Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A large number of operational requirements will be laid out in regulations. For this reason, the department is being strongly urged to draft regulations in consultation with the Standing Committee on Social Programs, key stakeholders and members of the public. An area that will require careful scrutiny is the designation of authorized persons for apprehending, conveying or detaining individuals. Regulations should clearly establish who, and under what circumstances, these persons will be employed.

The committee was encouraged to learn that the Department of Health and Social Services is developing an agreement with the RCMP regarding its role under the new act. That said, the committee is concerned about the risk of improperly trained persons being called upon in communities or situations in which there is no RCMP presence.

With the Minister’s agreement, the committee introduced a motion to define a "peace officer" within the act, stipulating that it should mean a member of the RCMP or a prescribed person or class of persons. The Minister agreed that the definition of a peace officer in the Criminal Code of Canada is quite broad, and confirmed that the original intent of the legislation was to define a peace officer as the RCMP. A companion motion was introduced which provides regulation-making authority to prescribe other classes of persons or alter the definition of a peace officer in the future.

The department was asked to clarify whether the medical records of a patient who is transferred to another facility will be sent along with the patient so as to prevent unnecessary repetition of requests for the patient’s medical history. Departmental staff confirmed that the under subsection 96(2), the relevant records of a patient who is transferred to another facility, whether inside or outside of the Northwest Territories, must be transferred to the receiving facility. However, to strengthen this requirement, the committee introduced a motion to ensure that the receiving facility receives the records as soon as possible. The Minister concurred with this motion.

A number of additional motions were passed at the clause-by-clause review. A pair of motions was passed to ensure that patients will not be provided with the home address of the chairperson of the review board. A motion, which was introduced at the Minister’s request, replaces a phrase in subsection 84(1), and clarifies that documents being served on a patient can only be served on the public trustee and endorsed with the name of the facility if the person is an involuntary patient and has been found mentally incompetent to manage his or her estate. Finally, to correct a handful of minor drafting errors, several technical motions were passed during the clause-by-clause review.

Recommendation

Recommendation 1

That the Government of the Northwest Territories provide a comprehensive response to this report for consideration by the Legislative Assembly in June 2016.

Conclusion

The Standing Committee on Social Programs thanks all stakeholders who provided comments on Bill 55 or attended public meetings.

The committee advises that it supports Bill 55 as amended and reprinted and presents it for consideration to Committee of the Whole.