Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Department of Justice, personnel services are all located in Yellowknife. There are no personnel functions out in the regions. It is a matter of the way the department has decided to do its business and also a matter of resources.

Thank you. Mr. Picco.

Thank you. In light of the recent incident, would the department be reviewing that situation?

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess the short answer is no. The situation in Iqaluit was having to do with the psychologist or non-psychologist who was recently charged. In the specific case, I believe what the department is doing is reviewing to ensure the procedures are very clear and that everything was done according to the book. That would not cause the department to consider putting personnel officers or human resource-type people out in the field.

Thank you. Mr. Picco.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, when the Department of Personnel was eliminated, one of the major concerns was the affirmative action policy and who would be monitoring that within individual departments. The complaint that I have heard many times, and so have some of my other Nunavut colleagues at the correctional centre in Iqaluit, is that the number of Inuit employees has dropped considerably. You have unilingual elders who now have been incarcerated and the services are not available to them to the degree that should be there. I am wondering two things, Mr. Chairman, if you would allow me. One is, who is monitoring your affirmative action policy there and what steps are you taking other than that what we talked about earlier in opening comments to actually staff more Inuit at the correctional centre?

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Yes. Just on the first point, I think it is highly debatable, whether or not we had a personnel-type function there, whether the incident in Iqaluit would not have happened. Looking at the case, I would think it would have still happened. The issue of affirmative action employees, more aboriginal employees in the justice system, in corrections, is one that I am concerned with. I have had discussions with Cabinet, with senior staff about it and there are things that the department is doing to try to get more aboriginal people to work in justice and in particular in corrections. I would ask the deputy minister perhaps to elaborate a bit further, if that is okay with you?

Thank you. Mr. Cooper.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. In 1996 the department produced, and was the first to produce, an Inuit employment plan identifying a number of activities that would be undertaken. The first among them were to review all job descriptions, to remove all systemic barriers. The department developed a corrections officer basic training course where interested aboriginal candidates would be trained for a three week period, paid between $14 and $15 dollars an hour, and all of those who successfully completed the course were hired. If the course was set up as a competition, then they were hired to pursue into a competition and if it was not, they were directly appointed. We have dedicated considerable effort in Nunavut to advertising these career opportunities, to preparing materials and disseminating those materials and explaining what is involved in this kind of career. We have recently, in the late fall, just completed what is now called a correction entry level training program in the Baffin. Just the nature of what I described. The name is changed because it now includes not just corrections officers in adult facilities but also in the young offenders facilities.

I am told that 11 Inuit applied for the positions. Six were declared suitable. Two were hired. We have another four officers that are going to be hired as a result of a rebasing exercise that took place last year. We are confident that we will be able to hire some candidates, but to be frank with the Member, it seems we have difficulty attracting a lot of Inuit people to this kind of career path. It could be because, it has been mentioned, there is some stigma attached to corrections or a combination of that and other factors such as working indoors all day long. Whatever it is, we have attempted to meet the challenge head on. We are working at it as hard as we can and with great earnestness and sincerity to try and fill the positions as best we can. I can say that 25 percent of the staff at the Baffin Correctional Centre are indigenous, aboriginal people. I am not sure if that has gone up or down. I do not believe it has gone down. It is not a representative number, but it does I believe, show progress from the past. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Picco.

Thank you. I will have an opportunity later to maybe ask some more questions on personnel. I do know when I spoke to some of the employees at the BCC, before Christmas, they said that when they had Inuit wardens on shift, there were fewer problems within the jail. That seemed to be the consensus.

Moving to the directorate, the deputy minister also serves as a legal advisor to Cabinet. I am wondering how much time is the deputy minister spending providing legal advice to the Cabinet and how is that billed back to the Executive? Is there user pay/user say here, in this case? Does the Justice Department bill the Executive department for the skills of the deputy minister or the advice that the deputy minister gives? Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Traditionally, the deputy minister of Justice sits in, along with various officials, in Cabinet meetings. From time to time, if required, he would have input or give advice on legal matters. That is exactly what happens now. As for the number of hours per week, it is insignificant, I would say, but also it is not a user-pay situation. There is no billing back to the Executive or to Justice.

Thank you. Your time is up. I have Mr. Ootes and Mr. Erasmus on the directorate, total operations and maintenance. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you. I believe the question is directed to the Minister. Minister Arlooktoo.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Premier had answered questions on this issue and I believe has, or is in the process very soon of providing a letter to Mrs. Groenewegen to clarify some of the questions. In terms of what occurred at the meeting. I believe, as the Premier stated in the House at the time, he wished to have a witness at a meeting which could prove to be controversial and, therefore, wanted a third party to be there as a witness to ensure that whatever was spoken at the meeting was clear to both parties in case it was brought up later. So it had nothing to do with whether there was a policy in the books or not but it was a wish of one party at a meeting to have a witness and therefore, appropriately asked the ADM of Justice to be there.

Thank you. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, can I get the Member to clarify his question.

Thank you. Could you clarify the question, Mr. Ootes.