It doesn’t matter to me. I just want the answer.
Thank you. As, again, we agreed upon earlier, we are going to do three Members here with general comments and we’ll ask the Minister to do three Members at a time, so are you finished with your general comments?
Thank you. With that, we will go to Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have a couple of comments here. First and foremost I would like to comment on the Wellness Court. It’s been a long time coming and I’m glad that we are getting there. When we reviewed business plans, Members expressed some concerns about the resources which may or may not be available for the Wellness Court. We had concerns about whether or not the services and the programs were going to be available to make the program succeed. I think there was going to be an update ready for us somewhere around this time, so I guess I would like to know from the Minister and from the staff if there is an update that they can give us on the Wellness Court. How is it proceeding? How are things going in terms of access to services and success in that area?
Also, when we discussed the department, we talked a fair bit about IT systems, supporting the Justice department. I guess I would like to know which systems currently are needing replacement and/or upgrading and what the department is doing about it. Are they going to be dealt with in this budget year, or is it going to be over the next couple of years? I understand there’s more than one system that needs some help.
We talked about community justice systems when we reviewed the business plans, and I want to stress that I think there needs to be, and I believe committee said as much, but we need to stress that there needs to be more emphasis and/or funding put into community justice committees. They have proven to be quite successful, I think the department would agree, but they don’t get, I don’t think, as much funding as they should. I think having a community justice committee in every community is the optimum. I don’t know if we do or not, I can’t remember. So I would appreciate being given the info on that. We need to give them funding in order for them to get training and to do the job that we want them to do, which is only going to make our communities better and safer.
Legal aid was an issue for us; it has been for the last several years. I’d like to know from the Minister, from the department, where we are at in terms of wait times for people to get service from a legal aid lawyer. It was an extremely long wait time, probably a wait list as well, but the wait time was quite long, not too bad in Yellowknife, but extremely long outside of the capital. I’d like to know where that wait time is right now. I hope it has gone down. Can I get an indication of how long clients have to wait to get a lawyer outside of the capital and the regional centres?
I think that’s it. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We’ll turn our attention over to Minister Ramsay to reply to Mr. Yakeleya, Mr. Hawkins and Ms. Bisaro. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d be pleased to respond to the three Members that provided some opening comments.
Starting with Mr. Yakeleya and looking at the RCMP detachments, I want to let Mr. Yakeleya know that our community justice and policing folks met with the chief and SAO from Colville Lake in December of ’14. We are also just coming off a meeting that was held in January with the community again. We’re in the process now of compiling a report from the information we received from the community leaders in Colville Lake. So we will be working towards a community safety plan for the community of Colville Lake as well.
I have mentioned in the House before that under the new funding arrangement the Government of the Northwest Territories is responsible for 70 percent of the capital costs for new detachments in the Northwest Territories, and that’s something that is going to become an issue if we want to try to put detachments in communities across the territory that don’t currently have detachments. We’re looking at a refurbishment in Inuvik, a big expenditure in Inuvik, and also in Behchoko as well. We’re happy to get into communities. I’ve had the opportunity to travel into some communities to discuss with the leadership in the communities about community safety plans, policing plans and how it is that we can work with the RCMP and work with community leaders around the territory to make communities safer. I’m happy to do that and I will extend an offer to the Member if there are communities, and I know Colville Lake was mentioned here today, if they want to see me in person. If we can get up to the community, I’d be more than happy to do that and talk about community safety when I get into the community.
I want to thank the Member for bringing up Mimi Silbert and her experience dealing with inmates and what she could possibly bring to the table. The department has a strong track record of a demonstrated willingness to look at things differently and try new things. I think if we could make contact with her and discuss perhaps an opportunity to come here and try something different, we’d be willing to explore that. So I want to thank the Member for bringing that up today.
On the issue with bootlegging, I had a statement today talking about a number of communities where we’ve had some large seizures in and we’re very pleased to see the work of the RCMP paying dividends and seizing alcohol. We have to continue to get the message out that it’s okay if you see illegal activity taking place in your community; it’s okay to call the authorities; it’s okay to tell somebody about it. That’s the only way we’re going to stop bootleggers and drug dealers from ravaging our communities. I think calling Crime Stoppers, calling the RCMP, it’s okay to do that. We’ve seen far too many tragedies here in the Northwest Territories that involve alcohol and young people and we just have to make that call. I want to impress upon people that it is okay to call the authorities and let them know that there’s illegal activity taking place in your community and that’s how the RCMP were helped in getting those seizures done. It was the help of the public. Again, I want to thank the public that helped the RCMP get that booze out of our communities.
It was mentioned about continuing to educate our communities, our people about alcohol. Anything we can do to work with the Department of Finance on efforts to get that message out, we will continue to do that. I know the Member also wanted to thank the RCMP, and I agree with you; I don’t think we thank the RCMP enough for the work that they do on behalf of our residents and ourselves each and every day in all of our communities. So I will certainly pass your comments on to the RCMP.
On Mr. Hawkins’ question, we did have some success in finally filling the position. It’s a transfer assignment. An Aboriginal person that was working at the North Slave Correctional Centre is now in that position. That happened sometime before Christmas, I don’t have the exact date. So that position now is filled and it was filled internally.
To Ms. Bisaro, the Wellness Court, we will compile, I’ve got a raft of material. We’ll get something together. I did make a promise to Members to get you an update on what has happened, how it has happened and the success that Wellness Court has had to date. I will compile that information and I’d be happy to share that with Members at the earliest opportunity. It might take us a little while to put it all together, but you will get it. I’d like to say by the end of this month you’ll have all that information.
As far as which systems need to be updated, I think it’s the FACTS and the COMS. They both need some work. We are currently trying to get some kind of update as to the scope of the work that’s going to be required to update those systems. So that’s work that’s currently ongoing.
We don’t have a community justice committee in every community, but I appreciate the Member’s comments. Where we have them we need to resource them to the best of our abilities.
On the legal aid office, most cases outside of family law are dealt with immediately as required, but the wait times for family law have inched up over the six-month mark. We were at around seven months. Our hope is – and we’ve got some new lawyers on staff – that those times will come back down under six months, but seven months is far too long, and I’ve impressed upon the department the importance of seeing that come back down. So we are working on that, and hopefully with the new lawyers we’ll have a handle on that in the very near future. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Continuing on with general comments, I have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to acknowledge the department for the two programs that they’re putting into place here, the Integrated Case Management Pilot Project and seeing that the department is taking the initiative to get our departments to work together, rather than in silos, to integrate our people back into society and become, hopefully, stand-up citizens so they get jobs and work, and Mr. Yakeleya was making some references to that earlier. It’s better late than never. Coming to the game with that now, I think we are going to start seeing some improvements in how our people that were incarcerated get back into the community.
I think it’s going to be something that’s going to have to be ongoing in terms of review, not on an annual basis but like a monthly basis just to see how people are being integrated. Obviously, something like counselling or probation where you have to follow up on some of these previous offenders to make sure that the program is actually working as well as the specialized Wellness Courts. I know that it’s something that committee has worked strongly with the department for. I know that we have had a member of the committee go to the Yukon to see how that’s working. Seeing the progress that we’ve made in that area I think is great.
When we went through the briefing during the business planning session, it was noted that we are still second highest in the country in terms of violent crime. I think that we need to take a stronger stance in that area. I understand there was a men’s violence pilot program. I don’t need a full update today, but maybe even just a written commitment on how that program is going, what’s the uptake, what’s the update, and if that could be sent to the standing committee just to see how that’s working.
Something that was brought to our standing committee was treatment down south. One of the provisions for one of the treatment centres that we have a contract with is they don’t take anybody with violent or sexual convictions unless they’ve gone through a program, some type of program that deals with violent sexual assault training. In that case, anybody who has been incarcerated for a violent crime or a sexual assault but needs the treatment and is ready to go to treatment and ready to take those steps, there is no avenue for them to get in. If we have a training program here in the Northwest Territories, I think that’s something that might fall under a combination between the Department of Health and maybe Justice to get that in place. After residential school and all the work that the TRC has put in, it has opened up a lot of people in terms of speaking about it and ready to take that next step in healing. I thank Mr. Yakeleya for bringing that to our attention in looking at taking the steps to deal with that.
Last session I asked the Minister questions on proceeds of crime legislation. The back and forth dialogue was great in the sense that the Minister did mention that we were taking some of these things that we have taken over and used it to give to victims or give to communities or give to prevention programs like the Not Us! campaign. I think that has to be almost a standard practice, especially where we may see some good headway in the Sahtu in terms of the bootlegging bust and the drug busts, and in Resolution as the Minister had made in the Member’s statement earlier today. I was lucky enough to join the Minister at attending an opening for the victim services coordinators last month, or maybe the month before, and the work that they’re doing. It is a pretty stressful job. Most communities only have 0.5 positions. So when they are dealing with victims, as the Minister knows, victims need a lot of support. They have gone through traumatizing events. In some cases, they want to drop the charges because it is too much stress on them when they’re looking at proceeding with crime or charges. I think that we have to find a way that we can support our victim services coordinators in the communities. I think we’ll see more charges in the court system and people would not beat the charges if somebody didn’t show up to a court case because they didn’t have the support to go and make a statement. It’s just sad because it becomes repeated in domestic violence and I think that’s something that we need to stay on. I think the statistics in the business planning showed that charges in spousal assaults were down in the last year, but like I said, in some cases we don’t have the support for the victim service coordinators to help victims go right to the end with the charges.
Ms. Bisaro spoke to the community justice committees and I appreciate the answer that the Minister had given. Mr. Yakeleya talked a little bit about the community safety strategies. Maybe if we can get an update on how many communities have those strategies in place and how our government is supporting getting those strategies up and running and supported.
The Minister knows that I’m a big supporter of the coroner’s report recommendations. At times I do have meetings with the chief coroner of the NWT and talk about recommendations, talk about support that we can move forward on. I think the last one of the meetings we previously had with the coroner, there was some really good dialogue back and forth.
Out of that dialogue, actually, I made a recommendation in terms of a domestic violence death review committee, which couldn’t hold more water or light than it is today just because of what happened and what was presented in the news. As I mentioned, these domestic violence death review committees would have something like a physician, a nurse, an RCMP, a community person working on giving recommendations to government on how we proceed with any of these kinds of issues that are resulting in domestic violence before they even have to, unfortunately, go before a death review committee, which we don’t have in place right now but there are many jurisdictions across Canada that have that in place and they give really sound recommendations to government so this is preventable and we stop it before it happens. I think that’s something that I will continue to fight for and try to support until the end of this 17th Legislative Assembly.
One thing that I’m pretty concerned about, Members have talked about it, and in the life of this government even our Minister of Health had mentioned that we might not see it. Hopefully we will get a discussion paper to work on it. In fact, that is the Mental Health Act. We are currently using the old Mental Health Act right now. As a result, we are still continuing to have people fall through the cracks. I think we need a very strong educational and awareness component to the Mental Health Act for all those points of introduction into the system for people that have mental health illness, such as emergency rooms, hospitals, the RCMP incarcerations, counselling services, and identify those points of contact for people with mental illness and make sure that the people that are providing the service have a strong idea of what the Mental Health Act is and the powers that they have to use to give the right information or the right services to these individuals.
The two news reports that were out last year that caught attention in the media were the inmates that were out on the loose and one actually that was out on an inmate work release permit and then he was gone for… I don’t know; I think they caught him in a couple of days, real quick. But it would have been very unfortunate if he was in for some type of violent nature or some kind of other convictions, that the victim be notified when a person goes out on a work release permit. Obviously, it happened twice last year. I’m pretty sure the Minister and the correctional facilities have taken stronger standards in how they do that program. I think any one that has been incarcerated for any type of crime, that the victim be notified. It should be standard practice that the victim be notified that this person is going out to work. Should something happen if they are working in the city and somebody walks around the corner and the victim sees the perpetrator, it could have a devastating effect on them. I think there has to be a stronger standard, a stronger provision in place when inmates are able to go out and work in the communities.
That’s about it. I know it’s a long list. Chairing of the Social Programs committee is a good opportunity to understand the department before us and a lot of other concerns other Members have brought forth. So, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Given the time, we’ll let Minister Ramsay respond to your general comments. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for your indulgence. I’ll start with the ICM and the pilot in Inuvik. We’re happy to hear the support from the Member and other Members on that rollout. We’re excited about getting that pilot up and running in Inuvik. We’re interested, again, in trying to do things a bit differently and trying to work not from silos but include others. So we’re anxious to see that happen.
On the men who use violence, we have had some referrals to the Tree of Peace. The program is going to start back up in March. So we’re hopeful that this will be successful. It’s a program that’s needed. So, that will be starting up shortly.
On the Community Safety Strategy and Safety Plan, what underpins all of this is the fact that the communities around the Northwest Territories have policing plans in place. On top of that is a Community Safety Plan. We’re currently working with a number of communities across the Northwest Territories on developing those community safety plans. I’ve got a list of communities. I can go through some of them here. Tulita, Inuvik, K’atlodeeche, Colville Lake I mentioned earlier, Tsiigehtchic and Gameti and there will be others that we continue to work on and continue to promote community safety. So that’s a work in progress.
On the death review committees, I want to thank the Member for his interest in the work of the coroner, and I know there are other Members who are interested. Mr. Moses did attend the coroner’s event here in Yellowknife and I appreciate that. On the death review committees, we really believe there would be some significant cost to government. We’d also have to look at some new legislative changes with death review committees, and with the government only being around for another eight months, that is something that will have to be put off until the 18th Assembly on looking at death review committees. But I want to thank, again, the Member for his interest in that.
Health, I know the Member was talking about mental health. Health does have a Mental Health Strategy. It’s important for the Department of Justice to try to link into that as much as we can and we’re certainly interested in that work as it rolls out and how it impacts, potentially, the crime rates here in the Northwest Territories and criminal activity.
On the issue of work release and somebody not coming back on one of those TAs, you don’t get a TA – that’s a temporary absence – unless you are low risk. You wouldn’t see somebody that was high risk getting work release and being able to be on a TA. In this case we did notify the victim, as that person disobeyed his TA. We do have also a Victim Notification Program where the victim can request to be notified and that has been very successful for us as well. We will reach out to the victims should they wish, and we have done that in the past and we’ll continue to do that.
With that, I thank the Member for his comments. I know he’s very much interested in the work we’re doing and we’re happy to have his support. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Committee, noting the clock, I will now rise and report progress. I would like to thank our witnesses here today. Ms. Schofield and Ms. Haener, thank you for joining us. We’ll see you tomorrow. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 188-17(5), NWT Main Estimates 2015-2016, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.
Thank you. Do we have a seconder to the motion? Mr. Beaulieu.
---Carried
Orders of the day for Thursday, February 12, 2015, at 1:30 p.m.:
Prayer
Ministers’ Statements
Members’ Statements
Reports of Standing and Special Committees
Returns to Oral Questions
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Acknowledgements
Oral Questions
Written Questions
Returns to Written Questions
Replies to Opening Address
Replies to Budget Address
Petitions
Reports of Committees on the Review of Bills
Tabling of Documents
Notices of Motion
Notices of Motion for First Reading of Bills
Motions
Motion 33-17(5), Extended Adjournment of the House to February 16, 2015
First Reading of Bills
Second Reading of Bills
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Tabled Document 188-17(5), NWT Main Estimates 2015-2016
Bill 38, An Act to Amend the Jury Act
Bill 41, An Act to Amend the Partnership Act
Report of Committee of the Whole
Third Reading of Bills
Orders of the Day
Thank you, Mr. Whitford. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Thursday, February 12th, at 1:30 p.m.
---ADJOURNMENT
The House adjourned at 6:03 p.m.
