Okay, thank you. Page 7-13, I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Madam Chair, I may ask for some guidance here. I wanted to ask the Minister about the positions in the regions, and as I said in my own general comments, in terms of a presence of the Department of Justice in the Sahtu region. So I'm going to ask for guidance on where should I bring this issue up.

Thank you. I think it would be fine right now. I don't see...Maybe under active positions, I don't know. Mr. Yakeleya, just go ahead now. We are trying to get more organized here in terms of being on the right page, but since you're posing the question to me, I don't know the answer, so you just go ahead.

Okay, thank you. Straight to the question is, would the department consider putting a regional position in the Sahtu?

Well, there we go. Thank you. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We're down to the cut and thrust of it now. Of course, I'm not in any position, you could appreciate, to suggest that I'm not going to answer questions if they're on the wrong page. We'll just do the best we can to adjust.

Madam Chair, in terms of how we're organized, it is different than other departments in terms of our regional complement of staff. Our court workers in communities do report back to the Legal Services Board in Yellowknife, but our corrections workers report regionally and sometimes the regional staff are at facilities and sometimes not. But for the most part, they are in facilities. But I'm not sure exactly what type of position the Member is talking about or where he thinks there is a void, but if the Member wants to take me through that, we can talk a little bit about where he sees a need or a void in the region. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll take up the invitation from the Minister, in terms of a void here. In terms of the programs and services that we operate or administrate out of our communities, at times they have difficulties working with the headquarters in Yellowknife. I'm not too sure if they even deal with the Inuvik region in terms of the court services, in terms of the justice programs, and overall with the other initiatives by Justice. We're working in isolation. There's no coordinated effort that says this is a Sahtu justice program, even that's in line with one of our recent self-government land claim negotiations. Negotiations...(inaudible)...with Deline. The justice committees I know in the Sahtu are working in isolation. They individually phone headquarters. So there's no coordinated approach in our region so say that this is similar to what they have at Education, or Health and Social Services, or other departments, MACA, that are regionally located with a presence in the Sahtu. We don't have that with Justice. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In terms of community justice committees, we have contribution agreements with the committees in the communities, and the Member's right, that they do report up to Yellowknife when there are concerns, or questions, or issues that they need to deal with. I can't remember which Member, but I think the point was made earlier that we have undertaken a review of our community justice committees because we've recognized for some time now that some function much more effectively, we believe, than others. I don't think we're entirely sure why. It doesn't necessarily seem to be always the amount of funding. So there are a number of issues here.

I think when it comes to diversions, a community has to buy the approach, has to believe that diversions make sense and want to use the community justice committee for that reason. The RCMP has got to be supportive in the community. If they're not, this won't work. So there are a number of issues that we're working through. I'm hoping by the next time we meet, in June, to have finished the review and the inventory of our committees, and then we can talk, I think, more effectively about resourcing; what kinds of resource decisions we need to make. Training is another thing that I really think we need to talk about and focus on. We know that the level of training in our community justice committees is not the same throughout our communities. So I think it makes a lot more sense for us to sit down and do this comprehensive review, and then identify gaps and talk about what kinds of resourcing we need.

It may be that we need to talk about, in this era of self-government, of regional support positions potentially. I

know that you've seen the initiative with new regional positions in this budget for the Department of the Executive. I'm not sure exactly what role they'll play in terms of some of our programs, vis a vis our community justice committees. But I think it's a very good point, and something we need to have more discussion around. I guess I'd like to have better information for the Member, and I believe that I will have that as we sit down with committee prior to the June session. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Anything further, Mr. Yakeleya?

Thank you, Madam Minister and thank you, Madam Chair, in terms of the Minister's commitment to pursue this idea further in our region, I look forward to that discussion we'll have. Again it gets back to the presence of this department in our region that's going to be heavily impacted in the future, even impacted today, that the Department of Justice has a presence. Again, the department has these committees that are working in isolation. I appreciate the extra dollars going into these justice committees to provide extra training or extra services, yet it seems like you have jails and courthouses that have large facilities and we concentrate a lot of our people and dollars to those facilities. So I wanted, I guess, just to say I'm encouraged by what the Minister said in terms of his approach to having some review. I hope he can work with other departments who have some regional positions to say is the department willing to consider that we take on some of the role of the responsibility of a justice presence, so the people in the region can phone somebody in the Sahtu and talk to them, and then can go around to the regions, into the communities, and visit them, rather than have somebody from Yellowknife. Which is good, but they've got a big region in the Northwest Territories. So we're saying we have to put a little more concentration in the region.

There's MACA, there's Education, certainly one of them can take on that role as the justice...I'm not too sure, but that's just an idea here. So I'm just floating that by now, Madam Chair, so I'm going to leave it at that. I heard the Minister and I appreciate his openness to bring it back for further discussion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Thank you. I know there was not a question, and maybe just a little bit of some suggestion as to why we've been structured and organized the way we have. I think in past, because of scarce resources, we tended to focus instead of having layers of bureaucracy in the regions, if we were able to find money for justice we typically were trying to reinvest in policing, making sure the RCMP had the adequate resources on the ground to ensure public safety, making sure that our court was able to travel and bring justice to people. I think you've seen that increasing, although that's not great news, we are getting out there and making sure that people have access to court in their regions. That isn't something that's common across many jurisdictions. That is something that's quite unique in the Northwest Territories, and I think it's a model that we're proud of.

So we will work with Members and I think we're always flexible. What works in one region may not work in all regions. We don't believe that there's a boilerplate model that we can apply and take a cookie cutter approach. So I want to work with Members; we will do that. But just to give some explanation as to where we've seen the priorities in past, we tend to try to put our money into frontline positions wherever possible. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Activity summary, services to government, operations expenditure summary, $8.589 million.

Agreed. Thank you. Activity summary, services to government, grants and contributions, grants, total grants, $79,000. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just quickly, I see the YWCA received $60,000 in the '05-06 budget, and it looks like it's for Protection Against Family Violence Act. I'm wondering why that wasn't continued to operate as a designate. Was the money not used? Was it a one-time grant? Hence, why was it not carried forward as part of doing business and whatnot? Maybe the Minister can shed some light on why there's no money attached to that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We anticipate that we will be successful in resigning the contribution agreement with the YWCA to provide this service. It was done on a one-year basis, so we're going to sit down, and I believe we are sitting down, to renegotiate that and talk about that for this year, as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's certainly good news. I'm glad to hear that. In anticipation of signing an agreement, where will the money come from, and I'm curious why it wasn't identified as at least a ballpark number to signify that it's being seriously considered. So where will the money come from that they've suggested that if they do sign some type of agreement? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Bell.

I understand, Madam Chair, that it is O and M under policy and planning, and once it's specifically earmarked for this project, then it would be transferred into this area. So we do have the money to provide the support to the YWCA for this initiative. It isn't reflected here because the contribution agreement hasn't been signed and at the time of the production of this, we weren't able to be absolutely sure that that would be the case. But I think we know that we're working toward finding an arrangement with the Y.