Thank you, Madam Chair. The Minister made some good comments in his opening presentation. I wanted to highlight a few that would seek more clarification as we go through the details.
The Minister talked about, in the second paragraph on page one of four, the programs and supporting the Assembly’s vision of a strong, independent people who are safe and secure in both communities and their homes. I wanted to raise the point here again, as I’ve been doing for the last nine years, similar to my colleague from the Mackenzie Delta, on RCMP in the communities. The Minister has heard the people of Colville Lake on this issue here and how do we keep people safe, how we give people a feeling of security in their communities. The Minister has talked about his willingness and his openness to go into Colville Lake to talk to people on looking at some alternatives to some sense of security in the community. It costs a lot of money to bring in RCMP, especially with the two-member detachment now. With the financial restraints that we have on this government, it’s highly unlikely that this will even make the cut because there are so many other needs out there. We’re open to some suggestions, and the Minister has agreed to work with the people in Colville Lake.
One of them is to look at a community-based safety program or something that would work maybe with the extra attention by the Fort Good Hope detachment to do some patrolling. Some other things like that. Colville also talked about the reintegration of their people coming back from the
facilities in Yellowknife or in Hay River and looking at a unique program where these inmates would come back to the community. They would not just go right into Colville Lake. They would go to an outpost camp or a bush camp where they would slowly reintegrate back into the community if they’ve been out for a long period of time. They go back in and they go back into learning what it’s like to go back into a community and learn some hard lessons of community wellness and respect for the community.
The Minister is a supporter of the on-the-land programs, and we know we want to do them. I look forward to seeing how we could get some of these programs looked at again in the Sahtu region. I know he talked to the people in Fort Good Hope and he’s actually asked them to sit down and talk with me, let’s look at some of these programs and see how we could work it out, so I’m hoping that some of this bureaucratic red tape can be softened up and work with the people on the needs of the people they serve.
As the Minister says in this paper, that they want to build a justice system, so it means being open not only to the western concept of justice but also to the Aboriginal point of view of justice. I hope that’s what he looks forward to when he says the needs of the people they serve. The people that he mostly serves in the Sahtu are Aboriginal people, so we have different needs and sometimes it’s very difficult to explain. But I think the Minister got a sense of what we’re talking about in that sense.
The Minister, under this 10 year, on page 2 of 4 is the justice, 10 years to teach a plan, plan the outline, three broad strategic directions for future and they include improving the justice system response to crime. I wanted to look at that. I’m not too sure if that has to do with something with the federal government’s recent crime bill that is going to have significant impact on the Northwest Territories. Our funding is very, very sensitive right now because there are so many needs and we want to get our projects on the books, we want to get them on the go, and yet we have some more that are still waiting in line to be approved by this Assembly.
I heard in the news that the impact of Bill C-10 is significant. If we were ever to get the federal government to say, well, this is what you shall do, it’s going to cost us dollars, a significant amount of dollars. Sometimes we may need to kiss some of our projects goodbye or put them on hold. I want to ask the Minister, in his statement, one line, improving the justice system response to crime, shouldn’t our justice system respond to prevention. Maybe he could give some clarification on that. I’d appreciate that.
I look forward to the Minister talk about partners and stakeholders. What does he mean by partners?
Who are the partners? Who are the stakeholders? Where do we need to work (inaudible) and get some clarification on that?
The Minister talked about the legal aid and I’d like to see the access to justice including legal aid, the courts or the alternatives. My question is on the access. It’s the quality of access for our people, because we only have sometimes one lawyer travelling the court circuit and they go into a community and they have the on-the-fly, sort of like McDonald’s style, justice system. Go in and do it fast. You know, you get served fast and it doesn’t serve anybody any justice. We have, sort of, I call it the McDonald’s model of justice. You go in there and you serve a lot of people quick and in a short time and then you leave. People are complaining that they only have five minutes with their lawyer and either they’re going to go a plea they don’t agree to or you just don’t have the time.
Even with the child custody situations, the justice, with our Health department and our Justice here, a lot of parents are saying that the access to the justice is not correct because sometimes they have to do a conference call over the phone with the court, and that’s not good access. You know, the lines go down, sometimes the connections are not there. Sometimes on rulings they’re not in favour to a family.
I really want to look at the quality of the access for the people within our justice system. I know that’s going to be a monumental task just to get the proper access, because our communities are far apart and we don’t have much support because of the budget we are operating under, but it seems like it is really tough for people to get good quality access to legal aid, justice or even to the courts.
A lot of us fly in, even Colville Lake. People are complaining that they have to fly to Good Hope to go to court. On top of that, to add insult to injury, they have to pay for their own ticket and they have to pay it back. If they don’t pay for a ticket to attend court, they get charged for… I don’t know what the charge is, but pretty soon the RCMP is out looking for them. Colville Lake is really complaining about that. That is not fair. The cost of living is high but when you break the law, there are consequences. That is just alleged. It doesn’t mean they are guilty; until they go to court, then they are found guilty. That is the assumption. People in Colville Lake have been telling me that they are ready to look at this issue to see if the justice system could actually have the court system going to Colville Lake. Maybe somewhere in Justice they could cut some funding so that they can have the service.
I am asking the Minister for this. I am not too sure what he is going to say, but that is what we are looking for: access to good quality justice in our community. I thank the Minister for his visit to the Sahtu and I’m glad that we had a good time visiting
people there. Those are my comments, Madam Chair.