Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank all my colleagues who spoke in support of the motion. It is a very important issue that we have in the Northwest Territories and right across the North and Canada, and I think the direction we’re giving to government is the right step to address this issue. I did mention earlier about all the different organizations working on, when a death occurs, the work that they do. This feasibility study will bring all these organizations together to understand that, yes, we’ve got to work together, we’ve got to make the recommendations so that it stops now...

WHEREAS the Northwest Territories has the second-highest rate of violent crime in Canada;

AND WHEREAS numerous deaths have been caused by domestic violence in the Northwest Territories;

AND WHEREAS risk factors and long-standing patterns of abuse are typically evident before domestic violence results in death;

AND WHEREAS the purpose of a domestic violence death review committee is to establish a forum for experts, community advocates and family members to study trends, risk factors, and systemic concerns and to recommend changes that will prevent future tragedies;

AND WHEREAS death review...

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories work with the Information and Privacy Commissioner to incorporate access by design considerations into the design phase of program, policy and legislation development, giving particular thought to how these considerations can be built into the legislative proposal process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Along with the members from committee, I’d also like to just acknowledge the hard work of our staff. Law Clerks and research were doing all the work and obviously coordinating with the staff in Nunavut to bring this bill before us.

It is history in terms of having mirror legislation between two jurisdictions and working with the department to make sure that we get the best piece of legislation out there for the ones who are going to be affected by this bill. I think it goes to show that there was definitely interest in terms of, as Mr. Dolynny put it, with the consultation...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, colleagues.

The Standing Committee on Social Programs thanks all stakeholders who provided comments on Bill 42 or attended the public hearing.

The committee advises that it supports Bill 42 as amended and reprinted and presents it for consideration to Committee of the Whole.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When some individuals commit a big crime, they’ll get put in jail for a very long time. I just did some quick calculations here and at $303 for a year, that’s about $110,000 per inmate within our correctional system, which is equivalent to a job position, possibly a part-time nurse in a community, just to put it out there.

But I want to ask, what is the Minister doing to work in the communities to develop some type of treatment or counselling program, especially in our small communities, to prevent individuals from having to eventually come to the end result, which is...

It just shows anybody who’s having addiction issues or mental health issues that they don’t have to be institutionalized, that there are other streams of helping these individuals out so that they don’t go into the system. However, of the 13 who got referred by the same, and, yesterday, it sounds like there were eight who were institutionalized. For these eight individuals who didn’t get referred through the Wellness Court system, what kind of plan of care is given to these individuals who were referred from the Wellness Courts but didn’t meet the requirements? When they get into the same...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too had a look at the Auditor General’s report on some of the issues dealing with the Department of Justice and corrections, and it got my attention in terms of the rehab services, mental health services, and just the treatment that our inmates need to go through or lack or don’t have. However, I want to take a different route on this one.

When I was reading this, I was conflicted in the sense that we have people who are in the jail who have mental health issues, and if we actually had the services in the communities, they might not be there. As my colleague mentioned...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think you’ve heard from my colleagues in support of the office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner to have input into how we develop our legislation here within the Government of the Northwest Territories and not to have her give input during the consultation phase after second reading or also with our policies as we develop them. One case in particular was the online registration. She made reference to how that was put forth without any information on online registration for vehicles without any input from her. With all the work and information that’s being...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Standing Committee on Social Programs has been considering Bill 36, Health and Social Services Professions Act. Members may recall last week we read a five-page report on the committee’s review of Bill 36 that was presented to the Legislative Assembly on March 5, 2015.

By motion, the House received the report and it was moved into Committee of the Whole for further consideration. The committee commends the Minister for developing the bill as a result of five years of hard work by the Department of Health and Social Services, professional stakeholders and the public.

Th...