Thank you. Can I still go on, or -- like, because I think my time -- yeah.
Next I have Member for Great Slave. Thank you.
I only have, really, one core piece of questions for the Minister on community justice, and he's aware I've been interested in this for many months, so I have -- I've had many questions from a constituent about this. And I really do appreciate his office working with me to understand the supports that are available for survivors of sexual violence, for folks who are offenders. But my interest is also in providing these services and availability to these services to folks who haven't offended but recognize that they need help.
The Minister has explained to me that in his other role that integrated service is working to connect residents with supports that they need. Those supports exist mainly in the health and justice spaces. So what I'm asking the Minister today is there a way that we can look for a more concentrated coordination of efforts around addressing trauma, which is one of our priorities and in the mandate, and include access to these programs for folks who are not yet offenders, but recognize that they need supports to not become offenders, to the programs that he has in justice? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister of Justice.
Thank you. And there's definitely a lot of overlap between, you know, all government departments, but health and justice in particular, and so there's types of supports for people who are not in the system yet or not yet -- are not offenders yet, those generally sit with health. We do have some examples in justice. For example, the men's healing fund, which in the last government I tried to put over to health because I thought it was more appropriate to be in health. But for the most part, we provide services to people in the system. That being said, I just spoke about proactive engagement with youth to try and keep youth out of the system. So the lines are sometimes blurred. But, yeah, I guess that would be an area I would just leave it that would be more suited to be with health. Perhaps the deputy minister has something to add, though. Thank you.
Deputy minister Doolittle.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, our department is heavily mandated and legislated, so we don't have a lot of discretionary areas. Community justice is one of our areas where we do do a lot of good work, but it's discretionary and it's small. We do have the men's healing program like the Minister mentioned, but we also do a lot of training in our corrections facilities with victim services workers, community justice committees in trauma training, and that type of work. So trying to be as proactive as we can. But, again, we deal with folks in the system, unfortunately at the end of the system, and it's hard for us to find a lot of resources to focus on folks who are not yet in the system since that is our mandate. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Member for Great Slave.
Yeah, thank you. And I respect that quite deeply. I recognize that it's kind of a -- you know, you have a certain mandate and you can't really escape that mandate. But I think some of the resources that justice has, and some of the training opportunities that justice has, there is some opportunity for cross-pollination, perhaps, around training, trauma-related supports. It just -- in any way that we can -- and I don't -- we say this so much in this House and I don't know if it has any meaning anymore, but thinking outside of the box around how we're supporting people who are trying to heal from their trauma and are trying desperately to live a healthy lifestyle and not continue intergenerational trauma. I just urge the Minister to think of ways that those connections can happen, and if he has any thoughts on that I would appreciate them. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister of Justice.
Yes, thank you. We're all about doing things differently and thinking out of the box, just like every other Assembly. But, you know, I don't know if I have much more to add than what I've stated before. That's one of the issues I see with government departments, and generally when you say this department does this and this department does this, there's going to be an area where we have -- don't have overlap because of, you know, the realities of mandates and, you know, funding and things like that but where there clearly could be things on either side of that border, it could be with health, it could be otherwise. And I agree, we're -- we need to be working together. Breaking down silos, I'll add that to the list of, you know, common things that every Assembly wants to do. And so we'll continue to work with health and find opportunities to do that type of work that the Member is talking about because I recognize the importance of it. Thank you.
Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I'm sure I will continue to talk to the Minister offline about this. And I appreciate those comments. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. No further questions, we'll go to -- please turn to page 307.
Justice, community justice, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $7,902,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to corrections, beginning on page 310 with information items on page 313. Are there any questions? Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question about part of the business plan that I think might fit into this section, but it might span across a couple sections. It's around targets to establish first a baseline of numbers of prolific offenders, so, you know, offenders who keep repeatedly offending, and to define what that means and then report data on it to help identify appropriate interventions, so trying to look at people who keep coming back through the system over and over and over again and then figure out what are better ways to address this as opposed to continuing to just arrest them, you know, put them in jail, keep cycling them through the system. So can the Minister explain a bit more about what steps the government is going to take on this and if you have any timelines on that work. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Perhaps I can hand it to deputy minister for some more information on that. Thank you.
Deputy minister Doolittle.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, this is a new mandate commitment for the Department of Justice. And for us, it speaks of prolific offenders, really what we're talking about in the Northwest Territories is repeat and violent offenders, largely repeat offenders. We see the same people coming through. So we are working with our RCMP partners to help identify these frequent repeat offenders in the Northwest Territories, which is our issue, trying to support them better once they come out of the correction system if they are in one of our facilities, connecting them with supports, probation officers, integrated case management, you know, housing, that sort of thing. So just trying to identify these repeat offenders, support them, have them on our radar, and try to reintegrate them as best we can. As of now, we don't have a really good way of tracking these folks so that's the idea with this mandate item. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And so many other jurisdictions, including Alberta and BC and Ontario, they form, like, special teams with representatives from police and corrections and prosecution services, but also non-profit groups, to help try to create, like, individualized plans for a prolific offender based on whatever their particular needs might be. I wonder if -- is that part of the vision or the plan of this government around dealing with prolific offenders? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister of Justice.
Thank you. So the department is looking into what other jurisdictions actually do and how we can adopt or adapt any of those models or what lessons we can learn. And so that is all part of it. And I'll say that this is sort of a -- you know, we're talking at a territorial-wide level here. Within communities as well, RCMP detachments have their own prolific offender databases and that they work locally as well. So on many -- on multiple levels, this work is happening. Thank you.
Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I know at some points in the past there had been the establishment of some different forms of interagency groups. At least within the city of Yellowknife when I was over at city council, I know there were times when groups were established that included the RCMP but also, you know, staff from ambulance services and staff from bylaw and just to try to coordinate their efforts. Because often it was the same person, you know, moving between those different services and if people could better understand what was happening with a particular person and what they were going through, it could be more effective than each of those agencies just dealing, you know, separately, not understanding the circumstances that that person was in. Is that something that this government has been looking at, or are there barriers that have been identified to try to revive that sort of interagency approach to dealing with people who are struggling and may be involved with the criminal justice system but certainly are also -- might be frequently accessing the hospital or various other services? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister of Justice.
Thank you. So, you know, much of what the Member is talking about is what the department of EIA is seized with in terms of looking at the whole system and how a single person might move through it. And so there's individuals who work with the integrated case management unit when they're dealing with multiple different departments, and they try to play a coordinating role there as well.
In communities, there's community justice committees which are often integrated with the community and have relationships with the RCMP, other NGOs. At EIA, we're working on -- working with NGOs to try and get everyone on a similar database so that we can actually share information and so that we know about the clientele that we're working with.
There's also considerations with the -- our privacy legislation. And so the review of the ATIPP Act and the Health Information Act, I've asked that those things be taken into consideration so we're not hindering our ability to actually help people in the way that makes sense because we have this legislation in place. So, you know, lots of that work is happening, and as the Member knows -- I know she has extensive non-profit background -- sometimes groups don't want to work together and sometimes interagency groups fall apart because personalities or different priorities at the time. So it's an ongoing -- I'll say it's an ongoing struggle. That sounds negative, but it's an ongoing effort to ensure that we're all working together and we are putting in an honest effort. Thank you.
Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So if we focus back on prolific offenders, would it be the department or would it be the RCMP that would take a lead on, you know, identifying and keeping track of or reporting on prolific offenders? So what role exactly would the department play? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister of Justice.
Thank you. So it would be the RCMP who actually maintains that database and has that information, and the department would work to support them. I'm not sure if the deputy minister has anything to add to that, but I can hand it to her, Madam Chair. Thanks.
Deputy minister Doolittle.
Thank you, Madam Chair. That is correct, we work together and with the RCMP who holds information, and we help correct these repeat offenders to resources in the community and throughout the territory to, you know, help them reintegrate and rehabilitate better into the community. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And so if it's the RCMP that primarily is, you know, holding that database and keeping that information, are there any issues that the Minister sees with information sharing between the RCMP and the government to be able to identify appropriate interventions and supports for people, or is that sort of completely sorted out how information would flow back and forth or be shared between RCMP and the department? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister of Justice.
Thank you. From my experience in working in this system for the last number of years, there's always problems sharing information. It's always difficult to do that, and it always takes effort. And so we are going to -- we are working on how we can enhance our ability to share information between ourselves and our partners, like the RCMP, and that -- you know, they have their own privacy legislation. And so it might require amendments to our legislation. It could just require different interpretation or different agreements to be put together, but it is something that is definitely front of mind. Thank you.
Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Nothing further. I appreciate the amount of information that is being shared about that, and I look forward to continuing the conversation.
No further questions, please turn to page 311.
Justice, corrections, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $39,839,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to court services, beginning on page 314 with information items on page 316. Are there any questions? Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question. I note in the main estimates that this activity has -- provides free public access to the legal research material in the M.M. deWeerdt Public Legal Resource Centre. Can the Minister please tell me if that research centre is staffed by an information professional. Thank you.
Minister of Justice.
Thank you. No, there's no staff. Thank you.
Member for Great Slave.
Thank you. So there is now active collection to that resource centre by means of purchasing new materials? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister of Justice.
