Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not going to touch the lawyer comment. I'll keep my opinions to myself. Just looking around compensation and benefits, I note that again during the pandemic, we were at a much lower cost. We have increased. Is this the compensation for the judges, etcetera, that was recently approved? Is that why we're seeing such a large jump there? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Justice.
I'll hand it to Mr. Bancroft. Thanks.
Thank you. Mr. Bancroft.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The $8 million that the Member's seeing there is actuals during the last year of the pandemic. And we did have a number of vacancies within court services. And they jumped to 11, that you're seeing in the far right-hand column, is the budget going into 20232024. So there were we're comparing the savings that we had during COVID times along with the budget which just saw a very slight increase over last year to this year going constant. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So is that safe then to say are we up to capacity then, and that amount is the amount we actually need for compensation and benefits, or is there still vacancies and some of that money ends up freed up later? I'm just kind of trying to get a gauge if that's, like, the actual number for the compensation and benefits. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Justice.
Thank you. I'll hand it to Mr. Bancroft.
Mr. Bancroft.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We are fully based funded for all of the positions within court services. There will organically be vacancies in any organization, but we are fully resourced in that area. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm not trying to get super hung up on the numbers changing from the COVID year because I do understand that a lot of that had an impact. Again, I sort of have the same question around the sheriff services. You know, there's a $400,000 increase from the COVID year to the next. And I'm just curious to know, again, is that just a rebound from COVID, or is that an actual increase sort of in funding, if that makes sense? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Bancroft.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, just the change there will be the downturn in court operations during the pandemic. A significant reduction expenditure around travel, overtime for staff related to the travel and court circuits. And, yeah, thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
And lastly I guess just a quick question around contract services, which was the opposite of everything else I've been talking about was quite higher during the last year of the pandemic. Dropped again post, and then came back up. What sort of contract services are those? Are they around supports for the actual process there or is it stuff that, you know, is helping with victim services, things like that? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Justice.
Thank you. So all of that work we spoke about earlier that would allow people to appear remotely installing videoconferencing systems, that accounts for that those funds. Thank you.
Okay. All right. Members, do we have any more questions under court services? Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd just like to ask the Minister if the Hay River courthouse is fully staffed and what is the full staff complement that's required to operate it? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Justice.
Thank you. I believe the full staff complement is eight. I believe there are five court workers, and those are I believe those are fully staffed. Or sorry, court officers. I've used the incorrect term for a couple of our positions. So I can hand it to Mr. Bancroft for some more detail on that. Thanks.
All right. Mr. Bancroft.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We have seven positions in the Hay River court registry made up of a manager, an administrator, and five court officers. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I hope this is the right place for this. I'm just wondering how many JPs do we actually have available in Hay River? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Justice.
Thank you. I'll have to I'm not sure if there's any right now actually. But I can find out and get back to the Member. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Can the Minister tell me if the caseload in Hay River is sufficient to warrant a you know, or to support a territorial judge at this time? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Justice.
Thank you. So when you're a territorial judge, you travel the whole territory; you hear cases across the territory. And so if the judges would want to set up in Hay River, then we can have that discussion. But it's currently up to the courts to make that determination. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And has there been any territorial judges that may be interested in coming to Hay River?
Minister of Justice.
Not to my knowledge. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
That's all. Thank you.
All right. Members, are there any further questions under court services? Seeing none, please turn to page 307. Justice, court services, operations expenditure summary, 20232024 Main Estimates, $15,321,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Please turn now to legal aid services, beginning on page 310 with information items on page 311. Any questions under legal aid services? Seeing none, please turn to page 310. Justice, legal aid services, operation what? We called it.
Well, do you have questions for legal aid services, because I'm calling that right now. I called that page. All right, does committee agree we'll go back?
Agreed.
Okay. Member for Frame Lake, pay attention. Ok. Go ahead.
I'm trying to do triple duty. Okay. I just had one or two questions about the M.M. DeWeerdt Public Legal Resource Centre. This used to be the court library. We know this was a problem in the last Assembly. We're the only place in Canada that doesn't have a court library. What is this centre now and is it actually open to the public? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I'll give it to deputy minister Doolittle.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, it is open to the public. It is in the courthouse. It's a resource centre. We have been trying to work to find front space to combine some services for sort of an information a legal information centre. That's been proving difficult to do that. We are still trying to do that but, yes, it is available to the public in the courthouse. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Okay, thanks. In my week off, I'm going to go over and check it out because I've heard little stories about this being a cubbyhole or a closet somewhere or something, so. And I do think that you know, look, there's probably some efficiencies there, having some legal aid stuff next to it or whatever in case somebody walks in there and bumps into a legal aid lawyer or something. But I think we can and probably should do better. But I'm going to go by in my week off and I'm going to check it out. Thanks, Madam Chair.
All right. Any further questions or comments? I think we've gone through everybody. So Justice, court services, operations expenditure summary, 20232024 Main Estimates, $15,321,000. Does committee agree?
