Thanks, Madam Chair. I move that this committee defer further consideration of the estimates for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment at this time. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. There's a motion on the floor. The motion is in order.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? Motion is carried.
Carried
Thank you. So thank you, Minister, and thank you to the witnesses. SergeantatArms, you may please escort the witnesses from the Chamber, and we will take a short recess.
SHORT RECESS
I now call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, we've agreed to consider Tabled Document 56119(2): Main Estimates 20222023. Does the Minister of Justice have any opening remarks?
Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I am here today to present the Department of Justice's main estimates for the fiscal year 20222023.
Overall, the department's estimates propose an increase of $3.3 million, or 2.5 percent, over the 20212022 Main Estimates. These estimates support the mandate objectives while continuing to meet the GNWT’s fiscal objectives to prioritize responsible and strategic spending.
Highlights of these proposed estimates include:
Forced Growth funding totaling $2.1 million of which $252,000 is to establish one court officer and one legal aid electronic disclosure position. The remaining $1.9 million is additional funding for the Territorial Police Services Agreement of which
$657,000 is for additional RCMP members to better serve NWT communities with two additional constable positions in Behchoko and one additional constable position in Tuktoyaktuk;.
$809,000 for the increased housing costs for RCMP members; and
$390,000 for additional resources for the internet child exploitation unit of the RCMP.
Initiative funding of $190,000 to establish a judicial legal officer position;
Other adjustments totaling $1.8 million mainly for the collective agreement increases;
Travel reductions in the amount of $160,000;
Sunsets of $820,000.
These estimates continue to support the priorities of the 19th Legislative Assembly and support the vision of budget 2022 by working to keep our residents and communities safe and support vulnerable populations.
This concludes my opening remarks. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Do you wish to bring witnesses into the House?
Yes, I do.
Thank you, SergeantatArms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
Minister, please introduce your witnesses.
Thank you. We have Ms. Charlene Doolittle, deputy minister; and James Bancroft, director of corporate services.
Thank you, welcome. Committee has agreed to forego general comments. Does the committee agree to proceed to the detail in the contained tabled document?
Agreed.
Thank you. Oh, just wait a second. All right, so committee, we will defer the departmental summary and review the estimates by activity beginning with community justice on page 279, with information items on page 280 and 281. Questions? Are there any questions? Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm looking at the community justice committees line on 280. I notice last fiscal's actuals were $1,658,000, and we have the same budget of $2 million. So there's, you know, there's about $500,000 there that's not being spent. Can I just get an explanation why, and is the reason because we just are not always having community justice committees operate in all of the communities? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. I'd like to ask Mr. Bancroft to answer. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Bancroft.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, the downturn there that you see in the 20212022 Actuals is actually in response to communities struggling to operate certain programmings during the COVID pandemic. We offered a lot of different options to those communities of altering the delivery of those programs, but ultimately some of the programs weren't able to be expensed. Thank you, chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Does the Minister have an update on whether all of our community justice committees are up and operating? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. Not every community has a community justice committee but those that do, I believe are operating. Some are operating at a higher capacity than others. I'm not sure if deputy minister has more information. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister Doolittle.
Mahsi, Madam Chair. There are 26 communities with funding agreements in place and another five agreements are coming in the months for the communities of Fort McPherson Fort Good Hope, sorry, Colville Lake, Wrigley, and Sachs Harbour. Mahsi, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I would just you know, I think these community justice committees are just a long way away from where we would like them to be. I you know, I know many times they've struggled to retain members and retain staff which has made diversion, you know, difficult. Even here in Yellowknife when, you know, there's been times where we've been unable to divert files because the community justice committee just is not operating. And I think this is an area where we really could be a leader. You know, there's sentencing circles happening in other jurisdictions. There's, you know, all sorts of alternative measures and diversions well beyond what we're doing.
Have we done a review about perhaps whether the way we are funding this and the current model can be altered to kind of get this going in the right direction? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister of ECE or sorry, Minister of Justice.
Thank you. So as I mentioned before, there are some community justice committees that are operating at a very high capacity, and it's because they have someone who was, you know, very committed and very good at what they do and were very experienced. And there's others where there is constant turnover, and it's often just because, you know, that's who was in the community at that time and maybe someone who would be good at it is doing something else. And so it is tough in a small in a very small population like ours to have so many committees, you know, functioning at a very high level all at the same time. That being said, I understand what the Member is saying and in many ways, we are a leader. We've been doing this longer than most jurisdictions in Canada. For some information on the types of reviews or evaluation or how we keep track of how things are going, I can ask the deputy minister to expand. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister Doolittle.
Mahsi, Madam Chair. We currently don't have a review underway. That's something we can certainly look at. We did do the victim services review. So as the Minister stated, there each community has different capacities. We have 26 communities, and I would suggest that's pretty good. Two communities have opted have not opted into justice committees, and that's Jean Marie River and Nahanni Butte. We do work with the community justice committees and their coordinators to provide training and even during the pandemic, we've done some individual training and webinar opportunities through Alberta restorative justice, crisis and trauma; Canadian domestic homicide; and Canadian restorative justice in the International Institute for Restorative Practices, so we are trying to build capacity but there is burnout in some of the communities. There you know, some of the volunteers are often you know, the regular and main volunteers. So we will take look into perhaps doing a review and of course trying to improve our programs. Thank you. Mahsi, Madam Chair.
Thank you, deputy minister. Just a reminder to slow down a little bit for the interpreters; they're still with us. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I think this is in need of a review. And, you know, I like the idea of getting as many community ones as possible and, you know, for some of the smaller liquor infractions or probation infractions, please divert them, do it at the community level. But I'll note most jurisdictions have some sort of higher up diversion. You know, Alberta alternative justice, where you can refer someone from anywhere in the province and they run, you know, weeks ontheland programming. They run really elaborate diversion programming that I just don't think any one of our one community programs could run. So in doing that, have we looked at perhaps creating a higher territorialwide alternative justice or diversion committee? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Justice.
Thank you. No, but there we do have the wellness court and the domestic violence treatment options court. So there are some other options. But no, we don't have a super committee in mind for community justice committees. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I note that this is the area where money that is provided to the YWCA for the I believe the emergency protection orders, and that is what they meant by "as designate" under the act. This number stayed the same, and I get that this is one area that must be quite difficult to forecast. But given everything that we've been hearing about the pandemic and the affects on the domestic violence situations and mental health, do we anticipate that we're going to need to have more money here? Do we know if the YWCA is busier than they had been before? What sort of analysis and work is being done around that? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Justice.
Thank you. So we do have information on how many EPOs have been issued. I have probably the last the year but I don't have any further back than that. So I'm not sure if deputy minister can provide a bit more information on any trends that she might be aware of. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister Doolittle.
Mahsi, Madam Chair. So I believe we're all familiar with there was a yes, we contracted YWCA. EPOs are a tool, Madam Chair, and not the only tool. They're intended we also look at they're not intended to be the only tool. We also look at safety planning as well. Over the 20202021 year, a hundred cases were filed and 89 of those cases were judicially confirmed. So far in 20212022, the YWCA has submitted a total of 69 EPO applications which have all been judicially confirmed. So on target, maybe a little under actually, compared to the previous year. Mahsi, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This is one where, though, it's hard to say that just yeah, because maybe a number a little less or, you know, that doesn't mean that things aren't happening behind the scenes and just aren't being reported. As people are not socializing outside the home so much, there's probably less opportunities for them to have conversations with friends and family to maybe identify and be encouraged to go. I think everyone's aware of my situation in this last week, and I have been reached out to by the RCMP and by being offered victim services. It took me a bit to realize what had happened to me was something that actually, you know, needs to be reported and talked about, etcetera. So I feel that there are many that maybe don't realize that they're in a situation where they need help.
So if the YWCA were to express that there is more of a need here, and perhaps not necessarily just around the EPOs but in general, is there more money available to provide them to continue with that service, or will this be a firm number? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Justice.
Thank you. So in addition to the YWCA, and as the Member is aware, she just mentioned, we also have victim services. And that recently was reviewed and there were some changes made to that, and there were you know, we were able to redirect some funds to enhance those supports as well. So this is just one area.
In terms of the funding, there isn't a plan in this fiscal year to increase it. I'm not sure if the deputy minister has anything to add on that one. I don't think she does, but there's no doubt that this is a serious issue and we, you know, implement and develop and implement the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Action Plan. We are going to make determinations about how we can, you know, better utilize the resources we have and perhaps make decisions about additional resources. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I should probably know this but if we don't have some of that work that the department has been doing around the victim services and the action plans coming out of that, I would really like to see that information. I'm a big firm believer in collecting of statistics. So again, I just want to really stress that I think your partners there at the YWCA and victim services could be, you know, obviously providing a lot of feedback to the department.
I guess my next question or my next category I just wanted to talk about was the guns and gangs strategy. I'm really happy to see an increase in funding here but one thing I do hear is that it perhaps is not enough. We have a crack epidemic in our territory and that has been largely due to the infiltration of gangs. It is my understanding that the jail itself has now or the corrections program itself has become somewhat of a way for infiltration. As gang members from the south are incarcerated with Northerners, they are able to then influence and permeate into our communities.
I guess maybe I can ask, do we expect that in the next several years that this funding will increase? Is this federal money that we can get? Is there another program we can look for that money from instead of our own? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Justice.
Thank you. And to the Member's earlier comment, there is a victims services review, and that has been provided, but we can package that up and provide it again, as well as our response to that, because it did make a number of recommendations,and we have followed through on a number of those.
This guns and gangs strategy funding is federal, and there's interest, not just from us but from all of the jurisdictions from what I can tell based on my recent meetings, in not just maintaining but enhancing this funding. So there is all of the provinces and territories are putting pressure on the federal government because they do see the need to enhance this. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
