Madam Chair, that was in the community justice section. This is more legal services, coroner services, childrens lawyer, public trustee, those types of things. The services he is talking about are in the previous section.

Son of a gun. I’ll skip those questions.

I would like to talk a little bit about the Family Violence Action Plan funding. I assume that is

relevant on this page. At least I see a reference on the next page of this subtext to this. I’m assuming family violence funding is indeed in this. What is the department doing in response to the 19 recommendations for phase 3 of the Family Violence Action Plan? Thank you.

Madam Chair, the Member is correct. I am wrong. The protection of family violence falls under this section. This is where the money is housed.

With respect to those 19 recommendations, I actually had an opportunity to meet with the coalition last week. We had an opportunity to sit down and look at the 19 recommendations. Without minimizing the importance of the 19 recommendations, they indicated they are all important. They have indicated to me and others that they want a priority put on three, particularly a social media campaign, a program for men who use violence, and community outreach. I believe we will be moving forward with a supp. I know we will be moving forward with a supp that will actually bring some money into the program, for men who abuse or use violence, this sitting to increase the funding to that program as Members and the coalition have requested.

We will continue to work with Members and the coalition, trying to find some solutions. We heard a lot of talk about phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3. During that conversation, it became clear that we really need to stop talking about phases and we need to start talking about core funding. These moves will move that funding for program for men who use violence into a core funding avenue, if you will. It will become a program that we will be delivering ongoing.

Thanks to the Minister for those comments. I couldn’t write fast enough. If you could just repeat the three priorities that the coalition identified and maybe I will squeeze in a question at the same time. I wonder if there are any results on the courses offered for men who use violence. Thank you.

I’m just going to make a couple of comments for Mr. Bromley and then I’ll just go to Kim for some of the specifics.

The three key messages and priorities from the coalition building upon the 19 are social media campaign – I’m happy to sit down with the Member and share the document that I had – the program for men who use violence, which is a 24-week program; and community outreach. Quite frankly, I asked them for some additional information on what they mean by a social media campaign and what they would like to envision seeing. I haven’t got that back from them yet. I’m happy to have a conversation with you and committee afterwards, once we get that information back from them. From a Justice point of view, the one that really obviously

hit home was the program for men who use violence and we have brought it forward by way of supp to increase the funding. For specifics, I’ll go to Ms. Schofield.

Ms. Schofield.

Thank you, Ms. Schofield. Mr. Bromley.

I think there is another one that is early intervention for nonviolent and the divorce proceedings towards the best options for the children. I think those things are really great programs. I am very happy to see them going forward. I think committee remains very interested in any results as those accumulate on all of those. I’ll leave it at that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Abernethy.

The Member is right; there have been some other courses as part of that. There is an eight-week course that’s been delivered three times for men who use violence through the DVTO court. If the Member wishes, I’m happy to share the information with him on a bit of an analysis of the programs, how many we have run, what kind of results, what kind of turnout we had, and I will share that with committee as well.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. We will move on to Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In our quest to always improve services and I guess professionalism to our public, can the Minister indicate when will corporate registries, the system itself, be accessible on-line?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I don’t know. I’m happy to get that information for you.

I look forward to that information. Seeing the Public Utilities Board is now part of the Department of Justice operations and it finds itself here in the services to public category and we have a fairly heavy year, Madam Chair, with the new NWT Power rate application, has the Minister or the department – and I know there’s no change in budget here – is there any rationale that this potentially could add a lot of workload or a lot of

hidden cost in relationship to this new rate application? Maybe the Minister can elaborate on that, please, Madam Chair.

That change doesn’t take effect until July 1st . We’re sure it will come with

some workload, but it’s minimal. The board is an independent board that is responsible for their own operations and administration. We appoint the board and we provide some general administrative direction as far as keeping things affordable, but we don’t interfere with their rulings or their decisions.

So I’m sensing that we’re not pre-empting that there’s going to be a heavier workload for this Public Utilities Board given the fact that this is going to be a fairly elaborate rate application that’s going to be brought down to the people of the Northwest Territories.

Sorry. I misunderstood. I thought he was questioning the Department of Justice experiencing a greater workload as a result of having the PUB ultimately report there. This is going to be busy here for the Public Utilities Board. General rate applications have been done before. This isn’t anything new. The budget is set. We are confident that they are professionals and will get the work done like any other general rate application that has occurred.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Nothing further on my list. We are on page 9-31, activity summary, Justice, services to the public, operations expenditure summary, $5.372 million. Agreed?

Page 9-32, activity summary, Justice, services to the public, grants and contributions, contributions, $105,000. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think harking back to the Minister’s comments earlier, this is core funding to enable this non-government organization to do their work. I’m wondering how long they’ve been stuck at $105,000 a year while we’ve been enhancing our budgets every year, and whether they can anticipate enhanced funding in recognition of the realities that they do face. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.