Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize the two hardworking Pages from Hay River South who have been able to join us in the Chamber here this week, Jolene Lamalice and Davida Patterson. Thank you for your great services, and welcome.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a resident of Weledeh, Tracy St-Denis.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’d like to welcome everybody here in the public gallery here today. Thank you for taking an interest in our proceedings.

Item 7, acknowledgements. Item 8, oral questions. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I want to ask the Minister, has this department ever done an inventory as to the exact number of residential school survivors in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This is an area that we’ve collected information on the residential school survivors of the Northwest Territories. We’ve compiled that information and we worked very closely with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission when they first started off with their programming and voicing all those across the nation and national events, and even in the Northwest Territories, Inuvik. We do have that information. I can share that detailed information with the Member.

I look forward to that information. The Minister has been collecting this information so if I go to the Sahtu and would know how many survivors are actually in Tulita, Fort Good Hope, Tuktoyaktuk…(inaudible)…any other communities, I would know the exact number of survivors that either passed away or that have gone into schools in the early 1900s. Is that what I’m hearing? You have the numbers and I’d be able to get those numbers?

The information that we’ve compiled, obviously with consent from the clientele as well as the survivors and even the families of the survivors, obviously we have work if

we can release those names. But surely, I’ll be working very closely with the Member if we could allow that to happen and then provide that information to the Member.

I respect the survivors’ anonymity or the privacy of the survivors, so some of the information in the Northwest Territories, we know how many survivors or how many, say, students are in a school right now without having them consent to releasing that number. I want to ask why it’s so different with the survivors. If there are some survivors in our community, we can do our own. For example, in the Grollier Hall residential school, from the Roman Catholics report there were 2,500 students that went to the Grollier Hall Residential School, the highest amount of survivors in one residential school.

I’m asking the Minister, is there something like that that he can share, saying in the territory right now there are 6,000 to 8,000 survivors right now?

In the Northwest Territories the number that we do have as part of the claimants is around 5,500, which gives us an idea of the issues that we have to deal with in the territory. We do have a breakdown by community, so I can provide that information to the Member and also other Members, as well, if they wish.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to that from the Minister. I appreciate the flexibility to share, because that is a very important number for our communities.

I want to ask the Minister, based on that number, are the appropriate programs there to support the survivors today with the programs that we have within the GNWT?

Yes, 2010 we’ve developed a residential school curriculum that we wanted to focus on those residential school survivors to hear their stories, and we have reached out to them. We’ll carry on their stories for generations to come. That’s part of the Grade 10 curriculum within the high school. It’s mandatory. They need to have the Grade 10 residential curriculum before they graduate. That’s just one piece that we’ve developed as part of our programming to deal with residential schools, and there will be plenty of others that I will be addressing with the leadership at the…(inaudible)…of education next month in Banff. I’m leading the task on Aboriginal education, so I will be presenting that to them as well.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Minister of Justice, Mr. Ramsay.

HON. DAVID RAMSAY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We had a deputy judge that was residing in Hay River up until last summer. We will certainly take the Member’s concerns back to the department and see what we can come up with. Thank you.

With the deputy judge stepping away from Hay River, was that on choice or was it the department’s move, and what is the hiring policy? Are we hiring somebody to fill that position? Can the Minister give me some more information on that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the circuit in Hay River hasn’t been growing. Meanwhile, here in Yellowknife court time is going up. The demand is here in Yellowknife, but we do take the Member’s concerns seriously. It was the individual’s decision to relocate out of the Northwest Territories from Hay River. Thank you.

My next question is to deal with remand and dealing with inmates, our accused people of the public, and they’re holding in facilities and the Minister just indicated that it’s busy in Yellowknife.

Why do we not have remand in Hay River? Why are we not taking some of that court pressure off in Yellowknife in the Hay River area for South Slave residents? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in ‘12-13 there were 67 inmates from the South Slave and Deh Cho regions that were in remand. Last year we had 71.

The current facility in Hay River is a minimum security facility. It’s not meant to house remand offenders and we have moved forward now from the decision that was made in 2005. It was a cost-cutting effort, but again, because the program is available here at North Slave Correctional Centre for inmates that are on remand, it was deemed more appropriate to house them here at North Slave Correctional Centre given the fact that the facility in Hay River is a minimum security facility and it would be a security risk to have inmates on remand in that facility. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question about the remand, and it used to be in Hay River and Hay River has always been a minimum security, so I’m not sure, has there been a change in policy? Has there been a change in the facility? Has their requirement for infrastructure for that facility to have remand in Hay River, to get that back in the community, get back to that in the South Slave to relieve some of that pressure in Yellowknife? Thank you.

In my time as Minister of Justice, I’m not aware of any changes in policy. I do know that the facility in Hay River could only house six inmates at any one time and it is a minimum security facility. They don’t have the level of programming that is offered to inmates that are on remand here at the North Slave Correctional Centre. I can get the Member some further detailed information on whether or not there was a policy shift. This is going back 10 years, so I’ll ask the department about that.

The good news is that with the facility in Hay River, we have added three new positions to that facility over the last number of years in working with inmates at that facility. Thank you.