Anticipating the growth in economic activity in the South Mackenzie and the increase of population in the town of Hay River, although it may not be sustained, there will be something over the course of hopefully the next several years...The Minister mentioned that there were somewhere in the neighbourhood of 66 people a year who are held over. Thirty-three of them, or about half of them, would actually be, if you will, denied the benefit of remand in their own area. They would be sent to Yellowknife. But given that we really do anticipate an increase in population and activity and, therefore, crime, is there going to be more of a demand for remand services or remand capacity in Hay River? If you follow that, then does it make sense to close that service down at this point, Mr. Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There may be an increase in crime and, therefore, an increase in numbers of people who are put on remand. But will it be absolutely necessary to use that facility again? It is not likely that the level of crime to reach such dramatic heights, that we would have to or be forced to reopen the remand there as a separate unit. But if we did need to, then it is important to remember that we are not proposing to knock down any walls or make any physical changes other than moving the monitors. So it would not be very expensive to reopen it if it was judged to be a good move to do that. But the unused capacity at North Slave is such that it is impossible to believe that we would reach the level where it would be full any time in the future.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One more question in this area. The Minister mentioned some 66 people or so that has been an historic average over three years. Related to the capacity of the centre, is that number of remand clients...What is the percentage capacity that they would take up over the period of the year? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't have the numbers in that form. But I could tell the Member that our records show that the average occupancy for the unit has been 5.5. It is a six-bed unit, so that indicates that, on clearly most days, the unit has all of the beds occupied.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

I appreciate the information. That has helped me get a sense of sort of the scope and the scale of what we are talking about here. Those are all the questions I have in that area for this time, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. We have Mrs. Groenewegen next.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is hard not to pick up on whatever the last person was talking about. I have been trying to kind of work my way methodically through my issues, and I have a lot of issues. But it is hard not to pick up where another Member has left off. For example, Mr. Braden has raised some very good points. When the Minister says that the unused capacity at North Slave could not, in the foreseeable future, actually be utilized, and yet the six beds in remand in Hay River are historically over the past year, if there are six beds. I think it is actually 5.9, but far be it for me to correct the Minister on anything. I think it is actually 5.9 over the last year. So there is a facility. It is staffed right now. It is at capacity. It is working and yet the Minister refers to the unused capacity in the North Slave Correctional Centre, which goes to my point, Mr. Chair, of the fact that we have overbuilt in the North Slave Correctional Centre. Therefore, that is why the economies of scale come to play, and now this argument is made for consolidation and centralization of provision of these services here in Yellowknife. I want the Minister to speak to that. In fact, is this decision not based on the underutilized beds and facilities that have been built here in Yellowknife? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to speak to the number that the Member said she didn't want to correct me; when I said 5.5, we have been talking about a three-year average. That is what that works out to, as 5.5 over a three-year average. The Member indicated that she was using a one-year number, so it is entirely possible. I was talking to Mr. Braden about a three-year average.

I am afraid that I can't agree with the way that the Member has put it. It is not that we are closing it because of one thing or another. Clearly, if we didn't have room at the North Slave facility, we couldn't propose to close it. But it is not because we have more room that we are proposing it. The department was tasked with finding areas to reduce expenditures and looked at areas. This was one of those areas where it was possible to reduce expenditures and still provide the service to people on remand.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My point is it is only possible because of the investment that was made in the North Slave Correctional Centre. What was the investment in the North Slave Correctional Centre, one more time, for the record, Mr. Chair?

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The number was, I think, about $49.7 million. It was just under $50 million to build the facility. This facility, when it was presented to Members, was presented as a 40 to 50-year investment in the facility. It was not something that was necessary to have just at that moment to accommodate just the existing prisoners. Hopefully, we are not spending that kind of money on something that is going to be full right off the bat. So did we have to move people here? No, we didn't have to, but it was one way in which we could save money. That is one of the things we could do, just as we didn't have to move all the young offenders to Dene K'onia for the last year, but we did because we

could save some money. So when there are opportunities to save money and we are tasked with saving money, then we examine them all.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Mr. Chair, I hope people can see this for what it is. Did the Minister envision, when this government spent $50 million on a new North Slave Correctional Centre, that you would be sucking the services out of the communities and bringing the inmates from all corners of the Northwest Territories in order to justify this $50 million expenditure? We talk about an expenditure of $400,000. Isn't it ironic that we had to spend $50 million to save $400,000 here and $1 million there? I hope people can see the irony in this picture. Did the Minister or his department envision having to relocate and take services away from the regions and the communities in order to justify this $50 million expenditure? I want to put $50 million on the record. I have heard some Members around the table today here referring to it as $40 million, but let's just be clear. We need to call it what it is. It was $50 million. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I certainly can't speak for I think it was Minister Kakfwi at the time who proposed the facility at first. I can't speak for what his expectations were, nor for Minister Antoine who followed him, or Minister Allen, but the facility was built by the time I got the position. I don't think that anybody thought that there was going to be a moving of things around to justify the facility. I don't think that is what is happening. The South Mackenzie Correctional Centre is a good facility. It is well used. There has been no suggestion that we move the clients from that facility to any other facility to reduce costs or anything. We are talking about just changing the function of one small part of that facility that would, in fact, increase its capacity to hold general population clients in the future. It is not a situation where we are looking to, as a department, firmly move ahead and centralize the provision of correction services.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you for that characterization of that being one small part in one small place. That one small part and that one small change is costing my community 5.5 indeterminate positions and probably nine casual positions in the process. If the Minister thinks that is a small impact on a small community, well, then I guess I have my work cut out for me here to talk about this, because that is a huge impact. It may be a small change in the overall operations of Justice and part of this government, but it is a huge impact on the community of Hay River.

Mr. Chair, I am just going to talk for a few minutes about the references made by several of my colleagues to the complement of staffing of RCMP in communities. It ties in with my concern. That is whether we are talking about Hay River or any other community south of the lake; we have talked about the somewhat unquantifiable costs of transporting remand inmates from communities to Yellowknife. I think that this will impact on the presence of RCMP officers in communities. Now, granted, a lot of the small communities need more policing services. I would say that Hay River has needed more policing services. Through this new initiative investment, we will be realizing some of that increase. But I don't think that it is a wise and prudent use of our RCMP manpower to be using that for transporting prisoners around, remand inmates, any more than we absolutely have to. If it takes them right out of the community, it poses a problem. It is not like it is just one other thing on their daily schedule of activities to do in the community. It actually removes them from the community. That is why it is so important that we think about this very carefully when we think about how we want to deploy our RCMP, because human resources are scarce in that area.

Hay River, I will speak for, cannot afford to have our RCMP members on the road transporting prisoners back and forth not just once, but in some cases, up to five times for reappearances when they need to come back to their communities where the witnesses and lawyers are. I would like to ask the Minister if he can elaborate a little bit on who is responsible for the transport of prisoners. Is it always the RCMP? Is it sometimes corrections officers? The way the schedule is set up; does it require that the RCMP is out of the community overnight? Do they have to be paid overtime? Are there per diems? Are there hotel costs? I want him to elaborate on that, because I don't think it is the highest and best use of our RCMP resources, to be out of the communities transporting inmates. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.