Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, on behalf of the Standing Committee on Finance from our review of the Department of Justice.

River Ridge Review

The committee is glad to see the Minister addressing the River Ridge Young Offenders' facility and concerns related to its triple designation. We await the results of the review of River Ridge -- and of the facilities in Iqaluit and Hay River as well -- which the Minister instituted following the recent difficulties at River Ridge. Committee Members noted that the Minister expects the review to be completed before the end of the fifth session of the 12th Assembly.

Resource Allocation To The Department

The committee is concerned that the Minister talked about feeling fleeced of resources to fulfil his department's mandate. It is the Minister's responsibility to make a strong and forceful case at the Cabinet table for the resources needed to meet the objectives of the department.

Police Services

Concerns have been expressed by many communities, large and small, about the lack of adequate police resources.

Recommendation 21

The committee recommends that the Department of Justice undertake a comprehensive study to determine community policing needs and take the necessary steps to ensure that all communities in the NWT have adequate policing protection.

Community Justice

A fundamental difficulty with the administration of justice in the north is that we have a justice system developed by one culture being applied to others. The First Nations of the north have a very different view of justice than do the mostly European immigrants who introduced our present justice system. The makes the Department of Justice's task quite a difficult one.

While the department has undergone some reorganization to help them do their job, the department still has a way to go to establish a presence at the community level. Communities have, for many years, felt that they have not seen the workings of the department except through the presence of the RCMP and the court circuits. Community justice specialists should help communities to access available funding to develop and implement programs at the community or regional level. They can then, with the department's help, set up community policing programs like those currently operating in Coral Harbour and Fort Good Hope, or on the land programs for offenders. As well, community justice specialists should provide advice about individual rights under the justice system, how justice procedures work in the north, and so on. The committee expects these new community justice specialists to be proactive.

Firearms Legislation And Safety Training

Recommendation 22

The committee recommends that the Department of Justice make every possible effort to ensure that the new federal firearms legislation, which has already been passed, is applied in the Northwest Territories so as to interfere as little as possible with hunting methods widely practised by northern hunters and families.

Zero Tolerance For Violence

The committee recognizes and supports the Minister's efforts in developing a strategy for dealing with violence in the NWT and in moving forward with the declaration on family violence on behalf of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories. The declaration states that the Legislature of the NWT, "adopts the principle of zero tolerance of violence against all people and endorses the goal of eliminating family violence by the year 2000."

However, the committee, during the review of the main estimates, did not see any clear indication of how these goals were going to be achieved. There appears to be few, if any, new resources in this department or in any department which are allocated to making this a reality. The committee addresses this issue more fully, in this report, in the section on Social Services.

Recommendation 23

Partners In Youth

The Partners in Youth project being piloted in Edmonton was discussed under Education. We strongly recommend that the Department of Justice participate with the Departments of Education and Social Services in implementing such a proposal in selected northern schools on a pilot basis.

That concludes the report.