Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my Member’s statement, it was about 20 months ago, May of 2008 actually, when I asked the Minister of Justice questions in regard to an ombudsman’s office and whether or not the department would consider establishing one. The answer from the Minister at that time was that they needed to do some consultation with community, renters, tenants, department, Members and so on. I’d like to ask the Minister, at this point, what progress has been made in the last 20 months towards the establishment of an ombudsman’s office. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this ombudsman has been addressed in 2008, as the Member alluded to. This does require action to make changes to the Residential Tenancies Act if we move forward on this. At the same time, we did look into that from our department perspective. The Department of Executive have done preliminary work in this area and the results also tell us that there are already a variety of means where constituencies can have their concerns or issues addressed through various venues. Also, this particular office of the ombudsman, the resource would definitely be capital expenditures; the cost factor as well. So we have to keep those in mind as well, but, definitely, I will continue to work with the Department of Executive in this regard, because it is broader than just the Justice department. Mahsi.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister. My concerns are larger than just the Residential Tenancies Act. That is one aspect of work that an ombudsman can do and the service that they can provide for our residents. I also appreciate the fact that this is going to cost money, but there are some things where the money needs to be spent in order to provide better services for our residents. We need an office, an opportunity for residents to appeal decisions which affect them. I’d like to ask the Minister -- he kind of alluded to the fact that there’s lots now -- what sorts of things do exist right now for residents to address a dispute and to avoid court in the process. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we can certainly talk about the process that we have in place, whether it be the MLAs coming to the Minister and dealing with certain issues or the process. We try to rectify the problems or challenges that are before us. Sometimes it does take time to deal with those matters because of the documentation that’s required. Whatever we do, Mr. Speaker, we try to avoid the court proceedings. That should be the last resort as much as we can. We currently deal with a variety of, I guess you can say, options of how we can deal with matters at hand. Within the Department of Justice, I deal with various aspects of the judicial system, the court proceedings. Not only that, but the Residential Tenancies Act and other acts that are in place. Those are the venues that we continue to work with. I think the best approach would be to work closely with the Regular MLAs to deal with their constituency matters and resolve those issues expeditiously.
I guess the Minister and I will have to agree to disagree. I think that the office of an ombudsman is known to be impartial and known to be independent. I don’t think that MLAs and Ministers and department people are going to be impartial and independent from any dispute in which they are involved. There is nothing that allows an individual to appeal a particular decision unless there is actually an appeal board. If the appeal board turns them down, they have nowhere to go accept the court. So I reiterate again that an office is needed.
I would like to ask the Minister... He says that he is willing to continue to look into this. I guess I would like to ask the Minister if he is going to continue to look into the possibilities of establishing this office. Could he describe for me what those actions are? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I guess the action would be that we need to work on this with the Executive. Like I said, it is beyond just the Justice department. The ombudsman is an avenue of last resort. According to other jurisdictions that have them, and investigating complaints about breaches of privacy or legislation after all other avenues have been exhausted. So this is the last resort venue. We deal with matters that have come to our attention. I try to deal with it immediately. I try to resolve those issues. I think we have an excellent mechanism that we can deal with those areas. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that matters are being dealt with, but again I have to say that an MLA, a Minister, a department official are not impartial and independent. That is the service that we need for our residents. I would like to ask the Minister if this work is going to be ongoing, if there is going to be work between Justice and the Executive. When can I expect to get some information about how this office is progressing? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we can certainly provide the information that we do have on hand about our research that we have done and our consultation with various provincial jurisdictions and working with the Executive branch. We can certainly provide that information, Mr. Speaker. As we move forward, if this is an area that we need to look at, then we can certainly discuss with the Member and also the standing committee. If we need to move forward with costs, there will be a cost factor. So that needs to be taken into consideration as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
