Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement today is on legal training in the Northwest Territories. Today, the court workers in the NWT do not have proper formal training. Usually the worker is a community person who gets trained through workshops and on-the-job training. This is not fair to the worker, particularly the worker who is alone in a community without a lawyer to consult whenever he or she wants. We require a method whereby all our court workers have a standard minimum training. Additionally, the GNWT is aggressively promoting community justices. Unfortunately, there is an acute shortage of community people with academic legal training. There are very few northern aboriginal lawyers and no aboriginal judges. There are aboriginal JPs but few of them have much legal training. I propose we initiate a one-year certificate and a two-year diploma program for legal assistants. All court workers will be required to take the certificate program. The program would have upgrading for six to 12 months for those who require academic preparation. That is because some of the people in the course may not be high school graduates and those out of school for a long time may require a refresher to get use to being in school again. This method has been used successfully in the community teacher education programs as well as the nursing program run by Aurora College. The program should be associated with our university so that it can be categorized as post-secondary education. This will mean that people could get student financial assistance. Also, people who finish this could be eligible to get directly into law school. The communities currently have training funding available for the next two years through a federal program called Pathways. The program could be funded through a combination of Pathways and GNWT dollars. For instance, student financial assistance could be used for allowances and Department of Education and the communities, through Pathways, could fund running the courses. Because of that, you would accept aboriginal people first, then non-aboriginal peoples if there was room. The result, you would have court workers with a minimum one-year academic legal training, communities with legally trained people to propel the community justice program, aboriginal JPs with legal training leading to aboriginal lawyers and finally, aboriginal judges. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Roy Erasmus on Legal Training In The Northwest Territories
In the Legislative Assembly on February 27th, 1997. See this statement in context.
Legal Training In The Northwest Territories
Item 3: Members' Statements
February 26th, 1997
Page 920
Roy Erasmus Yellowknife North
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