Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for the Status of Women. I would like to start with questions on family violence since, of course, women bear the huge brunt of this tragedy. My first question is on the Centre for Northern Families. The Minister has had time to research my questions of last Monday. What is your plan for action this week to save this crucial haven for wounded families? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for the Status of Women, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Centre for Northern Families received funding from the government from various envelopes, but the main funder is Education, Culture and Employment, because they get funding for the best spaces that they have there. ECE has been taking the lead in reviewing the program. We continue to talk to the management of the centre to find options. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, so much again for cross-departmental coordination in this government. My second question is related to the Coalition Against Family Violence which has been our most successful partnership for combating family violence. Will the Minister commit to reporting to this Assembly next week on the outcomes of this meeting either by her own Minister’s statement or by offering a timely briefing in the House and being prepared to answer our questions? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, yes, I can commit to do that. We just have to report on their meeting. As the Member stated, they would like to see some stability in the funding. As the Member knows, we have increased the funding under the enhanced community services over the last number of years. This year we are funding $482,000 instead of $460,000 last year. We are going forward for a request for a little bit more for next year. We have also increased funding under stabilized existing shelters by $11,000 this year; actually, $119,000 this year. We have funded $450,000 this year compared to $340,000 last year and also, since 2009-10, this year we have funded $92,000 for a program for men who abuse and that is an increase of almost $70,000 from last year. Mr. Speaker, I believe we are making progress and doing things that the coalition would like us to do. I am going to review in detail what the coalition is suggesting and, as always, work with the coalition in moving forward. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the Minister. I look forward to further and detailed report on that meeting. Mr. Speaker, the Minister has outlined a bunch of figures about a bunch of dollars thrown out there. What has been achieved in the area of family violence reduction through the action plan during the life of this Assembly? Mahsi.
Thank you. I can tell you that increasing money under the stabilizing existing shelters has really helped the shelters in Hay River, Inuvik and Yellowknife. I say that because they have told me that they were very glad to get that money. They were able to renovate some of the facilities to make them more safe and more comfortable for those who are staying there, and in fact that’s probably why the coalition is asking us to make that funding permanent.
We have introduced programming money for communities without shelters because that was identified as one that we had to move on, and in the last three years we have approved $460,000 in ‘08-09, $460,000 in ‘09 and ’10, and this year we budgeted $482,000 and for next year we’re going for more money, I mean, subject to all of the other pressures. There are lots of groups that identified on working on prevention and working with men who abuse, because when you’re talking about shelters and victims that’s not getting at the front-end, which is the reason why we have established and we are funding the program to deal with women who abuse. There has been an enormous amount of training for the shelter workers. We’ve done surveys, we’ve done evaluations. There’s all kinds of stuff going on under the Family Violence Action Plan. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Your final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I appreciate the comments from the Minister. It sounds like there’s some good work happening out there and I’m happy to see the work going on with those that abuse. Strictly speaking, of course, that’s not prevention. That’s dealing with the symptoms again. We need to get out in front of this and I hope that the Minister and colleagues will be innovative in doing some real preventative work.
My last question, Mr. Speaker, is on policing. Again, in this efficient cross-departmental government, will this Minister work with her colleagues in Finance and Justice to present a plan to committee and this Assembly to bring policing to all communities within the next few years? Thank you.
I’d be happy to speak to my colleague, the Minister of Justice, on that issue, understanding, of course, funding of extra RCMP is a project between the GNWT and the federal government for the funding of the officers. I just wanted to mention on prevention, for example -- and this is definitely in the area of prevention that the Member appreciates -- we have enhanced the community-based outreach advocacy and prevention in three regions with our shelters in the Tlicho, Deh Cho and Sahtu to raise the awareness in the community. We have also supported protocol development to assess risks and as a common risk assessment tool based on Ontario domestic assault risk assessment across the NWT. So we do do prevention work, to answer the question. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
