Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have been looking forward to this opportunity to speak to the Department of Justice budget during this budget session. I don't think, Mr. Chairman, that anybody will be surprised that as a Member representing Hay River I'm not happy with this budget. We're all politicians and I honestly cannot imagine what was going through Minister Dent's mind when his department brought forward cuts and reduction initiatives that would be so impacting on one community, on one region in the South Slave, and would see job losses of 5.5 positions at the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre, 12 full-time positions at Dene K'onia, 10 casual employees who are pretty much full-time at Dene K'onia, and then, as well, the anticipated seven jobs at the court registries, which has, thankfully, been reversed and dealt with.
Mr. Chairman, all of these three closures, the combined number of losses of jobs, the multiplier effect which you could apply to that and the impact in one community and really when you look at the entire budget of this government, in fact there was no community and no department that I'm aware of that was as significantly impacted as the Department of Justice.
One of the things I found curious in the Minister's opening comments today when he talked about the overall budget, in fact, of the Department of Justice, actually going up and I don't know exactly how you reconcile that to the target for reductions that were anticipated, but at some point I would like the Minister to respond to that. So from a whole number of vantages, this action that is proposed to play out in Hay River and in the South Slave region is not acceptable government, in my opinion. The government has a policy of decentralization of services and all three of these initiatives, unfortunately, saw closure of facilities in a region, creates loss of jobs, loss of services and all of them resulted in this service being offered and consolidated in Yellowknife, which I think is particularly unpalatable. Hay River, I think, would not have taken the same position if any of these positions would have been decentralized further out in the South Slave region, but in fact they are all being pulled right back into Yellowknife; certainly nothing against Yellowknife's good fortunes. We hear the words overheated and we can all see, as we move about in the capital, that this particular community at this time is doing very well. I don't think that we, as a government, need to add and contribute to that by killing and squashing programs and services in our regions and in our smaller communities. I don't think that that's an acceptable way of doing business.
So I have been raising questions over the course of the last few weeks with the Minister and I have been getting answers and I know it's been complex and complicated and even difficult to follow for people, because a lot of the decision was based on numbers, which I have taken the position are arguable. I don't accept the numbers that were put forward by the Department of Justice, and the Minister has gone on record indicating that these reductions were done solely on the basis of economics. It wasn't about better service, it wasn't about providing a different service. I don't think anybody has argued that the services that were provided in Hay River and in the South Slave were not good. I think that when you look at the facilities that are impacted, Dene K'onia, you see the statistics on the long service of the employees and the training that the employees have there. You look at how they performed within the budgets that they were allocated over the years, and they were certainly very efficient. You look at the quality of the programs that they delivered in terms of the results that they had with the young people who were put in their charge and their care, and you see positive results there. You look at the infrastructure in terms of the building, and you see something that has had investment made into it over the years. I believe that Public Works and Services has even recently been down to Hay River and assessed that building.
When you look at the remand facilities in Hay River, there are six remand beds and the statistics that I have received indicate that those six remand beds have an average occupancy over the past year of 5.9. So, essentially, the uptake was 100 percent on the remand facilities in the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre. So something else other than good planning and good management is driving these initiatives. It's bad management, it's bad politics. I just can't think of a single good thing to say about what's being done here, except for the Minister indicating that it helped meet his targets to reduce his budget for the Department of Justice.
As a result of the questions that I asked, I suppose, the Audit Bureau took a look at the savings that were projected and forecast by the closure of these facilities, and the Minister and the Finance Minister were kind enough to provide Members with a briefing on that. That did not go anyway towards convincing me that these numbers are sound. When the Minister is answering questions in the House, Mr. Chairman, it was kind of on this give or take, kind of loose parameters on the numbers. Well, I think the Audit Bureau's report has only borne out the fact that the department did not delve into the historical data that was available to come up with more accurate numbers.
One of the areas that I have been particularly amazed by is the assertion that when you relocate remand prisoners from the South Slave and Hay River to Yellowknife, that in fact it was only going to require an estimated $18,000 to transport these inmates to and from court appearances in their communities. I don't think there was a proper assessment done on what it was going to take for manpower to escort these prisoners. I think that sometimes it's RCMP, sometimes it's corrections officers. It depends on the risk involved with the inmate that's being transported.
We keep hearing reference to the RCMP plane. That is not something that travels and moves about at no cost. I think that the $18,000 is incorrect and I believe that the Audit Bureau made reference to that. It says the estimated incremental cost of $18,000 was not supported by any historical data. Although it's not clear in the initial business plan submission, this amount has recently been referred to as a travel cost for individuals from Hay River to the North Slave Correctional Centre. Our review indicated that there were too many variables and too little information to form a reasonable estimate. Yet these are the numbers
that we have heard defended over and over again in this House. This is just in one area.
As to the projected savings of $400,000 overall by relocating the remand inmates to Yellowknife, I think we've kind of discovered that's not really an accurate number either. I guess I was confused to as to how we were to realize that savings immediately in the next fiscal year, given the fact that we were only going to reduce the positions by attrition. As I've indicated in this House before, government jobs in Hay River are very valued and people tend to stay in them for a long time. It isn't like you can just leave one government job at one department and just walk down the street and apply for any number of vacancies that might exist in another department. That's not the case in Hay River. When people get a government job in Hay River, they tend to hang on to it for a long time, because they're kind of scarce and there doesn't tend to be that many opportunities to become involved in the public service there.
I think that the principle or premise on which this savings was based, that it was going to be by attrition, I think was confusing at least, and certainly the Audit Bureau indicated as well that perhaps the savings weren't really $400,000, maybe it was something more like $267,000. But there happens to be a vacant position at the South Mackenzie Correction Centre right now, so that contributes to some realized savings right away.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess my time is up. I'll stop there for now to give other Members a chance, but I'll ask to be put back on the list again. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.