Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. Mr. Speaker, during the 11th Assembly, my first question was directed to the then Minister of Justice in the House, in relationship to the Task Force on Justices of the Peace, a subject that was dear to my heart then and still is. I think, Mr. Speaker, that it is only fitting that I return to the issue I first questioned in the 11th Assembly, Mr. Speaker. It has been four years now since the Task Force on Justices of the Peace completed its report and since the department began implementing those recommendations. Can the Minister advise this House as to whether the department has carried out an evaluation of these recommendations and how well those changes that they are making are working?

Mr. Speaker, with five minutes notice, the Members might appreciate a little difference in the quality of the response that I am able to give to questions. The Member raises the question about the recommendations that were done in 1988 in what they call "The Justice of the Peace Review". I am advised that 12 recommendations were made and I will try to go through them to best I can.

On the first one, in trying to ensure some judicial independence for Justices of the Peace, the Justice of the Peace Act was proclaimed, just on November 2, last month, which ensures that there is some independence in the sense that Justices of the Peace are, I think, now appointed for life. So there are some measures taken to steer towards judicial independence for Justices of the Peace.

There was a recommendation that a Justice of the Peace Review Council be put in place, but it is not completely in place. The council we had included a representative of a Minister and a representative of the public. I guess there was a recent Court of Appeal decision that prevents us from making these appointments. So there is a hiccup in that recommendation, but there is a Justice of the Peace, a Chief Judge of the Supreme Court and a Territorial Court Judge on the council at this time. We do have at least a couple of vacancies.

We had another recommendation that deals with having some work done to ensure that judges could be assigned different levels of responsibility. We do have some ongoing work to make sure that judges get training, which is touched on in another area of the recommendations.

There was a recommendation on recruitments, appointments and the involvement of communities. That has been done.

We had another recommendation that said Justices of the Peace should be under the supervision of the territorial Court, and that recommendation has been done.

We had another one dealing with the discipline and removal of Justices of the Peace. The Chief Judge has that power under the Justices of the Peace Act to discipline and remove Justices of the Peace.

Another recommendation. You see, with a little bit of notice, it is good.

---Laughter

There were some recommendations on a training program for Justices of the Peace. We have had an intensive training program for the last two years. Fifty five of the J.P.s are now trained at a trial level. We have 35 who are now trained at the sentencing level and 50 who are still at the basic level.

Another recommendation was that Justices of the Peace, as much as possible, should speak the aboriginal language of the community and the people they deal with. We should report that 40 per cent of the Justices of the Peace presently speak an aboriginal language and we have training under way in the aboriginal languages. So there is some movement. We have translations for documents that J.P.s ask for in the aboriginal languages. We try to help with interpreters and translations of other documents that they wish.

There was another recommendation on facilities and infrastructure that should be available for J.P. court. We are still working on it but not many use the same court spots as the territorial court circuits that come and visit. What else have we got here?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this has been a week of learning for me and I think the question I asked was whether or not an evaluation had been carried out to see how well these changes were working. That is the question I wanted to know. I have another question. The question was, had an evaluation been done to see how well they are working?

Mr. Speaker, I think what I will offer to do is give the Member a written summary of the action taken to date on the recommendations; the ones that I feel have been completed, those that we are having difficulties with, if any, and those that are still not complete. Perhaps I can sit with the Member if he wishes to decide how the work done to date should be assessed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In all of the recommendations that have been made in the pilot task force, the Minister has recited quite a number of recommendations, but the one that I have not heard is the recommendation on the honorariums and the payments that were made or going to be made to the Justices of the Peace for long and dedicated work. Can the Minister tell me why there has been no move to increase payments for Justices of the Peace in four years since this report has been tabled?

Mr. Speaker, on this recommendation, I know that there is a proposal presently being made to increase the honorarium fees and hourly rates. We have yet to respond to that. There is a proposal presently before us which needs to be acted on. As to why it has taken this long, I am unable to answer the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for those remarks, but I would like to know when this important recommendation is going to be undertaken. Can he tell me when he will target it for?

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure which way it would operate, whether I would have to get approval for an actual dollar amount before I could implement the rates that I would approve or whether I would approve the rates and then go after the money and hope I would get it. If I knew I could get the money, I would approve the rates very quickly. Either way, I think I could make a commitment to work on this and make sure there is a resolution to this recommendation in the next few months. Thank you.