I’m sure with…Yeah. Okay. What I’m getting at is housing one inmate, even if I take your fee of $266 per day as just a rough estimate, even if I round it up to $300 per day, we’re still talking about the cost of about $120,000 a year to run a facility for that specific person on the basis of what they bring in for cost. Now, I ask you what is the cost to run that facility when we have to staff it. In other words, are the costs coming in justifying the expense to keep the doors open? I wonder, if we’re keeping the facility open for one person, would it not make economic sense to transfer this person to a southern facility rather than to keep the full facility open for one person.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The question that was asked earlier was how many youth female offenders we have in custody. We have one. That female offender is at the youth facility here in Yellowknife which also contains male youth. So there isn’t one person in that facility; there are a larger number of individuals. There are seven individuals in that facility here in Yellowknife, not one. I’m not sure if that clarity changes the question.

It does in this particular case, not realizing they were in a mixed situation. Then it would go to the point of does the department provide an evaluation of where becomes the breakeven point where we choose to house our own inmates at a significant cost or can we consider sending them to another particular facility, if need be, outside the territory and we pay that direct cost. In some cases it may be cheaper for us to pay – by way of a simple example, if I may – $120,000 to house an inmate in Alberta where it costs us $3 million to keep the facility open for that one inmate per year. The point is, what type of cost-benefit analysis do you do and how do you identify our breakeven point?

Having a jail in a community, be it Yellowknife or any other smaller community, yes, recognizes economic development, it keeps people employed, it provides services, it draws in business, et cetera, but when our ship has to be running on tight margins, does no one ever consider value for money? As I pointed out, there will be a breakeven point where we say to ourselves it’s more efficient to run it in this particular manner.

I don’t need to remind the House at length, obviously, about Arctic Tern, about the efficiencies of how that facility was run and built under the circumstances when the federal act was changed, but yet it was rammed through many Assemblies ago that that facility was needed even though the act changed and then it was out of date by the time

it was built. I just wonder is that analysis taking place. We could be spending money more efficiently and more appropriately, although this is the Justice department not the Health department. I mean, we could be diverting money appropriately to prevention. You know, when somebody says where’s the money coming from. You know, here are examples of gaps that should be taken into consideration. To the point, and certainly the question: Does the department do a cost-benefit analysis on these types of matters, and if they do, will they be willing to provide it to Members? Thank you.

We haven’t done necessarily a cost-benefit analysis, but the department has a mandate to keep its offenders in the Northwest Territories close to their homes and close to their family, close to their culture where their family can get to them and visit them. There are other things that we have to factor in, as well, as in will other jurisdictions take our offenders.

Most jurisdictions are faced with exactly the same challenges we’re faced with, which is overcrowding. For us to try to go to other jurisdictions and stick some of our offenders there can prove to be quite complicated. But the main reason we haven’t done the cost-benefit analysis like the Member is talking about is our mandate, is let’s keep our Northerners close to home; let’s keep them in programs that are culturally relevant; let’s keep them in programs that are specific to the Northwest Territories geared for residents of the Northwest Territories. Those are important aspects of our mandate and we want to maintain that, recognizing, as well, like I said earlier, will other facilities in other jurisdictions be willing to even take our people when they’ve got the same issues we do, which is overcrowding.

The facilities that we have, the youth facility here in Yellowknife has greater capacity than we currently are utilizing, and if Bill C-10 comes, we imagine that some of those spots will disappear, so that facility will likely be used to a greater extent, which is another motivation for building the facility in Fort Smith, which is to help us get the youth female offenders out of our facility here in Yellowknife and back to Fort Smith.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Next on my list is Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m not actually sure I understand the question 100 percent. We do have internal systems in the Government of the Northwest Territories within the Department of Justice both in courts and corrections and we do maintain those programs in house. Those programs are getting quite old and we are going to need to look at upgrading those programs shortly. But I’m not sure I fully understood your question.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Dolynny, I’m not quite sure where you are. We’re on general comments, so if you’re on a specific page, if you could wait until we get to the specific page. Mr. Dolynny.

Sorry, Madam Chair. I couldn’t hear that. To clarify my question here for just opening comments here, is the in-house cost of doing IT services more cost effective than doing it in a TSC environment?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For many of the IT programs that are being supported within the GNWT, we are part of the IT whole system, supported by the TSC, our general, sort of, normal programs. The programs where we’re not supported by them in the same way would be our courts program and our correction programs. Those are specific, similar to many programs that exist in Education and similar to many programs that exist in Health and Social Services that are administered by the department. We do the same with our court program and our corrections program.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would ask the Department of Justice if there is any reason why they wouldn’t create a cost-benefit analysis to ask themselves where they’re getting good value for money when considering balancing the costs of carrying offenders and the costs of findings alternative options. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Abernethy.

Madam Chair, over the last four years I’ve heard many Members in this House talk about the programming that they’d like to see in corrections facilities and they talked a lot about culturally specific programs. To consider moving inmates outside of the Northwest Territories

means that those inmates will not have culturally relevant programming.

I believe the mandate of this department is a good mandate and keeping our offenders in the North to benefit from our programs, including our cultural programs, is the way to go. I’m not sure that there would be much support for actually sending our inmates south when they’re not federal inmates. They’re territorial inmates with sentences of two years less a day. It would require a mandate change on the department to consider housing our inmates in the South.

Well, I’ll ask it this way: Is there anything to prohibit the Department of Justice from providing an alternative solution such as a southern institution if it was seen as that was considered a relevant option to send an inmate to? Is there anything to prohibit that? Thank you.

There’s nothing to prohibit, but it would cost money to do that analysis and I think our money could be better spent on programming for the residents of the Northwest Territories and the facilities that we do have.

Okay. Then on one hand you’ll say that it’s better to have local programming even though it may be a lot of money, but we don’t know this for sure, of course. Yet, on the other hand, you’d say we’d like to see our money spent specifically to help people. I mean, quite often I’ve heard calls for on-the-land programs, but yet the first answer is we don’t have any money. What I’m asking for is what harm has it done to do an analysis to ask ourselves the cost of running – and I’m talking about the smaller type of facilities where we only have a couple of inmates potentially, be it now or certainly in the short term – to ask ourselves the question, which is why would we allow a facility to run in a manner that we’re not spending our money efficiently. I mean, many times I’ve heard my colleague from the Sahtu say, look, all we need is a couple hundred thousand dollars. We can put a camp in some community. We can get people out on the land. He talks about a better way that they could connect with both their culture, their spirit, get away from some of the troubles and refocus in on the important values of life. I couldn’t agree with him more. But yet, every year, time after time the answer always is we do not have any money. We like your concept but never have any money.

Here I’m providing an option and providing a suggestion that an analysis could ask ourselves are we running our facilities efficiently. On one hand, we’ll hear, well, we have a mandate but there’s no, you know, culture programs. It’s like you’re using that as the wedge item. There are a lot of things to consider and I recognize that. I think that a cost-benefit analysis would ask ourselves what makes sense. When we have one colleague will say this is a better way to connect with our constituents in a

culture-based way, you know, you can’t use it against us one day and then use it for us the next. I’m asking what would stop the department from asking themselves, through a cost-benefit analysis how do we evaluate good use of money. We often heard from this Member many times on this side of the House about efficient use of money. Has that changed now that he’s a Minister? Thank you.

The Member must not be aware of some of the programming that we do offer, and we do offer a number of on-the-land programs. There’s a program in Fort Good Hope that we utilize to place inmates over the last couple of years and there are other programs that we utilize as well.

As far as changing my stripes, I don’t believe that’s the case. I am still interested in prudently managing finances in a responsible way and that’s what we’re talking about here. We know we’ve got facilities where the count goes up and down. We’ve got high count, we’ve got low count. Mostly we’ve got high count. Most of our facilities are full to capacity, often overcapacity. We’ve got a youth facility that has one female offender in it, but it’s got a number of male offenders in it and that number changes in our youth facility on a fairly regular basis. In fact, our count changes daily.

Spending money to do a cost analysis as to whether or not sending some of our inmates south doesn’t seem like a prudent use of our money here in the Northwest Territories. I would rather spend that money on more of our community programming. I would rather spend the money on some of the lands programming than do a cost analysis about sending somebody south. If we were to send, say, our one female offender south when we do have a place to put her here, she would not benefit from the programming that is designed for Northerners that the male offenders in the same facility have access to. So we would be actually doing that person a disadvantage.

I think our mandate is a good mandate for supporting Northerners in our northern facilities. I am not particularly interested at this time spending a whole lot of money to do a cost-benefit analysis as to whether or not sending our people south is in the best interest of the people, the department or our bank account.

I appreciate the Minister’s platitudes about trying to be heroic on a territorial level. I am sorry. Can someone give him a flag of the territory? On one hand he is interested in spending money in a prudent way, but there is no way of saying that we are. Why would we keep a facility open for one inmate? That is kind of the point, which is it doesn’t make an economic sense. There has to be a breakeven point that makes sense, and let politicians make the political decisions as to where it is. Ultimately the issue

comes down to if the politicians don’t have the facts it is difficult for us to make these types of decisions.

That is kind of why I am asking what is stopping the department. If the Minister just doesn’t want to do one because he just doesn’t want to do one, maybe he is afraid of the fact that we would see quite a disparity of numbers. Perhaps that is the issue, but that is why I am asking, let’s do the numbers. Why be afraid of the information? Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Member keeps referring to the fact that we have a facility with one person in it. I just have to state again – we said it several times – we have no facilities with one person in it. All of our facilities have large numbers of people in them. We have a facility, a youth facility here in Yellowknife that houses both youth male and youth female. At this point we have one female offender in that facility, but it is still a facility and it still has a number of people in it.

I am interested in fiscal responsibility. I have sat, in the last four years, in front of this department during business planning where we are discussing exactly the types of things my colleague is suggesting, which is prudent use of money where we have seen what this department has spent and how they spent their money and how they ensure that there is money available for programming. I would suggest that when it comes time to do business planning, maybe the Member should take a look at the business plan provided and we can dig into these types of questions at that time. We are talking about capital right now, Madam Chair.