Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There will be the planning process that will involve the architects, typical of any capital project that’s going forward in the Northwest Territories, whether it’s a school or a hospital. Will there be a consultation process? It’s not intended to go out and consult all across the Northwest Territories for what the building will look like, no more than was done for this building. The process is one that we will try and do economically, which means we will find out from studies what space is needed and how to best accommodate that in the most economic fashion. Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In a democratic system, as the Member is aware, the courts are an independent leg of the governance process. So we have the government, the Assembly and the courts. It’s a responsibility of the government to support the courts with adequate fiscal resources to conduct their business and adequate physical space to conduct their business. So we are going to follow through on that requirement. Mr. Speaker, when Public Works and Services did their assessment, they advised us that the net present value of leasing equivalent space in the Territories was in the order of $60...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, where we’ve seen significant changes in project costs have been through the construction management process and this government is not prepared to undertake that process for this building. We are going to get the full set of plans done and then go out to public tender. Once we have the results in, we will award the contract. That way you know what the cost of the building is going to be. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The estimate that we have was provided by Public Works and Services. It is a Class 'D', so an initial estimate, and it was prepared by Public Works and Services within the last few months, just since fall. Right now they have estimated the cost to be about $41 million.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t believe we need anything further to empower anybody to follow up on things. A DEA has the authority now to ensure that kids are attending school; it could become a child protection issue if parents aren’t ensuring that their kids attend school. We already have the tools to do it from that side, but that is not going to work. That doesn’t help the kid to be successful. Forcing them to be there when their parents don’t support them being in school is a waste of time. We have to work with families to make sure that the families are supportive of kids being in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can’t commit because it is a federal program. It is not one that we offer. We deliver the program in order to make it easier for people to access it in the Northwest Territories. But I will commit to advising the standing committee, by the time we get into business plans, the results of the latest communication that I have with the federal government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have the schedule for all communities, but at the table here we can remember one community: Sachs Harbour. Generally the schedule now allows for the RCMP to go in every three weeks for a couple of days, unless there is an incident that requires them to attend in between. But the regular visits would happen every three weeks for a couple of days.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Not all requests for supplementary appropriations are approved by FMBS. There is a supplementary reserve that is built into our budget and it’s fairly common for requests for supplementary funding to be rejected by the FMBS and not included in supplementary funding. I can’t speak to a situation. I think that each request is considered on its own merits. I guess it would depend on what the request was for, whether or not it would be supported. If it wasn’t supported then I’m not sure how it would be dealt with.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With the closure of the remand unit, we would have 4.5 extra full-time employees that would be worked into the workforce. So it would depend on whether there was anybody who was sick or went on holidays. There would be a number of different factors. It would depend on whether or not casual workers would be called into work on that day. The Member asked about April 1st. It really does depend on the demand that day for backfill, whether or not casual workers will be called in. But there would be fewer casual workers called in generally on an ongoing basis through...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Groenewegen may characterize it as us driving more people to the court, but, you know, I don't believe that. I think that the way we're giving more money to community justice committees will, in fact, keep people out of the courts. They need the resources. That's right, they need the resources to be able to do it. It's amazing how much work these committees are doing right now, and some of them have been having trouble finding enough resources to keep on doing what they're doing and then increase their workload. We still have the resources...