Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for Justice in follow-up to my Member’s statement from earlier today where I was talking about the Yellowknife Social Issues Committee. On March 22, 2011, the two departments that were active members of this committee co-signed a letter to the mayor indicating that they’re no longer going to be able to be active members. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, I understand the reason for this is we don’t want to put our employees in a position where they will be experiencing conflicts of interest. So the department responded, took these members off, but said we will make members available upon request of the committee, which is certainly an option and it may work, but as I indicated in my statement, I believe there is a better option. That would be to have individuals from those departments continue to sit on that committee on a regular basis as non-voting advisors. That would be great because we would be able to hear what they have to say and we’d be able to provide information in a real timely manner. It would be proactive rather than reactive.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice today if he’d commit to reconsidering their position and approaching the city to see if we could have a member from the Department of Justice sit on that committee on an ongoing basis to be this advisor that could be our liaison between the city and Justice on social issues in our community.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. When this committee was first established, our representatives were on there, my Department of Justice and also the Department of Health and Social Services. In the beginning there was a lot of discussion across a broad sector of what’s going to be happening, the programming in the Northwest Territories and Yellowknife. One of the key messages that came back was the potential conflict of interest that may have been perceived where departmental staff were sitting at the meeting with all the discussions and decisions that were being made. It was very uncomfortable for them. They came back and we discussed that, and the Member approached me just the other day. I did discuss it with my senior staff.
We would be more than willing to work with the committee on an advisory role, not a decision-making role, so they can have valuable input into the system, as well. I’m looking forward to that, working with the committee through my departmental staff.
That’s fantastic news. I look forward to hearing from the Minister, once somebody has been officially put on that committee in an advisory capacity.
With respect to the letter that was sent, there was a really good statement in the letter that I think we still need to follow up on. As an advisor and having some advisory capacity to attend these meetings, it opened us up to have other departments represented at this committee as well, being Education and Housing, in an advisory capacity, as well. I was wondering if the Minister of Justice could ensure that the person that he has attending this can sort of keep Education and Culture in the loop, Housing in the loop, as well. The letter was originally penned from Health and Social Services as well, so can the Minister work with the Department of Health and Social Services to make sure that that department is represented in an advisory capacity on that committee, as well, so that the city would make decisions on this committee as fully informed about our programs and services?
I’ll definitely pursue that. Whatever we do at this venue is interdepartmental. There is a lot of discussion on programming, working with the Yellowknife committee, the social committee. I will be working with my colleagues as we move forward on this particular important piece of work.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
