That's good. Thank you.

Thank you. Next on the list is Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Could the Minister briefly update me in terms of the initiative we are looking at from several regions in terms of adult correction facilities, more of the on-the-land/wilderness camp initiatives in terms of their support for this program and possibly continuing their support? I know Tl'oondih is running the program that will fall into this area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Madam Chair, I am pleased to do that. I want to thank the committee for their support in this regard. It really was at the urging of committee that we decided to look at new approaches to be able to provide the service on the land. I appreciate the committee's support, specifically Members Yakeleya and Lafferty who indicated, really, interest in trying some initiatives in their regions. We recognized that we were having a problem both finding inmates who wanted or were eligible to go to any of these wilderness camps to serve part of their sentence. At the same time, we had fewer and fewer operators willing to provide the service and engage in really what amounted to a business. So we looked at some of the shortcomings and pitfalls and recognized I think, through discussion with Members, that we had to come up with a more streamlined model, a simple model, something that really focussed on the basics. That is about getting back on the land, serving part of your sentence out on the land, doing some healing, but maybe, more importantly, making reparations to the community.

One of our thoughts was that providing meat and doing some hunting for those who may not be able to hunt in communities might be a very useful service and something to be appreciated by communities. So instead of providing a lot of the complex counselling and insisting that the camp operator had to be both a counsellor, a business operator, a jack-of-all-trades, we wanted to see if we couldn't come up with a more successful model by working with some elders, by bringing out one or two people at a time, no more than that, in a very simple setup on the land with tents and rudimentary equipment. This really is about getting back to basics and get back to traditional ways of traditional practices.

So I am happy to say in the two regions, the Tlicho and Sahtu, we are moving ahead. It's a little more quickly in the Sahtu right now. We are in negotiations with an elder. We are hoping very shortly to have some eligible inmates out on the land and then after we are able to conduct this, I have indicated to Members that I will do a review of these pilots, but we're very close now. I understand it's now next steps for me to sit down with the Member, Madam Chair, and understand what the operator is looking for and some of our challenges and some of our accountability issues that we have to ensure are looked after, but I think we're very close. It's down to the short strokes now, Madam Chair, and I think we'll be on the land fairly soon. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm glad to hear that the Minister is saying we're going to be on the land very soon. So I'm looking forward to that program. I'm happy in the Sahtu region and I appreciate his support

to go beyond certain policies and criteria, and again, going back to what makes sense in our region. So I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of this community justice and corrections in terms of community justice committees, is the Minister looking at or will consider looking at in giving more authority to the community justice committees in terms of they have to be looked up as a very serious committee to be reckoned with? Right now the communities are just saying, well, they don't have much authority so they really don't have much power to do any types of meaningful sentencing or decisions made by them to have an impact on the community. Can the justice committees, in terms of the activity descriptions, can they have some meaningful authority to have some impact on young offenders or adults in terms of the community if the people should decide to go to these justice committees? Right now there are more of an advisory committee and I think some of the elders want to talk about these justice committees to have some more authority and such as maybe a judge that comes into our communities. So I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of any type of discussion that possibly could happen in the near future. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Madam Chair, I think there are a couple of things that will come to the floor here as we sit down and conduct our evaluation of community justice committees. We're trying to understand why some succeed and why others are less successful. We're going to look at best practices and I think there are a couple of issues here. The Member has pointed to authority and making sure that the committees are taken more seriously, have more authority, and I think that that's one of the issues that we need to talk about. But maybe more important is making sure that these committees are relevant in that they have the respect of the people in the communities and are providing programming and are involved in aftercare, are involved in making sure people are adequately reintegrated into the community because these committees don't just on their own go out and dictate sentencing. They work restoratively and they work with both victim and accused to make sure that there is a healing that takes place here. We're looking to get away from the formal court system. So we're looking for something that isn't more of the same. I think we've already got that, Madam Chair. We're looking for another model that can work to bring people and communities back together and do so and allow them to heal. So it's about coming up with relevant programming, as I've indicated. But I think this review that we will conduct -- and we'll come back in the May or June Session, have that discussion with Members -- I think is going to raise a lot of these issues, but I'm prepared to talk about the authorities at that point, too. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, my last question to the Minister in terms of this specific item on the budget here. In terms of correctional facilities is the department closely working with the other departments in terms of having an inmate come out of the correctional facility, he usually ends up in a half-way house, be it in the Salvation Army or some other location. What's done for the families when the offender is making the transition from an institution of rules and regulations to society where there's little more broader rules and regulations for safety in society, but also the family that's expecting him or her to be back into a family setting in a community setting that they somewhat have a transition period where they could be more or have a positive contribution to the community? So sometimes if the offender is right back in the community, next thing the children don't even know it or the community doesn't know. So what's the gap that we seem to be sometimes missing is something that I would really like to explore, because I have received some phone calls in terms of this type of situation, and it's no fault of any, just what things are in place to tighten up the aftercare programs or the training programs in the institutions and hopefully that would make a difference to the community. Certainly we don't want to see our people in these facilities. I mean, if we can deter it, if we have our people to prevent them from going back in these institutions, that's the end goal here, to have our people not to go into this facility here or any other facility in the Northwest Territories. I mean, that's the end goal; however, that would require more discussion. So what are the steps in terms of having offenders be integrated back into a society with all the aspects of his or her life? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Madam Chair, there are a number of things and I think there are a couple of questions here, but they are linked and they are connected. Recently, and I'm thinking in the last year or so now, we've had income support workers from ECE go into our facilities to make sure they're working with case workers and with inmates, because each inmate has a post-incarceration plan that is developed with them, and for them to help them be better integrated into the communities when they leave. So we have other agencies involved in that. But even before that, if I could back up just a step, we have made a philosophical shift in recent years and we've talked I think a lot about moving away from warehousing prisoners, to working with prisoners and ensuring there is programming in our facilities, literacy, numeracy, job skills, related programming so that people have an easer time integrating. So those are some of the things that we are doing, but I can assure the Members that we are interested in working in a comprehensive way to make sure people have the best chance of getting back into society and living a meaningful life and not re-offending.

Separate and apart from that, I think the Member asked a question about people being released into communities whether on parole or just outright released. There are protocols in the RCMP that if people are a perceived threat to the community, the RCMP will release their names and notify the communities that they're coming back to, but it's on a balance. They make a determination about whether or not it's in the public good, or if there's a need to release that information also respecting the need for privacy. So that is the test that the RCMP conduct and they have protocols that deal with this. If they think there's the potential for a threat and if they feel that the community should be notified, then they do so. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Next on the list I have Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question. It gets to the graph. I know we're on page 7-35, but I wanted to ask the Minister, and perhaps the deputy minister, when you add up what it costs in terms of corrections, and you can include courts in that, then you're at about 51 percent of your total operations expenditures and you look at law enforcement being about 30 percent. Is that a ratio on expenditures that's typically seen in other jurisdictions? Like, do you typically spend more on corrections in courts than you do on law enforcement? I guess that's the question. I'm wondering are we out of the norm on our ratio on our expenditures than other jurisdictions, and has there ever been any look at that? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bell.

Madam Chair, I can certainly go back and we can take a look at other jurisdictions and be able to provide you with some assessment of how we compare. The one thing I do know is that in terms of police officers on the ground, we have more police officers per population. So that might indicate that we have a higher percentage of money spent in this jurisdiction on law enforcement. But I hesitate to make that assumption without providing some information, and we will do that and bring that back to Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for that, too. In addition to the comments the Minister made in the area of law enforcement, the same would hold true for corrections. I think I'd like to see the comparison made with other jurisdictions in terms of what they spend on corrections and we spend. If we're at 41 percent, or almost 41 percent, of the total Department of Justice's budget on corrections, is that in line with other jurisdictions or is it not? I'm not in any rush for that type of information, Madam Chair, but I'd certainly like to see it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bell.

Madam Chair, we will provide that information, but I can say that obviously we have a higher crime rate than most, if not all, jurisdictions in the country. There are, of course, also, the same as there would be in our education system, economies of scale. When you have a smaller population and you have to build facilities and are up against some overheads that you have to make an investment in, it's easier if you can build on balancing larger facilities throughout your jurisdiction to take advantage of those economies. We aren't in that position. So I think that we'll probably find when we do that comparator, that we are spending more money in these areas. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Next on the list I have Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a quick question in regards to community justice committees. I think I'm going to speak more specific to the youth justice committees in our small communities. I'm just wondering under grants and contributions 2.086 I understand that 1.7 is slotted for their community justice. I'm just wondering if the department has considered increasing that base salary based on dollars for operations and maintenance. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Bell.