Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today, I had some questions for the Minister of Justice. I would like to ask the Minister, how is the Department of Justice measuring the results of the Domestic Violence Treatment Option court program that currently exists in Yellowknife. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The DVTO court has been in place since March 24, 2011. Since that time we have had 22 participants go through the program – 17 male, 6 female – who have successfully completed the program. When we first put the program in, we indicated that we were going to do a review and we are actually in the process of signing a contract right now to have a review done. That review is anticipated to be completed by July 31st of this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister what kind of results has the DVTO court achieved so far. Until such time as this review is done, perhaps he doesn’t have concrete answers, but perhaps he could tell us what the department’s general feeling is on the success of this program. Thank you.
Before we can say anything concrete, we do have to wait for the report to come in, but anecdotally, the response that we are getting back is quite positive, so much so that the courts have actually indicated that they’d like to expand this program and move outside of Yellowknife to Inuvik and Hay River, which is something we are interested in doing. We want to wait until we see the July 31st report so that we have concrete information. We are looking and considering moving this court outside of Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. It is very good news to hear this. There are a lot of things we want in Hay River. This is one of them, just one on a long list.
What resources are needed to expand the DVTO program to the regional centres? What kinds of resources, other than money, are required to be in place in the community in order for this program to work? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, part of the program is that we require some expertise on the partner program that goes along with the DVTO courts. Now, in Hay River I believe that those resources and that expertise exists. So it is going to be money. Basically we need money to make this happen outside of the Yellowknife centre. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. After the July 31st report has been delivered and has been reviewed, could the Minister put some kind of a time frame on when we can conceivably see something like this in operation in Hay River, perhaps by the fall? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to say the fall, but we do need to go through an O and M budgetary process to identify the resources that are needed to deliver this court. It will be part of the normal budget process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
