Okay, we’ll move back to page 14. Which line item did you want to talk to, Mr. Hawkins?

Under Courts there is just an observation of $664,000 that is spent on court-ordered psychiatric assessments. My first question on this is: do we provide psychiatric assessments in the Northwest Territories?

I’d have to go to the Minister of Health and Social Services to look at whether the Department of Health and Social Services provides this service. When cases are going before criminal court, a presiding judge has the authority to go ahead and order an accused to undergo a psychiatric assessment. We would have arrangements with Alberta if we don’t have those available in the Northwest Territories.

My question, probably misunderstood, had nothing to do with the direction to order court-ordered psychiatric assessments. It had to do more so with whether we provide those services in the Northwest Territories.

I would have to get the details from the Minister on that piece.

I believe this item speaks to the provision of psychiatric treatment for those who are in the criminal or justice system and who are in need of having that treatment or that assessment. The information that the Minister Responsible for the FMB read out states that that is the case.

If the Member wants to know about the health question, we do offer those services. We may not be able to offer all those services in the North, and if that’s the case, they will be referred south.

I’m just concerned that, if we’re offering these services of psychiatric assessment in the Northwest Territories, as the Minister seems to allude to, why are we not sending these folks through this court-ordered process to the professionals that we have?

Mr. Chairman, in this area, for example, the Department of Health and Social Services are providing these services to residents of the Northwest Territories and could be to their capacity or, as well, potentially locums filling in, in a number of those cases, as we have in many other cases of specialists.

The court process. There is an arrangement that deals with the Alberta government and the Capital Health Authority, I believe, that provides this service through their court-ordered psychiatric assessments that are conducted, and they have an arrangement through a contract in that area. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, everyone is making a big deal out of the fact that, oh goodness, we have to send them there, but I want to first find out how many court-ordered assessments have been

issued, and how much is the typical rate that we would normally pay a local psychiatric person/professional to do this job? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the Member is asking again for more detail that goes between two departments, so we wouldn’t have that available to us here. We do have, for example, the court-ordered psychiatric assessment, the data, and we’re projected in 2007-08 to have assessment days of approximately 611, a significant increase from previous years. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, if I got that right, we had 607 assessment days in total. Now, was that all court ordered? What is the cost of a psychiatric professional if they were to be staffed at this end? Thank you.

Once again, Mr. Chairman, the Member is asking between two departments what the assessment rate or what the rate is that the Department of Health and Social Services provides for this area. I can provide him what the assessment rates are under the existing agreement for court-ordered assessments through the Capital Health Authority. The total amount is highlighted at 611. That’s an increase of approximately 450 more assessment days than they had anticipated. What the charges, for example, would add up to — I don’t have a daily rate, but we’re looking at $1,300 a day by the 611 days. Thank you.

What does it cost to hire one of these professionals if we were to staff them at Stanton Hospital? Thank you.

We’ll have to get that information for the Member.

Mr. Chairman, I think this is an example of where we’re sending people to Edmonton, to the Capital Health Authority, for a service that I think we could provide here at a similar cost. If we’re going to pay $664,000 for this, if you’re adding the cost of the assessment, not including the travel and whether it’s getting somebody out of a community, which costs even more than it costs to get out of Yellowknife, probably double or triple…. If you have to send somebody with an escort or if it’s court-ordered, whether you have to send them with a professional such as somebody from the sheriff’s office, all of a sudden hiring one more psychiatric specialist is starting to look pretty cheap. So I would like to make that suggestion.

I would also like that comparison brought forward when they send the rest of the detail to me at that time. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I think the comment about looking at, in a sense, bringing the services to the Northwest Territories is a good one.

And we’ll get that information, again, put together with the rest of the commitments we’ve made in this area.

As well, we have to realize that in past practice when we’ve in a sense repatriated services to the North, it’s not always ended up being less expensive than the current way of doing business. But this looks like it could be a good candidate. Thank you.

Advanced Education and Careers, not previously authorized: $194,000. Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Chairman, I just had a couple of questions in regard to the increase — and I guess it was a negotiated increase — to the lease for Aurora College in their current location at Northern United Place. It’s a substantial increase of close to 30 per cent. That is what I calculated. I’m not sure who we’ve got doing the negotiating of leases, but I think we didn’t negotiate a really good deal if we were paying $660,000, and now we’re paying $900,000-and-some. It’s a substantial increase.

I just wanted to put on the record that I think this deal is for five years. And at the end of this five years or during this next five years, we have got to come up with a plan to build a college, a permanent home for Aurora College here in Yellowknife. There has to be a stand-alone campus here in Yellowknife. We can’t continue to be paying

$1 million in rent every year to Northern United Place. We have to get a dedicated facility up and running within the next five years, and we’ve got five years to do it. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the previous lease amount was entered into ten years ago. As we realize and are seeing, the occupancy rate here in the capital has changed significantly since ten years ago, hence, the increase of the new negotiated lease amount. The Member is right: it is for a five-year renewal.

Of course, every government would have to look at its options to see what’s available. The department can look at that. But again, with our tight fiscal environment, coming up with actual capital dollars to build a facility versus leasing is something that is also going to be part of the equation.

Mr. Chairman, I was just going to reaffirm that I hope the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is taking this seriously, the increase, and that I too – Mr. Ramsay beat me to the punch –- think that this is now a serious demonstration of how we could fix some of our expenditures and our problems associated with that.

On top of that, a lot of people know that this would bring a new and much higher profile to the college, that I think it requires and is also hungry for, because I think this college now wants to continue to grow. As well, it has potential, I think, of migrating towards more of a university format. I have big expectations for this to continue. And I think this is the underpinning point: $1 million a year for a lease cost is a lot of money. I hope the Education Minister is listening very closely, so we have high expectations that they move very quickly on coming up with a solution.

I’ll tell you that five years is going to go by very fast, and someone is going to be sitting there, hopefully not sleeping at the switch, going, “Oh, my goodness, we didn’t plan for a university or a college campus,” whatever it’s going to be at that time. Then we’re going to have to renew for another five years. I’ll say to the Education Minister: heed our warning at this time. We want to be able to move forward. Thank you.

The Member will have plenty of opportunity during the business plan stages of our budget development process to work with the Minister Responsible for Education, Culture and Employment. Right now, as identified and as structured in the Northwest Territories, the headquarters of the main Aurora College is situated in Fort Smith with campuses in Inuvik and Yellowknife as main campuses, and then we have smaller facilities in other communities. Thank you.

Still on page 16, Education, Culture and Employment, Advanced Education and Careers, not previously authorized: $194,000.

Advanced Education and Careers, $194,000

approved.

Income Security, not previously authorized: $552,000. Agreed?

Income Security, $552,000 approved.