Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a couple of questions for the Minister of Justice. It’s been almost a year now since there was an offer for proposals to offer on-the-land programming in the Mackenzie Delta region. Why did it take so long and also has the department selected a successful candidate to offer the program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Members for their support for wilderness and on-the-land programming. I know there are a number of Members interested in seeing the Department of Justice move forward with this initiative. Last year we were unsuccessful. Earlier this year, on January 20th, we had an REOI, a request for expressions of interest, across the Northwest Territories looking for proponents to help us get a wilderness, camp set up so we can have programs for inmates here in the Northwest Territories. That closed on the 20th of this year, 2015, and we had a number of folks respond to that, several. Our hope is to have a meeting of those interested proponents take place sometime in the very near future and we’ll be notifying those folks by the end of this month. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, that’s great. In the past we had a great program offered just outside of Aklavik.
When does the Minister see the programs starting again in the Delta region? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, that would be dependent upon us finding a successful proponent, somebody the department can work with in the Mackenzie Delta. I know we’ve had some success there in the past and we’re very much interested. I think this is a real key priority for the department, is to see on-the-land wilderness-type programing for inmates here in the Northwest Territories. So we’re going to do whatever we can to work with the folks that responded to our request for expression of interest. We’ll work with them; we’ll try to get a program up and running. I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess as to when that might happen, but the wheels are in motion today to ensure that that happens. Thank you.
I’d just like to ask the Minister, what type of facility is required to offer this program? Thank you.
There would be a wide range of equipment and facilities that would be required, and again, the department is interested in talking to interested folks across the territory that have responded, about what equipment they have, what services they have, what facilities they have, so that we can get a program up and running here in the NWT once again. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
