Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last year when it appeared clear that the government had already determined the fate of the A New Day program, the Minister of Justice kept assuring us that the third-party evaluation report on the program would determine A New Day’s ultimate fate. The $40,000 report was completed last November. It’s actually quite interesting, and I encourage someone at the Department of Justice to read it -- preferably whoever is designing the new program.
I’m making a lot of assumptions about the new program because details are sparse, to say the least. The RFP that was released on the 7th of this month does tell us that program facilitators must strictly adhere to the curriculum as set out by the department. This requirement ignores the evaluation report’s recommendation that consideration should be given to the fact that the program is "more than a curriculum," and community outreach should be considered as part of any future program. The community outreach includes a workshop at the North Slave Correctional Centre, in adult education centres, for the YKDFN, at the Salvation Army, Bailey House and more, as well as training sessions delivered to nurses in Stanton’s psychiatric unit. Unfortunately, the department apparently sees no value in any of these activities.
The evaluation report also states that some men are not well suited for group counselling sessions, and future programs should include provisions for individual counselling based on A New Day’s curriculum. However, Mr. Speaker, according to the new RFP there are no provisions for individual sessions, and men who aren’t suited for group sessions are to be referred to outside counselling services.
The report also indicated that the lack of administrative support burdened the program providers, burdening them with paperwork and other tasks not directly related to counselling. The Minister mentioned that the GNWT Coordinator position was created to alleviate that burden. Mr. Speaker, the current providers asked many times to be funded for an administrative assistant position. Instead of this simple solution, the department’s solution was to bring the entire program in-house.
However, Mr. Speaker. The saddest thing about this whole situation is that this is the only men’s healing program in the territory, and even though it’s successful, we have to fight tooth and nail to keep it, instead of figuring out how to expand it. On the bright side, after my questions yesterday the department updated the RFP to include the missing Schedule A. It adds little in the way of details, but at least someone at the department is listening. I’ll have questions for the Minister at the appropriate time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.