Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The CARE program has been in existence for awhile. There are opportunities for those that are in need of repairs to access the program. The CARE program, as it sits right now, is fairly sufficient and people are given a lot of opportunity to apply for the program. Thank you.

It doesn’t seem fair that the maximum amount of assistance available through the CARE program is the same everywhere. You will get a lot more done for $3,000 in Yellowknife than in Aklavik. Will the Minister take local costs into account and adjust the CARE program? Thank you.

The Member makes a good point and it’s one that we’ve had discussions about as a corporation, the fact that it does cost more to do business in some of the higher arctic communities than it does in some of the South Slave communities.

We are looking at it. The Member referencing the $3,000, that would be the Preventative Maintenance Program. The CARE program actually has a maximum of $92,000 that folks can access to do repairs on their home. But the Preventative Maintenance Program is one that is designed and a lot of seniors take us up on that, for some maintenance on their homes. We are looking at the option of funding communities where the costs are a lot greater than some of the South Slave communities. Thank you.

When the Housing Corporation does repairs for public housing in small communities, could arrangements be made for its crew to assist private homeowners? Thank you.

We’re quite proud of the fact that in some of our small communities a lot of the work that is done on public housing units is from people within the community. As far as assisting, I mean, there are opportunities there to assist people that need to repair their own homes. Obviously, there is going to be a cost to it, because it’s not part of our mandate. It is home ownership and homeowners are responsible for all maintenance of their unit. However, we do have a lot of programs that are designed to assist homeowners wanting to do some repairs on their units. The option is there but it’s not one that we would consider because we need those folks to be doing the work on the public housing units and then home ownership can make other arrangements. Or they may use them, but again, it’s the cost to the homeowner. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I have no further questions at this time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Today my questions will be for the Minister of ITI.

To set the tune, I guess, for today’s questions, tourism, promotional monies, our territory versus the Yukon. Very similar in nature and I think it’s a great comparison tool. Our territory spends just under $4 million a year and we turn over about $110 million to the economy at about 70,000 guests and people that visit us every year. In retrospect, the Yukon spends twice as much – about $9 million – and they get about $200 million to the economy and over probably four times more visitors.

With that, I want to ask the Minister, obviously under the terms of the 2012-2013 marketing plan, under that plan there is an approved Tourism Marketing Advisory Committee. This is under the watchful eye of the Minister. Can the Minister indicate to me that all monies and all provisions of monies for marketing – because again, monies are important – translates to dollars here for the economy? Have all monies been given and all opportunity given to this marketing arm so that they can ploy their strategies? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Minister Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. That question is similar to one that I had responded to from MLA Menicoche earlier during this session. He was saying that we are cutting back the marketing initiative to NWT Tourism. But, in fact, that is not the case. There is, through Tourism 2015, marketing money, and I believe that this isn’t the case. I would be more than happy to discuss this situation with NWT Tourism. Thank you.

The Minister is indicating a 2015 initiative. I’m referring to the 2012-2013 marketing plan initiative. Again, can we get clarification whether or not there have been any holdbacks of monies for initiatives or marketing initiatives for this fiscal year? Thank you.

I am not aware of any. I’ve got that question into the department, again, in relation to some of the comments made earlier during the sitting of the House. I will try to get a response back to the Members. There may be some confusion over some of the marketing money and how it rolls out to the organization. If that is the case, we’ll try to iron things out so that folks know

that there is no holdback. That money is going to be available. Thank you.

Again, I do appreciate the Minister for coming forward with that. Can the Minister indicate, if he is indeed looking into that, when would we be able to expect that to the House? Thank you.

As soon as I get some clarification on where the confusion is, I will get that information to the Members of this House. I believe it is in relation to $400,000 for marketing under the Tourism 2015 plan, and we’ll get that ironed out for the Members.

Thank you, Minister Ramsay. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Justice.

In December I asked the question to the Minister of Justice regarding the establishment of mental health diversion courts. This mechanism is commonly used to more effectively deal with the high numbers of offenders suffering from mental illnesses and addictions. It also avoids the administrative cost burdens that will result from the new Bill C-10 provisions that we discussed earlier.

I’ve since met with the Ministers of Justice and Health and Social Services to discuss mental health diversion courts and wellness courts, and the Minister promised actions and confirmed them in a written reply to my oral question. I’m asking: Could the Minister update us on the status of this work since December, including the research he mentioned is underway on the Yukon wellness court? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Justice, Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Work continues to be ongoing. As a matter of fact, our director of court services has just got back from the Yukon, where she was meeting with counterparts in the Yukon to review the actual wellness court that exists in that jurisdiction. We aren’t looking at just that model. We are looking at a number of models and pulling information together.

Currently, a terms of reference to support the work of the interdepartmental committee, which will examine the feasibility of a specialized court as well as consider ways to improve service delivery for mental health services, has just been completed. Those terms of reference are now up and running. From there we’re going to develop a work plan. We hope to have the work plan done by the end of August, and then work on the analysis done by the

end of this fiscal year, so we can share it with committee and Members to figure out the next step and which model we want to pursue, how we want to move forward. We have to have those three steps done by the end of this fiscal year.

I appreciate that update from the Minister. In the December statement, the Minister said he would be working with the Health Minister on prevention and treatment options, and I think that’s what the Minister was talking about. I’m wondering, given that this work is ongoing, and hopefully we’re going to come up with a good solution, is the Minister aiming at avoiding the costs of Bill C-10 through his prevention program or is his strategy to come up with the dollars for new facilities and services and so on. What is the goal? What is the strategic direction of this Minister in consultation with his other colleagues taking?

Madam Speaker, if and when we get this court in place, this will obviously be a particular tool that is available to us to help offset the cost by keeping some of the low-risk offenders out of our facility. It is something we need to do. It is something that we are pursuing. As I indicated, we hope to have something available to share with Members so we can actually set a direction on which model we want to use.

In the meantime, we are managing within to make sure that we can handle the number of inmates coming into our facilities. We do know that we do need to upgrade the facility in Fort Smith, the female facility. That needs to be done regardless of Bill C-10 and that is something we need to do. We know that when we build it, we need to build it thinking about the future, not just the present. It will have to be larger than it is. We are focused on right now trying to manage the load, not have to pursue additional space and finding ways to get the lower risk inmates out of the facilities appropriately.