Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Justice. In my Member’s statement I spoke to a particular situation which, unfortunately, transpired over the last eight to nine months, and I wonder if the Minister could explain to me why this particular individual had to endure an eight-month wait before he could get out for an assessment. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I do believe this certain circumstance is before the courts. Really, the case is before the court currently and I cannot, therefore, comment any further on this particular case. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Bisaro, did you have another question that is not pertaining to the...Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question was addressed to the process, not to the individual. I wonder if the Minister could explain to me, and to the House, what our current situation is with regard to agreements that we have for providers of...who we have who provides psychiatric assessments for us in the NWT, who they’re with and what our situation is with that. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, with respect to the assessment, we deal with the Alberta hospital and Alberta jurisdiction. Those are the agreements that we have to deal with these inmates that are going through the process. But, certainly, we can gather more information for the Member on the numbers of agreements that we have in place with other jurisdictions, as the Member alluded to earlier. Mahsi.
I appreciate the offer from the Minister to get me the information on who we have agreements with and where they are. I presume most of our agreements are with Edmonton or Calgary organizations. But I wonder, if we have agreements with outside of Alberta, with Saskatchewan, Manitoba, B.C., etcetera, or if we have them with a number of different communities or cities, how is it that as a matter of course it takes an awfully long time for an inmate to get a psychiatric assessment? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, there are psychiatric assessments being done recently with Alberta, but we have to work with the Alberta government, the hospital there. It’s all based on the beds that are available. That’s why it took some time. Then there was a bed available, so that gave us the opportunity to assist the individual. So, certainly, Mr. Speaker, we deal directly with Alberta, but I have to gather more information on outside of Alberta, if there are any agreements. As far as I know, there are agreements particularly with Alberta. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister for that. I guess I would reiterate that if we are dealing only with Alberta and that’s not suiting our needs, then we need to look beyond Alberta and look to other jurisdictions and make agreements with other hospitals, other organizations, other provinces.
My final question to the Minister has to do with the suggestion in my Member’s statement. As the Minister responsible for Justice and several other departments, I’d like to ask him to comment on the suggestion whether or not the department has ever considered the possibility of developing our own psychiatric assessment and treatment centre here in the NWT. Thank you.
Certainly I need to get back to my department on what kind of discussions they’ve had in the past or current. If they have discussed options or alternative measures to deal with that assessment tool, then certainly we can discuss those alternatives as the Member discussed earlier, possibly dealing with other jurisdictions. Those are discussions that we need to have. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
