Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice and it goes back to my Member’s statement where I was talking about the need for a clinical psychologist at our largest correctional facility in the Territory, the North Slave Correctional Centre, which happens to be located in my riding.
It doesn’t take long to understand that if you do not have the required services of a clinical psychologist on staff at that centre, eventually what that is going to do is compromise public safety. I’d like to ask the Minister today why we do not have a day-to-day clinical psychologist on staff at North Slave Correctional Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We do have contacts with the Alberta Hospital when it comes to assessments. Not only that, we do have a staff on hand that is a counsellor training to be a psychologist in that respect within a year. Once that individual obtains credentials, that individual will fulfill that position. It’s a current position that we have. We are making progress in this line of work. It has been taking some time, but we wanted to find the right individual with the right credentials to fulfill the position. We are moving forward on this.
In order to be a clinical psychologist you’ve got to spend seven to eight years in university. I don’t know how the Minister can suggest that a staff person out there could get the requisite training in a year to perform those types of duties. That makes absolutely no sense. I’d like to ask the Minister, if they’re making progress, why did it take 11 months for this recent sex offender to get a psychiatric assessment done in Alberta? It took 11 months. I’d like to know why.
I cannot comment on specifics to this inmate because it’s before court proceedings. However, I can speak to the process itself. Since this process came to our attention, it is the responsibility of counsel to notify the RCMP, which in this particular case did not happen for various reasons. At the same time, we deal with Alberta Hospital. At Alberta Hospital there is a long wait list which Alberta Hospital provided to our attention as well. We have to keep in mind that there is a new process in place since the issue came to our attention. Copies of the psychiatric assessment are to be sent to RCMP, Alberta Hospital and both counsels so that we can have an efficient and effective way of dealing with these matters to remedy the situation. We are also developing a new protocol to work with Health and Social Services, my colleague Ms. Sandy Lee, on identifying the beds that are available. We are making progress in this respect.
I thank the Minister for that. We haven’t had a clinical psychologist on staff at North Slave Correctional Centre for at least the past 18 months. I’d like to ask the Minister, the decision to not have a clinical psychologist on staff, was that a budget decision or an operational decision that was made?
When we had to make a decision at that time, it was strictly an operational one that we made last year.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m just wondering if the Minister is able to let us know how many more inmates currently on remand are awaiting psychiatric assessments and how long they’ve been waiting.
I need to go back to my department and the court ruling. We can probably provide a number. So we can certainly provide those numbers. Whatever we can share with the Members we will.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
