Minister of Justice, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could get Ms. Schofield to elaborate on that, please.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Schofield.

Thank you for that information.

On another subject here, I want to make the observation that, as a new MLA, this is one area, one activity of government, where I’ve had to spend a lot of time with constituency issues. It’s had specifically to do with, I would say, discontent in the workplace and the amazing amount of similarity and issues raised by people in this activity area that I’ve been dealing with. I’m just looking for some assurance from the Minister that…. There’s been consistent concerns that, in this process of reduction and layoffs, we’re sort of targeting people who may be considered by some to be problem employees. Of course, that’s quite a matter of perspective.

Can the Minister assure me that the letting go of court workers and others in this department is not targeted at those individuals, or positions that have individuals, considered to be problematic employees?

Certainly, that is not the case. When we go through a proposed reduction, we look at all avenues, the pros and cons. We do seek out the management and staff to seek their input. We exhaust all avenues before we pursue it.

Would it be fair to assume that these positions are not currently under any grievances or anything like that?

Mr. Cooper.

Thank you.

Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to speak a bit to the issue of reducing the court workers in the four communities. The Minister stated that he’s trying to cut costs, and I’m all for cutting costs, but I think there’s a couple of things that haven’t been considered in light of this particular reduction.

It’s been mentioned by the Member for Nunakput that the court worker in his community — and I suspect it happens in other communities as well — does a great deal more than just take legal aid applications. I think there was a recommendation from the Social Programs Committee that Justice consider looking at these particular jobs, the legal aid or the court worker jobs, and re-profiling them, expanding the duties of the court worker job to include other things, such as working for the Community Justice committee. There’s any number of items within a community that the court worker could assist with. It has also been mentioned by the Member for Nunakput that there’s an amount of travel involved and various other and sundry tasks they do.

I’d like to ask the Minister if there was any analysis done prior to the decision to cut these four court worker positions, other than analyzing the number of legal aid applications they take in a year and the number of courts they attend in a year. Was there an analysis of any other work that these particular workers do, such as travel and assisting clients to court, et cetera?

Minister.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Currently, the Tuk position we’re referring to does not do much travelling, except for today because of the Inuvik person being on leave at this point. But

that’s the case right now, that they are alternating that position. That’s why you see them travelling to the communities currently. Usually they’re within their own community. That’s where it’s at.

Thank you for that information. I would like to know whether or not the department did an analysis of the work that court workers do in the communities that have been affected: Yellowknife, South Slave and Beau-Del — if there was an analysis of the work these particular individuals do prior to the decision to cut them.

Ms. Schofield.

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, because I think there’s an opportunity to provide a service to smaller communities by expanding the duties these particular people can do. I think I have to point out, again, as was pointed out in the report from the standing committee, that Community Justice has two sides: there’s a victim and there’s also the perpetrator. The court worker can work with one side and, to my mind, avoid that conflict.

Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, along with Mr. Jacobson, represent the two communities in the Beaufort-Delta that have had legal aid workers put on notice that their jobs are at risk. Yet for a saving of $90,000 for four positions, which adds up to less than $25,000 per person, I can’t see the justification why these are particular areas of concern.

Just lately, in regard to supplementary appropriation items that came before us in the last day of this House, there were major capital expenditure cost overruns in travel in the Department of Justice for charters in and out of airports. Charters go into communities, and they sit at the airport until a court party decides it’s time to go. There’s a major cost savings there if you simply stop using that practice and allow those charters to be used only when they need to go into a community and when they need to come out, and not hold the aircraft at that airport. You could have saved this $90,000 on probably one court tour of the Beaufort region.

I can’t see how you can justify taking four people’s livelihoods out of our communities. These people have been trained for that particular job. These people service other communities in the regions; they go up to Tuk; they go to Fort Good Hope; they go to other communities outside of Fort McPherson and Tuk. Yet nowhere in your report did you make mention of that but to say, Well, there are 60 cases at McPherson and eight court parties. A large number of clients I know up in Fort McPherson drive to Inuvik to go to court because they’re told the court party will not be in the community for a while, and that’s in order….

The bottom line of justice is the right to have justice that’s fair to one and fair to all. More importantly, you’re innocent until proven guilty and have the ability to, basically, see a lawyer. In most cases in a community, the court party pops into town, the person’s on a list of people who are going to get called, and you get 20 minutes with a lawyer before you go into that courtroom. Is that justice? I don’t think so. Yet these individuals, in order to acquire a lawyer…. You need to be able to get some fees to pay for a lawyer to begin with and be able to have access to a lawyer in those communities. Somebody mentioned there are two lawyers in Inuvik.

In order for our communities to get to a lawyer, they either have to call Yellowknife, go to Yellowknife, talk to a lawyer at a…. Yet the whole idea of justice in the Northwest Territories is the whole concept of being fair, that you’re innocent until proven guilty

and you have your day in court. The system that’s there to save $90,000 I think is totally pathetic.

Again, I’d like to ask the Minister: have you looked at other areas for savings before you made the decision to save $90,000 for four people’s jobs, by looking at the cost of forced growth items in the Department of Justice, such as charters?

Minister of Justice, Mr. Lafferty.

Mr. Chair, this is an area we seriously looked at before the proposed reductions. If it’s going to save us money over time, along with other reduced or eliminated areas…. This area is not just $91,000; it’s $365,000 that we’ll save over a two-year period.

The Member stated that the charter going to a community is costing us a substantial amount of money. It would cost an even more substantial amount of money if we contracted services. We do what we can for justice — to have the judges, the lawyers and also the court workers going to the community to attend. Where there are no sched services, the plane would have to wait on them. Wherever possible, the department tries to use the sched services. At times the judges do request charter services to the communities. That’s what we’re faced with today. Certainly, that area has been addressed with our department already. Mahsi.