Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to Municipal and Community Affairs in regards to the issue that I raised in my Member’s statement: costs for our athletes to partake in territorial trials or basically trying to get a seat on the team to get to the Canada Games regardless if it is winter or summer. I think that realizing that using the Fort McPherson situation where they had to fundraise some $27,000 just to partake in the tryouts in regards to making the soccer team for the NWT to go to the Canada Summer Games. What is the government doing to try to reduce those costs and put on more regional type tryouts and also regional trials so that it can cost less money for athletes to partake in their regions so that if they make the team from the regional level, then they go to the national level, because these costs are having to be incurred by those athletes in which it is not being incurred by other athletes. What are we doing to achieve that?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, unfortunately it is one of the many challenges a lot of the smaller communities face, is trying to get athletes to make the Team NWT to compete at a national level. I know for the Arctic Winter Games that they have all the regional trials in the winter there and go on to the territorial trials. For a sport like Member Krutko has raised, there is a territorial training camp that they tend to have and bring all the athletes or all the athletes have to come in once they are identified. I do know that there was some contribution made from the Beaufort-Delta and Sahtu Recreational Association to this group. Also, we have community governments that are able to give small grants and to assist them. It is always nice to see the community come together. I take the Member’s point, though. It is a challenge that we have been facing in the smaller areas where we are unable to get to some of the bigger competition. But I can assure the Member that we will continue to have a look at it. We have asked for it and we’ll have a look at it and see what other options there might be. It is an issue that is out there and it is one where we are going to have to try and address. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in regard to the possibility of looking at the grant program, or even, like I say, instead of spending all the money to go to large regional or territorial events, that we can format the basic programs so that we get people to pick from the different regions to format the territorial team so we have regional representation on the territorial teams and give the athletes in all regions an opportunity to partake and show us what they’re capable of in regard to those different activities. Again, I think that we have to find a way that we’re not putting the burden on our athletes to partake in territorial events. There’s a way that we can get around it, such as I mentioned, if there are bursaries that we can give to those students and maybe consider more regional trial playoffs. Again, we have to find a way to not have to burden our athletes. So I would like to ask the Minister: is there a possibility of different types of bursaries that we can provide to these athletes to assist them either in travel so that they can partake in these events?
We invest a huge amount of money in youth and through the Rural and Remote committee we had a $400,000 budget item a couple of years ago that was approved where we were able to bring athletes from the region and have regional games where they don’t have much of an opportunity to get out there. I hear the Member’s point, though, that, again, it would be a decision that would be...(inaudible)...the territorial sport organization. They would have a process of how they want to select their team. Part of the process is identifying athletes from the regions to come down and take part in the territorial camp with a sport like soccer, where a majority of the players would be in some of the larger centres. It is awfully difficult. It would be nice if they were able to rotate these camps around, have one in the different regional centres, but that would be a decision made by the territorial sport organization as to how they would select their team.
Again, I will assure the Member that we are looking at ways, if there are ways that we’re able to assist some of these folks coming down to try out and it’s something that we have to take into consideration, because it is a challenge that’s faced by a lot of smaller communities, is their ability to get athletes down and the costs incurred to them. Thank you.
Thank you. Again, I’d like to ask the Minister in regard to the sport organizations, regardless if it’s Sports North or Soccer NWT, but maybe you can pass on that if they are putting on different types of coaching clinics and tryouts, that they do try to regionalize those activities so that we can get as many athletes from all the regions in the Northwest Territories to take part, and at a reduced cost, rather than having the communities come to a larger centre. So I’d like to ask the Minister if he can relay that on to the different sporting organizations as Minister.
Thank you. I’ll be sure to relay the Member’s concerns on to the TSOs. Again, the TSOs have their processes of selecting athletes for some of the smaller teams. They may train in the region. I’ve seen cases where they’ve gone out into the region and had their training camps. But this is a serious concern and I share the Member’s views on this. I’ll be sure to pass his concerns on to the territorial sport organizations and see how best they can maybe accommodate some of the athletes in some of the more rural ridings or communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
QUESTION 540-16(5):
LACK OF RECIDIVISM STATISTICS IN THE NWT
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice, getting back to my statement and a topic that I’ve brought up in the House numerous times during this sitting of the House and in previous years. When you look at recidivism -- and that is the amount of times a person comes into contact with the justice system -- and you realize that in the Northwest Territories we don’t keep statistics on the level of recidivism, and if you look at some of these high profile cases that have just happened where you see an individual convicted the 16th or 17th time for a violent offence, you start to ask yourself, well, how come the Department of Justice doesn’t keep statistics on recidivism. So I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice why it is that the department doesn’t see fit to keep statistics on the level of recidivism here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. In this particular area, recidivism is a complex issue and there are currently no national rates or indicators as it stands. Also, it has other complicated issues such as family violence. We also, as the NWT, work with the Canadian Centre for Justice stats and other provinces and territories to develop nationally accepted recidivism indicators. This work has been discontinued because of the funding cutbacks. So we are exploring different areas on how we can highlight these key indicators for our Justice department in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.
Thank you. In the absence of any meaningful statistics or data, I’d like to ask the Minister how it is that the Department of Justice measures the success or failure of the current programming that they have in place in their correctional system and specifically at North Slave Correctional Centre. Thank you.
Mahsi. We do collect the information on inmates that pass through our institutional services throughout the Northwest Territories and that gives us a caption on where we should focus. If it’s going to be a reintegration model, we’ve made some changes to our reintegration model as well as the programming and we’ll continue to do that. We feel that reintegration back into the community they should be prepared to walk into a community.
So we have some information on file that we collect over time and based on that we develop programs or make changes to our programming. There is also federal programming that we’ve initiated, whether it be a workshop of a few days. So those are the ongoing initiatives and the workshops that we continue to deliver on an as-needed basis. Mahsi.
Thank you. In response to some of the questions I’ve had and correspondence I’ve received from the Department of Justice, it would seem that a cursory review was done on the programs at North Slave Correctional Centre in 2008. I’d like to ask the Minister who he has shared those recommendations with and what work has been done to address those 18 recommendations the he and the department speak of. Thank you.
Mahsi. That review has been undertaken, as the Member indicated, in 2008, and that information is within my department. If it hasn’t been shared with the standing committee, then I need to find out what we can share with the Members; what we’ve done to date since the review was undertaken, what work is ongoing and the future amendments that need to take effect. So, Mr. Speaker, I can provide that information to the Members and I’ll find out more about the specifics of the program. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In some correspondence I received from the Department of Justice it would indicate that Members were provided copies of that report in May 2009 and I’m not a member of the Social Programs committee. I’ve had our research staff looking for it. I’m not sure if the department actually gave it to us, or maybe that’s an error in the correspondence. I’d like to ask the Minister, were Members provided copies of that report in May of 2009. Thank you.
We’ll definitely verify that. The report may have been given to the Standing Committee on Social Programs because my department deals specifically with the Social Programs committee, but if the Member didn’t receive that, then we can provide that additional information that was shared with the standing committee. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
