Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

WHEREAS section 16.(2) of the Human Rights Act provides that the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission is comprised of such members, between three and five in number as may be appointed by the Commissioner on the recommendation of the Legislative Assembly;

AND WHEREAS there will be three vacancies on the NWT Human Rights Commission as of June 8, 2024;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that the Legislative Assembly recommend the reappointment of the following individuals to the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission:

• Ms. Marion Berls, of the Town of Fort Smith, for a term of four years; and
• Mr. Charles Dent, of the City of Yellowknife, for a term of four years;

AND FURTHER, that the Speaker be authorized to communicate the effective date of these appointments to the Commissioner.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. The motion's in order. To the motion.

Question has been called. All those in favour? Opposed? Abstained? Motion passed.

---Carried

Motions. Notices of motion for the first reading of bills. First reading of bills. Second reading of bills.

Colleagues, by the authority given to me as Speaker under Rule 2.2(4), I hereby authorize the House to sit beyond the daily hours of adjournment to consider the business of the House.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters, Minister's Statement 4-20(1), Minister's Statement 5-20(1), Minister's Statement 17-20(1), Minister's Statement 24-20(1), Tabled Document 93-20(1), with the Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh in the chair.

I now call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the committee wishes to consider Tabled Document 93-20(1), 2024-2025 Main Estimates, and consideration of the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Social Services. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Does the committee agree?

Thank you, committee. We will proceed with the first item.

Members, we have agreed to review Tabled Document 93-20(1), Department of Justice. We will resume with key activities, corrections, starting on page 306. Does the Minister of Justice wish to bring witnesses into the House?

Yes.

Committee agree?

Thank you. Sergeant-at-arms, please escort the witnesses into the chambers. Thank you. Would the Minister please introduce his witnesses, please.

Thank you. With me, I have Charlene Doolittle, deputy minister of the Department of Justice. And James Bancroft, director of corporate services. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving to corrections, beginning on page 306 with information items on pages 308 and 309, are there any questions? Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions on page 308, the offender reintegration program, I notice the budget is not changing year over year here. Page 206 of the business plan -- I'll just give you guys a second to find it.

So on page 206 of the business plan, it speaks to a mandate commitment ensuring that policies and programs are designed and renewed with a trauma-informed, antiracist, and cultural safety lens. So corrections programming that supports offender rehabilitation and reintegration back into their home communities. The measure is number of offenders completing programming. The target is accessible and high-quality programs offered to participants. I would describe that that's kind of an expectation of programming as opposed to a target. I was hoping to see a target somewhere along the lines of reduced recidivism rates, something along those lines. But to the point on the budget, how does the department propose achieving this business plan commitment, increasing the number of offenders completing programming, by keeping this budget item the same? And it is a relatively small amount, so I can only imagine you can't deliver a huge amount of programming with $179,000. So I'd like to hear a bit from the Minister on this.

Thank you. I'm going to go to go to the Minister.

Thank you. So this is -- this funding was recently introduced. That's why we don't see anything for the 2022-2023 Actuals. It is part of the therapeutic community model. And to the Member's comments about the measures, I've said this when I was in front of the Members before, I am happy to take feedback on the measures. I have some that I brought to the department's attention myself, and so I know that in the next iteration of the business plans we will have measures that are a bit more -- that will allow us to really quantify how we're doing. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And yeah, just in response to that I would just say, I mean, I mentioned it already, but I think something along the lines of reduced recidivism rates or success rates, let's track the outcome that we're searching for, maybe set a goal, and that can be a better target than simply stating that we're going to deliver high quality programming. I think that's kind of a baseline expectation. So that's my comments on this item. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is in this corrections chapter is the closure of the Fort Smith Corrections Centre. It seems to me that -- I've read that we're going to take -- we're going to close the centre and we're going to have approximately 30 people -- or 30 staff members, plus part-time staff, basically laid off. Could the Minister provide a little bit more information on other options; is this really the only option? It seems like such a hard blow to our community and the clients within the corrections centre. I just don't have enough detail whether that's the best option or not, unless there's something that I'm missing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I will say that this is not an easy -- this was not an easy decision. This has weighed heavily and continues to weigh heavily on me and my Cabinet colleagues. This is not something anyone wants to do. There are 15 full-time positions that are being affected. There are 17 relief positions as well. We have committed to do everything we can to ensure that there are opportunities for these individuals in other GNWT positions. There have been -- Cabinet is making efforts to determine how we can utilize the existing facility in a different capacity. The MLA for Thebacha, as well as one of our Cabinet colleagues, has had discussions with the leadership in the community and relayed that information. We are working right now to come up with a bit of a plan to move forward, and then we'll be reaching out to leadership again directly.

The correctional -- the numbers of inmates in the correctional facilities has dropped essentially year after year for the last five years. And there was a significant drop about four or five years ago. We are now sitting at around 80 or 90 inmates in the facilities, on average. I believe that's about 30 percent capacity -- sorry, 44 percent capacity right now. So the capacity is for 228 offenders, and we have a hundred right now. So it's hard to justify spending public funds housing offenders in facilities that are mostly empty and so we want to make a better use of those funds. And we understand the impact this is -- would have on the community, and we want to do what we can to mitigate that impact. Thank you.