Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Returns to written questions. Petitions. Reports of committees on the review of bills. Tabling of documents. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Return to Written Question 44-15(5), I wish to table the following document entitled Historic Funding 2002-2003 to 2007-2008 Summary. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Tabling of documents. The honourable Premier, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, further to my Return to Written Question 47-15(5), I wish to table the following document entitled Federal Revenues from Non-Renewable Natural Resource Exploitation in the North, by Category 1986-87 to 2005-06. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Tabling of documents. Notices of motion. Notices of motion for first reading of bills. First reading of bills. Second reading of bills. Consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Bills 18, 19, 21, Committee Reports 7, 8, 9, 10, and Tabled Document 104-15(5), with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair. By the authority given to the Speaker by Motion 22-15(5), Committee of the Whole may sit beyond the hour of adjournment until it is prepared to report. Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair.

I call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the committee wishes to consider Bill 21, Appropriation Act, 2007-08, specifically dealing with the Justice Department and Environment and Natural Resources; and, Madam Chair, we would like to deal with Bill 18, An Act to Amend the Education, and Bill 19, An Act to Amend the Archives Act. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Does committee agree?

Agreed. We'll do that right after a break.

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Committee members, we left off yesterday on the Department of Justice. We have been through the Minister's opening remarks and the committee's opening remarks. We are ready to go onto general comments, but I will ask if

committee if they agree...Oh, Mr. Minister, would you like to bring witnesses to the table? Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Does committee agree?

Thank you. I will ask Mr. Sergeant-at-Arms if you would please escort the witnesses to the table. Thank you.

Minister Bell, for the record, could you please introduce your witnesses?

Thank you, Madam Chair. With me today is Don Cooper, the deputy minister of Justice; and Kim Schofield is the director of finance. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Welcome and I will ask the Members now if they have any general comments on the Department of Justice. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I want to focus on some key issues that my region is facing today and the first one I want to look at is with the initiative that the Department of Justice is going to look at other communities with similar type of population, lifestyle, in terms of the presence of RCMP officers in the communities. I certainly support the Minister in terms of Sachs Harbour getting a permanent RCMP station in that community. Also the pilot project that's been looked at in Gameti in terms of how the RCMP is being considered as having a person or persons in that position there in Gameti. I know Wrigley is also being considered and some of the other communities around here that desperately need the presence of the RCMP members.

Earlier on a colleague of mine spoke about the other initiatives happening in the North here in regards to citizens in the Northwest Territories taking some ownership and that and with the amount of dollars that are being looked at by this government and, of course, our social needs and economic needs and cultural needs are so high it will be a while before a community like Colville Lake would see or look at an RCMP officer, even such as Tsiigehtchic. They don't have an RCMP officer. So these other communities that have RCMP presence in their community, somewhat feel a level of safety and the comfort of having RCMP presence in the community versus the ones that do not have an RCMP in their communities. I want to ask, I guess, when we get to detail, Madam Chair, detailed questions on this specific issue here, on the need for RCMP presence or a different type of attitude or a different type of view on how do we put some safety measures into our communities, giving our community more authority or power to look at or share resources. So I want to ask those questions later, Madam Chair. Right now just a general comment on that issue.

Madam Chair, the other issue I want to look at is that the encouragement that I see in this Minister in terms of looking outside the justice system in terms of the correctional facilities. He's worked with me and another Member in the House here in terms of having some wilderness camps be the starting point where inmates from institutions can be placed in these wilderness camps. I think it's really beneficial. I just don't think we have seen enough of the benefits or spoken enough of the benefits of having these wilderness camps in our regions or our communities. There is so much we can do with these wilderness camps and I think the Minister should certainly be congratulated. He certainly has my support in terms of looking outside the box, so to speak, in creating these wilderness camps for the people by the people that they're meant to be. It's a healing process. I think the Minister is on the right direction in terms of healing some of our people that need these healing camps as opposed to the corrections facility. There's a need for those correctional facilities and I think with these healing camps I think our wilderness camps will be a real benefit for the people and their families.

I want to talk about this healing camp in terms of there was another one that started up a couple years ago with the Tl'oondih Healing Society up in Fort McPherson where this was a pilot project and I haven't yet to date seen a document that says this was a good project. This Tl'oondih Healing Society did a good job in terms of working with the Department of Justice. I know it was a pilot project. I haven't seen anything in terms of what type of results that said that this was a good initiative by the Department of Justice in the Northwest Territories. I want to ask some questions to the Minister after on the Tl'oondih Healing Society. I think with the amount of people we have in our facilities, that this facility can be used as a point where families can get together and inmates can use this facility.

Madam Chair, in terms of Aftercare Program, I guess in terms of gaps that happen between someone leaving their community, going to such a facility, certainly we put a lot of emphasis and lots of support behind the Salvation Army. But like one of my elders said in the communities, we need to take them out of the Salvation Army and put them back in our communities. Let's not use the Salvation Army as a next step to reintegrating our people back into our communities, because I think we're lacking in that area in terms of aftercare programs. Bringing these people into these programs requires a lot of help and a lot of support by this government.

Madam Chair, the second last point I want to make is on some of the choices that we have given to our inmates and sometimes people need to be directed, steered into some of these programs. I know sometimes when I have some choices I won't always choose the one that's best for me in terms of what I need to do to be of benefit to society in terms of community wellness and community health. Sometimes it's easier to do nothing than to do any type of work on either myself or my family. So, Madam Chair, I think that some of these, and it may even be case by case, but some of these programs should be mandatory for some of these people who are in these institutions to go into Tl'oondih, go into the bush camp, go into Fort Good Hope, or go into anywhere in this territory that has a bush camp, to go through some of these programs here. If you have a nice facility that provides you heat, electricity and food, why would you want to go to a camp? It's tough out there, a tough life out there. I know it's beneficial, but a lot of our people haven't grown up in these days in terms of no woodstove, I mean, sorry, without furnace or electricity or water. But in my generation we certainly have. I guess it's a real balance.

So I'm going to ask questions to the Minister on that hand see what we can do.

Madam Chair, the last point I want to make is empowering our communities into the justice system and helping our community justice committees, strengthen our communities by taking a little more, taking on more ownership into helping our communities with the justice in our communities. I think by strengthening them and giving them some flexibility and some authority to how they administer justice, I think we can go a long way in terms of how to deal with the communities and how we could support our members. Because we usually just deal with the individual, Madam Chair, and sometimes the families, small children and the spouse usually gets left out somewhere and they get bounced off to health and social services or to education or to mental health and income support. But we don't really see any type of coordinated effort where all the families would get together, the children, work with them, work with the, usually the father that is or the husband is the one that's being sent out of the community. Madam Chair, I think we need to do more for the families. I'm going to ask the Minister later on in the details in terms of what we can do to strengthen our families rather than tear them apart. It's not blaming anybody; it's how do we help our small communities that can do this kind of work here. I point again to some of the facilities we already have in the Northwest Territories. I hope we could start utilizing some of these facilities that are out there already, proving that they do work, proving that it may cost a little more, but the benefits far outweigh what we're doing right now.

Madam Chair, that's all I have in terms of my opening comments. Thank you.

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