This is page numbers 2429 – 2482 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 4th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was going.

Topics

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

Mr. Speaker, has the department looked at other regions where they have implemented these units? Have we re-introduced or re-created the program? I know some of the issues that the department had in the past, they’ve basically created their own system and then we found out there were flaws because we never looked at other jurisdictions. Has the department looked into the other jurisdictions?

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Minister of Transportation

Mr. Speaker, a great deal of consultation took place with other jurisdictions across the country. I mentioned in my Minister’s statement Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador. In other jurisdictions, they see reductions in impaired driving being reduced by 50 to 90 percent. We are very hopeful that once the program is put into place here in the Northwest Territories that we will see a reduction in impaired driving here in the NWT as well. Thank you.

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the department has been in contact with some of those people that had the infractions already and maybe they’re having to work through Justice, but they informed them that this is a program that is coming forward and will be implemented within the next three to six months.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Minister of Transportation

Mr. Speaker, the program will be piloted at first in Yellowknife and in Hay River. We will start things in those two centres and move the program forward from there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

Mr. Speaker, not that it’s that important, but I’m wondering, because I think this is an important issue, but not that the cost is an important issue, but does the department have any estimates of what the rollout cost of this program would be to start?

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Minister of Transportation

Mr. Speaker, I can get that detail for the Member, but for the program

itself, for somebody to enrol in the program, as I mentioned, it is $125 a month. That’s the cost for the individual. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today, and actually I just want to make a little reference to the Minister of Justice, the Minister that’s responsible for the Anti-Poverty Strategy. He mentions every one of the Ministers on Cabinet and what they’re doing to help address the Anti-Poverty Strategy. That is great because, really, we all have a part to play in this very serious issue when it comes to the high rates of our Aboriginal people in the corrections and jail systems. I do believe that this government is taking a very proactive step, and taking the right steps moving forward here over the last 16 months that we’ve been working together.

First of all, I have my first question for the Minister of Justice. When an individual becomes incarcerated and he goes to a correction facility, what types of treatment programs, mental health and addiction treatment programs, do the inmates have access to in all of our corrections that we have in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Abernethy.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Minister of Justice

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As every inmate comes into the facility, whether they are Aboriginal or not, they have their own case manager who will help develop a tailored plan to specifically meet their needs and identify what programs are appropriate based on their sentence and direction given by the courts. We do have psychologists on staff. We do have drug and alcohol programs and we have access to AA and other programs that are available that would suit the specific needs of individual inmates. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you. All these very great programs that are allowed into the jail systems, we almost have better services in the jails than we do in our communities, which is very unfortunate.

With these treatment programs, are they mandatory to take these programs or are they on a voluntary basis for the inmates? Thank you

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Minister of Justice

Interesting question. It depends in some cases on the sentence that’s been passed down by the judge whether an inmate takes a specific program or not. But regardless, we have a large number of programs that are available

to individuals as they so choose. Our case managers will work with the individual inmates to identify, as I’ve indicated previously, what might be appropriate for that particular inmate. We have a significant number of programs. I mentioned a few earlier, but within our facilities we also facilitate visits with elders and elders programming, traditional arts and crafts, pre-treatment healing programs, Dene laws, land programming, sharing in healing circles, sweat lodges, smudges, the Healing Drum Society does a number of things for us, we have alcohol counselling, Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous, we have reintegration programs that we deal with individuals on as they go through into probation or release into communities. So there’s a large number of things. Some of it’s directed, some of it’s up to the inmates and we work with our case managers to direct them. Thank you.

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you. I want to ask the Minister, does he see trends in terms of high incarcerations during the season or over the year. Is there any specific time where we see a higher increase of individuals being incarcerated in our northern jails any time of the year? Thank you.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Minister of Justice

Thank you. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that there is, and in my previous career that’s been suggested. It was usually suggested that we’d see higher incarceration numbers over the winter months, but we’re not actually finding that to be the case. We are at some of our lowest incarceration rates in our correctional facilities than we’ve been at in years. Over Christmas we were down to 121 adults where our capacity is 248. We’re less than half. Today we’re at 177 adults in our facilities with a capacity of 248. So right now we are at some of the lowest numbers we’ve seen in many, many years. So those anecdotal trends do not seem to be playing out as they have in the past. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With a lot of the crimes that we see in the Northwest Territories related to alcohol and drug offenses, would the Minister be looking at possibly developing a policy for our correctional facilities, that anyone that goes in on an alcohol or drug-related offense, that they have to take mandatory alcohol and drug treatment programs during their incarceration to help them heal and to help them get the rehabilitation that they need? Would he look at creating a policy and is there any policy in any other jurisdictions in the correctional facilities? Thank you.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Minister of Justice

Thank you. I’ll have the department look to see if there’s any mandatory programming in other jurisdictions, but at the end of the day, making a program mandatory does not mean it will be successful. As individuals are suffering with addictions and other issues, they

have to be ready for the healing journey, and if you force them to take it, you’re not going to get positive results. We make the programming available, we have really high calibre, high quality case managers who can work with the inmates when they come into the facilities to help them prepare for a healing journey and make the programming available to them. We’ve got the programming available.

In the last budget round, Members of the Legislative Assembly worked with us to put more money into programming in the Hay River facility. So we’ve got a lot of really good programming. Yes, of course, we can always try to enhance the programming and make it more effective, but I’m not convinced that making it mandatory is going to give us results if the people aren’t ready to utilize the program and if they’re not ready to take the healing journey, forcing them into a program that they’re not interested in being will not prove results. People have to take some personal responsibility. We’re there to help them. We’re there to help them into the programming and get the healing that they need. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister of Health and Social Services today and I want to follow up on my statement. I asked some questions in my statement with regard to the Medical Travel Policy and I specifically noted two ministerial statements previously made in this House during oral questions, I believe. Both Ministers categorically stated that patients 65 years and over do get a medical escort when they have to travel outside of their home community. So I’d like to know from the Minister of Health and Social Services whether or not that is a policy currently and, if it is not, when did this change? Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. That is not the policy and, from what I understand, it was never the policy. We have been looking at medical travel, we’ve completed a report on medical travel. We see some issues in medical travel, we’re pulling medical travel from Stanton back into the department, but from what I can see, that has never been the policy. Thank you.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thanks. I think I thank the Minister for that clarification, I don’t necessarily agree with him, but I have to then ask the Minister when we have two previous Ministers of Health who have

stated that 65 years and over patients are allowed a medical escort, what weight does the Minister’s statement made in the House carry? Why did that not translate into a policy change? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Thank you. We confirm that two previous Health Ministers had said that anybody over 65 years old would get a medical travel escort. However, the policy does not indicate that. That was never written down. It was said in the House. It’s fairly clear in which case we allow non-medical escorts for patients, but age is not one of the factors. Thank you.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thanks. To the Minister, these weren’t commitments that were made to individual patients or to a specific situation. These were statements and these were confirmations of a policy change that was meant to apply across the system and it was meant to apply to the policy in general. So I’d like to know from the Minister, he says no, that that policy does not currently allow for age as a factor in escorts. Again, when a Minister makes a commitment in the House, why is it not followed through and the policy amended? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Thank you. The Medical Travel Policy is a Cabinet approved policy. So at the end of the day, the policy, when an individual is requesting an escort, the request comes from the physician or the nurse. So a physician of some sort, the patient’s clinician I should say, would make the call and ask for an escort and then medical travel would then apply that request against the current policy. So the reality is the program has just been generally following the policy as set out by Cabinet, essentially. So this is why the commitments were made generally that everybody over the age of 65 years old should get medical travel. I don’t know, but I can say that if we were to follow the policy, that’s not in the policy. Thank you.