best of everything in this building, and we didn't have to move the furniture from the old facility.

Sometimes I just wished that we could put things in the context of looking at what people do deal with in the smaller communities. Yellowknife is the capital; let's give Yellowknife its due. Half of the population of the Northwest Territories lives here. But you know sometimes I just wished that we could put something like this in the context of you have to go to the communities; you just have to go to the small communities and drive down the streets, and look at the people's houses, and look at their schools that are cracking, and look at the nursing station, and look at the brown patch in Nahanni Butte where the kids play soccer. I mean, sometimes you just have to put this in the context of the range of what we're dealing with here. Just imagine this. You have somebody in a small community, they're living in a homeownership unit, something they've been struggling to maintain on their own, they have a brush with the law, now a big system kicks into place. We've taken away the regional community justice coordinators so we can give them back that little pittance of whatever it is, $267,000, back to the community and say we're doing you a favour. So now this person comes in contact with our justice system. So we'll put them on a jet with an RCMP escort, we'll fly them to Yellowknife, we'll accommodate them in a $50 million jail, and then we'll usher them over to the $40 million courthouse done up sparing no expense. I wish somebody could view this from another planet and just see how this could look. Try to imagine it. We bring them to the big city here, we take them into a building probably like nothing they've ever seen before, with all things shiny and bright and glass and beautiful woodwork, and sit them up in front of a guy with a gavel and say welcome to the justice system. But, you know, I guess at the end of the day they get to off to that nice prison facility and we'll put them in a cage and we'll lock the door, and maybe we'll do a little programming with them and hopefully send them back to their community in better shape.

There's just something about the contradiction of the way we do stuff that makes me sick. When the Minister talks about oh, yes, we killed the five positions for community justice coordinators in the communities. Probably one of very few jobs in some of these communities. But we did that because we're going to give those communities back that money so they can do something about community justice in their communities. But we're going to build a $40 million courthouse in Yellowknife. There's something wrong with this picture, Mr. Chairman.

This is not a utilitarian kind of building we're talking about here, let's be honest. This is elaborate. It is a monument. Sure, we know we're proud in the Northwest Territories and we have nice infrastructure and nice facilities in our capital and why would you want to build anything less. But I don't know; $41 million. I'd like to ask the Minister who came up with that plan that designed that number. Where did that number come from? Is that a Class A estimate? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Groenewegen may characterize it as us driving more people to the court, but, you know, I don't believe that. I think that the way we're giving more money to community justice committees will, in fact, keep people out of the courts. They need the resources. That's right, they need the resources to be able to do it. It's amazing how much work these committees are doing right now, and some of them have been having trouble finding enough resources to keep on doing what they're doing and then increase their workload. We still have the resources available to help communities that get into trouble. We have the justice committees up and running in 30 in the Northwest Territories already. This isn't something that we need to get established in those communities; they are running, they are doing the job. Some of them are doing it so well that they're running out of money, and they needed more money to get the job done. So we found the way to reduce expenditures and get more money into the communities' hands. So, in fact, this should reduce the numbers of people who appear in front of the courts because it is diverting them outside the courts.

Mrs. Groenewegen asked about where the estimate came from. It was provided to the department by DPW, based on their work with the program plan. In other words, what sort of space is needed over the next 40 years, and how do we make sure that we build a facility that will accommodate it. So at this point, because there are no plans in place, this is a Class D estimate based on square foot cost.

If you were to build this kind of building today, I have no doubt that you'd be talking about $50 million or $60 million, if not more, given the size of it and what we're seeing in per square foot costs in the North right now. So if you're talking about $41 million for a building, you're not talking about something that is comparable to this. You are talking about something that will fulfil the need, but, hopefully, as Mrs. Groenewegen said, something that will fulfil the need for a number of years and not something we have to add onto in a mere 10 years. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister speaks to the value of the community justice committees and nobody is arguing with that, but I am saying in order to give them a lousy, measly $250,000, isn’t it a shame that we had to take five positions out of small communities to take away the regional justice coordinators in the communities in order to find that $250,000 in a $1 billion budget. That’s the part I find sad. No doubt those people are struggling and hats off to them if they are willing to work like that to try to divert their own people from having to deal with the justice system and the very expensive price tag on incarcerating people. Good on them, bad on us that we had to take away the five regional coordinators jobs in order to find the money for it. Where are our priorities? We can’t afford housing for teachers and nurses in the communities, so that people can teach our kids in the school and nurses can take care of our people in the nursing stations, but we can find $41 million to build a courthouse so we can send people off to jail. You have to look at it in the big picture, Mr. Chairman.

I am trying to be reflective of how people are going to perceive this and how people see this when they look at what we are doing as a government. It’s the small things that matter in the communities.

Having said that, I have been through the courthouse building here which we are leasing. I respect the issues that are raised by the judiciary with respect to the serviceability of the way things are laid out and how that compares to other people of other stature would be expected to fulfil their duties. So, Mr. Chairman, just before my time is up, I have one more question. How many positions are vacant, system-wide, within Justice at this time?

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Schofield tells me that the last time that a report was run, we reported nine vacant positions and because of the need to keep positions for affected employees with layoffs and because the people aren’t available until April 1st or 15th or whenever they are formally laid off, none of the positions will be filled until we know whether or not the affected employees are going to take them.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few comments with regard to the policing situation in Sachs Harbour. Yesterday, the Minister responded to Mr. Menicoche’s comments that it’s going to require three personnel to open up a new detachment, not two as previously mentioned. Having said that, I wonder how that is going to affect the small communities? Labour standards says they requested a two-person detachment and now they are looking at three-person detachments. How is the department going to respond to that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said earlier today, It’s my intention to work with the RCMP to develop a phased approach to responding to the communities that do not have RCMP and then work with my colleagues to see how we might address that. I can’t say that specifically it’s going to impact this way or that way because it really does depend on what the costs turn out to be for each community and then how my colleagues agree to move forward to address those costs.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a follow-up. The communities that don’t have an RCMP presence right now, can the Minister let the House know what happens in case there’s a death in the community and there is no RCMP precedence and you have to fly two-and-a-half or three hours before you can get there? Who is liable for this? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If it was a wrongful death and somebody caused the death, then the person who caused it would be responsible. That would be where the liability lies.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If there is a requirement in communities for RCMP presence, doesn’t the department feel responsible if something happens in cases like that if they can’t afford to have RCMP present in the community? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I have told this House, I think it would be nice if we could have detachments in every community. Certainly it’s something that I would like to see, but, to this point, the government hasn’t been able to afford to proceed that way.

For instance, in Sachs, as I said this afternoon, I think there’s a strong argument to be made for sovereignty as well, making sure that Canada has some way of flying the flag. I think it’s important to have RCMP in communities, not only for community safety but for a range of reasons. We would certainly like to be able to do it, but I don’t think that we would be liable in a situation where we know that there isn’t an RCMP and we are doing what we can to provide the coverage that we can. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know I spoke about this yesterday, Mr. Chairman, with regard to the courthouse. I had a chance to take a look at the report that was done. I understand we can do a lot of savings with building a new courthouse in Yellowknife. There are other ways you can spend that money in terms of prevention for the communities and helping out the people. In smaller communities, he’s talking about security and the need for more space, where the RCMP, the victim, the assailant, all congregate in the community hall. Basically there is no security in situations like that. Why would the department consider Yellowknife different than the small communities? They should consider the same security and space options as small communities for court appearances. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I said earlier today, I understand the issue of the concern about the security in communities and there’s no question that that presents an issue in communities. There is no question that the issue of security can’t be dealt with in the same way in a smaller community. There are some mitigating factors and one of them is there’s always RCMP involved when court is being held in a community. That isn’t always the case in the courts in places like Yellowknife or Hay River where you have a courthouse. Typically there it’s a sheriff and that’s not the same level of security as the RCMP provide.

The other issue is that in Yellowknife, the court sits 267 days a year. In most communities, smaller communities, that would be a dozen or less days a year. It makes it that much more difficult to make the expenditure when the numbers of days of sittings are so small. In terms of dealing with the security issue, there tends to be more and more serious violent crime happening in and around the North Slave region. We don’t tend to see the same sort or type of criminals in the smaller communities, thank goodness. It certainly would be an issue if we did start to, because that might cause us some problems with the regional administration of justice. I think that it’s not a good news story for Yellowknife; it’s a good news story for the smaller communities that we aren’t seeing that same level of violent crime in the smaller communities that we are starting to see here in the capital. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Pokiak.

I think I’ll finish for now, Mr. Chairman.

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