Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the motion points out, the federal legislation will have an even higher impact on our citizens than elsewhere. The NWT has the highest or nearly the highest incident rates of many minor crimes. Typically, we have worked with these first time offenders and small crime offenders to get them back on track, but now with the two-year minimums, there are serious consequences. Of course, one of the results will be, as mentioned in the motion, the loss of culture, the loss of these young people being embedded in their family and community life where they can develop responsibly and be put back on track, and, of course, they will be associating during long periods of time, with these two-year minimums, with criminals that have much more serious and complicated backgrounds that can again lead them down the wrong path over that two-year period that they are incarcerated.
The expectation of higher not guilty pleas than appeals, of course, will have major and direct costs. We know that, you know, you try to hire a lawyer to participate in GNWT’s justice system and it’s just about impossible these days. Legal Aid is always struggling to find legal expertise. The potential for soaring costs that will result from this aspect alone has serious potential to overload an already overloaded system.
The more and larger incarcerations have obvious direct costs. Our facilities are already burdened with full capacity and we don’t have additional capacity. We know that our fiscal situation is very challenging right now. We don’t have the potential or capacity to really put in place more facilities to deal with this burgeoning potential load of convicted offenders resulting from this legislation.
The Aboriginal people in the NWT already make up a disproportionately high number of those in our correctional facilities, in our courts and in contact with our police. Our correctional facilities are already filled beyond capacity. With no infrastructure money in hand, they can’t be expanded, and the point is, we don’t want to pack the jails as a solution to our social ills.
I also want to point out that this government is doing its part. As we heard from the Minister of Health and Social Services earlier today, there is a good effort – I believe the Minister of Justice has talked about this too – a good effort towards prevention and diversion of people away from the justice system to reduce the burden on the public purse and the toll of damage across society.
This motion calls upon the federal government to recognize the additional costs it will levy upon us, and to work in partnership with us to effectively handle the challenges that will be a consequence of this legislation by providing us with the resources to be able to do that.
In summary right now, I will be supporting this motion and the positive, cooperative approach it proposes. Mahsi.