Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A couple of days ago the Auditor General released a report on the correctional facilities in the Northwest Territories. I’ve heard people refer to the North Slave Correctional Centre as a country club. They say the facility doesn’t punish people but instead rewards them for the terrible things they’ve done.
There’s some superficial truth to the country club, but it doesn’t capture the whole story. Beneath the surface, things are more complicated. My experience is that many inmates are actually very good people, very good people who do very bad things when they’re drinking. When they are sober they are reliable, they are out on the land, they are raising families. Under the influence of alcohol, though, these same people show a completely different side time and time again. A Jekyll and Hyde pattern shows itself.
The Auditor General found some serious deficiencies in the rehabilitation of inmates. Even when inmates are identified as needing long-term individualized treatment to cope with alcohol dependency, they don’t receive meaningful support during the period of incarceration. That means inmates are not prepared to live clean or sober lives when they go back into the community. Without support, many inmates only return to their communities hardened by their prison experience.
Why does this matter? It matters because the government has a responsibility under the Corrections Act to provide treatment and rehabilitate offenders. However, many inmates are returning to their home communities without having received an appropriate level of aid and rehabilitative programming.
At the appropriate time I will ask the Premier to account for these failings. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
