Item 6, oral questions. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned and I want to ask some questions about transportation, but I want to ask the Minister of Health, I will leave transportation for another day. I want to ask the Minister of Health about programs for our youth in our communities in the regions. I am very concerned because of the potential of the Mackenzie gas pipeline and the issues of youth treatment programs. I want to ask the Minister, where can we send our youth for drug and alcohol and addictions programs that we have issues in our regions in regard to this. I had a message this afternoon from one of our youth and there is a lot of concern in our region. Where can we send our youth for treatment programs?

Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have some facilities in the Northwest Territories. We have Nats' Ejee K'eh in Hay River, which operates a treatment program. As well, the Salvation Army offers some programs. We also rely quite a bit on the services out of Alberta; Poundmakers and Bonnyville, to name two. We look at the individual needs and then we try to match them with resources that we are aware of and have access to. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to look at the possibility of having our youth programs more regionalized. Rather than send our youth out to institutions that are in Alberta, I am sure they are fine, but now we are looking at possibilities of having our youth participate in some home-grown regional treatment programs for themselves where their families can be involved and it could be right in their backyard. So would the Minister consider looking at some of those options for youth programs in the regions?

Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the whole thrust of the alcohol and drug and mental health initiative has been to focus on the community; dealing with families; individual community members at the community level; trying to set up programs and programs aren't necessarily in facilities. So, yes, I agree with the Member that we are interested in working with the communities to see what programs can be developed at the community level that will put the resources we have there to the best possible use. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister's comments on the youth. Mr. Speaker, our youth today are really looking to us for guidance. A lot of youth have issues that sometimes get overlooked, or sometimes they get minimized. The youth are crying out for help, and I would like to ask the Minister, in similar response to the Minister of RWED, that we have interdepartmental meetings because the youth need to look at the overall big picture of how they are going to be affected. Would the Minister commit to working with other departments within this government to get a final message that youth are a priority and that their issues will be looked at in a way that would help them to be successful in life? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member's question is quite timely, and the reality is that, yes, we have services for youth scattered across the government. Health and Social Services has funds there, Municipal and Community Affairs, Education for sure, and we also have a Minister responsible for Youth. In fact, we had a meeting this morning to talk about that particular issue and a number of others as Ministers from departments that have a common mandate in the social envelope, to look at how we can best and more effectively deal with these issues. We have committed to meet before the end of the month to move this process ahead. So we look forward to being able to do the very thing that the Member has asked for, to give clear, government-wide messages and responses as to how we intend to deal with issues like youth. Thank you.

Item 6, oral questions. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you again, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise again to bring forward a subject, which will be no surprise to all Members of the House, which is legal aid. Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the honourable Minister, Mr. Dent. As we all know, Mr. Dent has spoken quite directly by saying that some of the legal aid problems are due to resources, due to human resources as well as financial, and that we have quite a lengthy waiting list. To the Minister, Mr. Speaker, does the present system of legal aid enable and approve clients to seek out and engage a lawyer to speed up their access to justice, whereby legal aid will still pay for that service? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Justice, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, legal aid cases right now, almost half are taken up by the private Bar, and legal aid does pay the bill. It really depends on the assessment, whether or not the case will be handled within the staff lawyers or through the private Bar. One of the problems that we have is that there are not enough lawyers in the Northwest Territories in the private sector who are practicing family law. That has led to some problems with finding enough resources to deal with the number of cases that we have awaiting assignment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I must say thank you for the excellent pare on that question. Mr. Speaker, my question again to the Honourable Minister Charles Dent would be is if we have an approved legal aid client, and they seek out a family law lawyer who is willing to engage their case, would legal aid still be willing to pay the bill? Thank you.

Minister of Justice, Mr. Dent.

Mr. Speaker, as I said there are a number right now that when they're approved by legal aid they are assigned to the private Bar. So a lawyer who doesn't work within the legal aid system as a staff lawyer takes on perhaps half of the cases. So that is in fact possible right now, yes.

Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to say thank you to the honourable Minister. I guess I have some bad news for the Minister, because the clients out there are not aware of this and I wish to really stress that, that they are not aware of this. Would the Minister be willing to articulate that to all clients of legal aid, be it a simple phone call, that if they wish to speed up the process, they can engage in accessing a lawyer who will take on their case? Would the Minister be willing to do that and report back to the House on the actions taken? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Justice, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it may not be as simple as the Member thinks. The private Bar is somewhat limited. I just talked to a member of the press today who told me that she had posed the question to all of the law firms in Yellowknife and found only two that were prepared to take on family law cases. In those cases, the tariff that was requested was higher than what is approved by legal aid. So the legal aid system will not pay a higher tariff than what is approved, and that really tends to limit the opportunity for speeding things up. We have to have more lawyers who are prepared to take on family law cases before we're going to be able to deal with some of the backlog. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.