Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The integrated case management isn’t on this page, it’s on community justice. We do have staff at community justice working on that. It’s separate from the wellness court in that the wellness court is going to be a service that’s provided through court services and that’s the separation. But the two are certainly linked, as the deputy minister had outlined for the Member.

Thank you, Minister Ramsay. I’m sorry; I couldn’t hear your last statement. Did you say that the deputy minister was going to explain something? Minister Ramsay.

Just to clarify, Madam Chair, no, the deputy minister had mentioned how the integrated case management was working with the wellness court to the Member previously, and I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you. I think what the Minister said was consistent with my question that it is primarily a Justice service. Obviously, I am talking about the wellness court. I’m forced into the integrated case management because of the close relationship here. But in terms of the wellness court for success, we would also obviously need a very well-integrated case management approach from the Department of Health and Social Services.

I want to know from the Minister if he feels that integrated case management approach from the Health and Social Services side will be in place to enable success with the wellness court. Thank you.

Madam Chair, the Department of Health and Social Services is part of the steering committee on the wellness court, and a similar process is underway related to the Integrated Case Management Pilot Project here in Yellowknife and in Inuvik, so we’re working closely with the Department of Health and Social Services on that. Thank you.

Just to follow up a little bit more here, is the Minister able to say in this forum what the time schedule is for rolling out this pilot project? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, that’s yet to be determined. Our hope is it would be sometime this coming fiscal year. Thank you.

I would hope so. I think the Minister knows that we’ve been working on this for quite a while, and I know his staff have been working on this for quite a while. I consider the $300,000 committed here to this project is a very, very modest start, and frankly, I’m disappointed. I was disappointed with the Department of Health and Social Services not to hear any specific expenditures towards this service again, because it really is our best opportunity to deal with a major part of the mental health issues that we have, as well as our legal and corrections costs.

Does the Minister have an estimate of what the cost to our system is of the mental health issues that cause a reoccurrence of people in the system? Thank you.

That number would be certainly difficult to quantify.

However, getting back to the Member’s concern over the $305,000 that we have this year for the wellness court, next year we have earmarked for the wellness courts just shy of $1 million and we have had some of our staff at community justice working on this. We had a presentation that we provided to the Standing Committee on Social Programs today. We’re going to be moving forward and we feel that we have it resourced. We want to get it up and running, and I think once the wellness court is up and running, we’ll have a better understanding of how it operates and what resources may be required to run it. We’re going to ramp that up again next year with close to $1 million being put toward the wellness court. Again, I mentioned this this morning, if we do need further resources if it’s being well-subscribed and there’s people that are going into the wellness courts, we can look at additional resources as we go forward as needed. Thank you.

Thank you. I believe the Minister was talking about ’15-16 for the $1 million contribution, which there I feel that is significant and I’m looking forward to that.

Could I get a cost per day, an average cost per day for an inmate, say an adult male and a juvenile in corrections? Thank you.

Thank you. We can get that detail for the Member, get him a breakdown. I think we even have it by facility as well. Thank you.

I guess I would appreciate that information. What I’m looking for here, the last time I looked, if I’m right, I think it was over $1,000 per person per day, I think in the order of $1,600 or something like that. Obviously, at that rate and given the success of other jurisdictions in Canada that have joined with mental health courts, these

costs will be made up very, very quickly. Albeit capital costs won’t go away and so on, and that’s my interest there.

So I think I’ll leave it at that and I’ll look forward to that information and perhaps have the Minister consider what the potential savings are with this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’ll take that as a note, a comment. Next on the list I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Just with court services, I know that I think it’s almost been over a year, maybe more, that court services to the communities increased the cycle, I think from four weeks to six weeks. It is impacting people in the courts. I know that a couple of court cases have been thrown out because justice was just taking too long. Based on those cases and based on the length of people going to trial, it really impacts them because a lot of people are on probation, et cetera, even for a year before they get to trial. So I’d just like to know if the department is reviewing it, working with the judges to try to get people’s court cases heard earlier. Well, the principle of law is, of course, if justice is denied or taking too long, then it’s not good for our justice system. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The turnaround time for court services here in the Northwest Territories is one of the best in the country. The issue the Member is raising on going from four weeks to six weeks, that’s the first that I’ve heard of that. If the Member has a specific occurrence or situation in one of his communities that he wants us to have a look at the amount of time, I mean, that’s something we can inquire as to the length of time that it’s taken and respond back to the Member. Thank you.

No, it’s not a specific case, it’s just that there’s such a backlog because they have extended it to every six weeks to have the Territorial Court sit in the communities and it’s creating quite a bit of backlog. I guess I can ask the Minister, if he’s not too familiar with it, maybe if he can ask for a briefing note and share that with me. Thank you.

Thank you. We will get the Member some information on that, and again, to our knowledge, there is a pretty quick turnaround and it is one of the best turnaround times in the country as far as court services go. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I know he takes pride in our justice system, but in the communities there are people waiting up to a year to have their trial heard it’s just not working out. In fact, the last territorial circuit in Fort Simpson the

judge actually stayed an extra day and a half just to clear the backlog of the court docket there. So it is an issue and I’m just raising it with the Minister and asking him for a briefing note, and I look forward to it.

I thank the Member for bringing his concern forward and we will do our best to get an information package to the Member on that scenario. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Committee, we are on page 9-27, activity summary, court services, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Two areas I’d like to question. I guess the first one we’ll get out of the way. I had the same questions in the previous pages and I guess we can probably save a lot of time if the Minister can provide the same information and the same detail, as requested, under each section under compensation and benefits. Would he do that?