Thank you. Minister of Justice.

Thank you. And so earlier I stated there was no increase or decrease. There is a $5,000 increase to this line item due to our support for NGOs or organizations who are facing inflationary pressures. The one agreement that will be expiring is for $12,000, and so that $12,000 plus the $5,000 that -- $17,000 that will be available for an organization to apply for to provide some of these programming. I know it's not a lot, but we are trying to get every penny out the door.

So the program used to be -- when this fund funded A New Day program, that was exclusive to Yellowknife essentially. So we have moved out to the communities, and we are providing Indigenous governments with -- primarily Indigenous governments with this funding to run their own programs. From what I've seen so far, and these are still very early days for these programs, they seem to be very tailored to those communities. So I am happy with the way things are going at this point. I would love to see this expand and like I'd like to see a number of our programs expanded, but we don't have a plan right now to expand this -- or to increase this budget significantly enough to replicate this in more communities. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. No. And I appreciate the direction providing communities with the autonomy of being able to decide what their own program looks like and what is best in a community-driven manner. I agree with that and appreciate that and I, you know, look forward to hearing some success stories from these programs. My concern is not about how the department is running the program. My concern is strictly in regards to who has access to that program. And, you know, running a program like this in five communities out of 33 and then having $17,000 left over for 28 additional communities is not realistic of the needs of this territory. I'm wondering, given that this key activity had the highest unspent portion of dollars, if justice is looking at being able to redirect some of those unspent dollars that seem to occur in this key activity to expanding the Men's A New Day program. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Justice.

Thank you. So the Department of Justice rarely has any unspent funds. We have a couple large divisions or contracts that generally eat up all of our excess funds. So if I had excess funds to put into certain things, I would do that, but that's generally not the situation here with Justice. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So we sit here and we go through key activity after key activity as to, you know, where money's going to go and then, you know, later on as the dust settles and we look at public accounts, we see how dollars are actually spent. And one of the things that was noted is that the community justice key activity had the -- was the program with the highest sum of budgeted money that went under spent. And so how then does the Department of Justice identify how they're going to reallocate those dollars within their department? So I'm wondering if the Minister can speak to what process they follow to prioritize those items. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Justice.

Thank you. So during COVID, a number of communities had difficulty spending their funds. So that could be the reason for the surpluses that the Member is talking about but we do offer the opportunity to carry that over if they are unspent. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I am going to wait for questions on additional key activities. Thank you.

All right. Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was thinking whether I should put my hand up. Anyways, one thing that I think that we all noticed in the last several years now is the increase in drug use and drugs coming into the Northwest Territories. And we do have a, you know, a gun and gang violence action fund. Has there been any -- I guess, has there been any thought put into maybe doing something similar with respect to drug trafficking and transporting across the border or is that something that's included there somewhere? Thank you.

Minister of Justice.

Thank you. So those are -- there's definitely connections there. I know that the provider in Hay River who receives -- who had received funding under this has worked with those individuals who are in that world. But the initiatives like the Member is talking about would be undertaken by the RCMP as opposed to community justice necessarily. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I guess I ask that because every once in a while somebody will send me a picture of somebody sitting there with a bunch of 20s, big piles of it, on their lap so I think it's important that we do something or we have something in place and, you know, look at new ways because you look at the programs we have and the number of people that are being incarcerated and, again, it falls back to addictions I think. So I guess just more of a comment there. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any further questions or comments under this section? All right. So please turn to page 299, Justice, community justice, operations expenditure summary, 2023-2024 Main Estimates, $6,411,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you. We will now move to page 303, corrections, with information items on page 304 and 305. Questions? Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I wanted to ask about the unchanged proportion of offender reintegration program. This line item, my understanding, remains at $179,000. I'm wondering if the Minister can provide a little bit more information about what this line item actually funds. Is it just in salaries? Is it specific to the costs of reintegration in society? I am wondering if the Minister can provide more information there, please.

Thank you. Minister of Justice.

Thank you. I'd like to hand it to Mr. Bancroft.