Just one further clarification. So these two positions will be coming up sometime this summer, but how long are the people who are affected employees…?How long does that priority staff retention policy apply to them? At what point does somebody say, “The date has come and gone. There were no positions, and therefore there are no more options for that”? When an affected employee has been notified, how long does that apply for?

Thank you, Mr. Cooper. Next on our list is Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that this committee strongly recommends that government take immediate action to reinstate funding in the amount of $45,000 for the proposed reduction of two program delivery officers at North Slave Correctional Centre under the Department of Justice, under the Community Justice and Corrections Activity.

The motion is on the floor. The motion is being distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ve had a great deal of discussion on the program delivery officers at North Slave Correctional Centre. I won’t go over everything again, but suffice it to say, I believe there’s some question on this side of the House whether or not the frequency and the reliability of programming at that centre is going to be impacted as a result of these two program delivery officers being let go. I also wanted to say again for the record, I believe decisions like this fly in the face of the government’s overall goal of having safer communities. Without programming,

quality programming, timely programming at North Slave Correctional Centre for the inmates who are there that are going to end up back in our communities…. They need to have that programming, so that when they do go back to our communities, they are rehabilitated to the best of our ability, anyway.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I’d like to ask for a recorded vote on this motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. To the motion, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have, in this building, probably the lone experience of actually being a former employee of the corrections system. I used to work at the old corrections centre as a guard for a number of years, and I had some experience in many of the areas through administration and whatnot. I know from my experience of working at the centre that a lot of inmates are there due to certain problems, and the reason they’re there a lot of times has to do with alcohol. Then we end up having subsequent problems that fall out of the issue, that continue to go on and spiral.

The point I’m trying to make is that the road to recovery takes a lot of paths. By reducing any programming, I think you take away from the potential for any rehabilitation. That’s my concern. The whole principle there is to give people a fresh start. They’ve made some errors in their ways and move forward on the good step. If we take away an opportunity, I think we don’t just do the inmate a harm, I think we do society as a whole and injustice, because what we’re doing is putting people back out on the streets without that type of support mechanism, when they could be taking something useful to move forward.

I can appreciate why certain reductions come forward and whatnot. At this time I just can’t support how this reduction is being put forward, because of how I understand the program and my experience of seeing it work. I’ll be voting in favour of this motion because I think it’s something that delivers real value.

Mr. Chairman, just in closing, when you have people sitting there 24 hours a day, and while they’re probably only thinking about (a) how to get out and (b) how to make the guards’ lives miserable, we need to give them positive notes and positive things to look forward to and certainly to work towards. Mr. Chairman, I felt it important to make sure that it was said — that this goes deeper than just the centre. I think it has a negative effect on the territorial communities at large.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion, Mr. Minister.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I just want to highlight why we’ve proposed. There’s no implication on the program itself. It does not jeopardize the program. The program does continue to be delivered at these corrections. At the same time, Mr. Chair, what we’re proposing here are some changes to the current positions that we have, and there are also vacant positions. These two individuals that are potentially impacted will certainly have the opportunity to move up to another position — case managers. They do have many years of experience. They have a really good chance of fulfilling these positions, and it is the same people who will be delivering that particular program. So really, at the end of the day, you probably won’t see any layoffs due to that fact, once these two positions are filled by current individuals.

So that’s part of the reason why we proposed this, Mr. Chair. We were given a target — being cost-effective and also effective program delivery — so we felt the need to reduce those two positions but at the same time to fill another two positions, possibly with the two same individuals.

So with that, Mr. Chair, I just want to remark that as part of our mandate as Justice, we’ll be moving forward on this, just for the record. We’re not impacting on a program delivered at these corrections. Mahsi.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. To the motion, Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Chairman, before we go to the vote on this, I did want to close out the discussion. I think what you see in this motion runs through this entire discussion that we’re having on the ’08–09 budget. It’s no fault of the Justice Minister; it’s no fault of the departmental staff. The reductions that are proposed to take place have not been well thought out, have not been well planned, have not been well communicated, and that is the fundamental issue that I have. Some of the other Regular Members share those concerns, Mr. Chairman.

It’s all nice and good for the Minister to say that there is a possibility that the two impacted employees in this program area are going to move up to case management or they’re going to get other positions. That’s all fine and good. Once that decision is made, will that actually happen? I don’t know. Who’s communicating that to the employees? I don’t think anybody’s communicating that to the employees. I don’t think the management at the facility is communicating that. It’s the first I’ve heard of that.

I think this is just a systemic problem of poor planning and poor communication on the budget in its entirety. This motion is just a microcosm of that.

Again, in practice, will it impact the frequency and the reliability of program delivery at that centre? I think it will, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. To the motion.

The question has been called. A recorded vote has been requested. All those in favour of the motion, please stand.

All those opposed, please stand. All those abstaining, please stand.

Principal Clerk of Operations (Ms. Bennett) Mr. Lafferty, Ms. Lee, Mr. Miltenberger, Mr. Michael McLeod, Mr. Yakeleya, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Members, the results of the recorded vote are in: ten in favour, zero opposed, six abstaining.

Motion carried.

We’re still on page 7-35, Department of Justice, Activity Summary, Community Justice and Corrections, Operations Expenditure Summary: $33.826 million. Ms. Bisaro.

The motion is being distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This $83,000 references a coordinator position for the Community Justice program within the Department of Justice. I feel quite strongly that the explanation the department gave us during our briefing wasn’t quite adequate.

One of the goals of the department is stated as, to increase the capacity and the role of communities to address Justice issues. And I think the department, along with this particular position as well as funding for various and sundry Community Justice projects, is pretty much gutting anything that Community Justice committees can do in our various communities.

Within the last Assembly, there were a number of gains that were made in relation to Community Justice, where programs were set up. This position of a coordinator was established. It was unfortunately never filled. The department has advised us that certainly the funding for Community Justice projects wasn’t fully subscribed to.

I think most of the reason for that lack of subscription to the Community Justice funding was the fact that there wasn’t a coordinator to assist the various communities in the work that they want to do as a Community Justice committee.

My understanding is that where Community Justice committees exist, they’re really quite effective. They do good work within the communities, and I think they’re really a positive influence on justice issues within the communities and difficulties with criminal activities and so on. So I really feel that removing this position at this point, even though it’s vacant, is not going to assist communities who currently don’t have a Community Justice committee; it certainly is going to be of no assistance to them in establishing Community Justice committees.

I think that it’s something that certainly needs to be there. We could perhaps cut some of the project funding, but without a coordinator to manage and to assist communities in their Community Justice activities, I think it’s just not going to succeed.

Thank you,

Ms. Bisaro. To the motion, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The program delivery that we’re talking about, the motion that’s before us, the $83,000…. Part of the reason why we’re moving forward on this is that there is also additional funding, as we indicated earlier, from the federal government, that does all sit in these areas. We will continue to work with our federal counterparts in that particular area. Part of the reason why our department came down on these items is that we are moving in that direction, where the money’s allocated from the feds. One of these areas that we’re talking about — that’s also a vacant position.

So, Mr. Chair, I think we are, as a Justice Department, moving at the right direction, to be an efficient government where, as a department, we’re highlighting where we need to improve in the spending to the communities. And we’ll fully utilize the funding that we’re receiving from the feds on to

the communities. We will continue to do that. Mahsi.