David Ramsay

The coroner would make recommendations. They are not required and there is no legal obligations for them to feed responses back to the coroner. There’s just not that legal obligation there. It would be hit and miss, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right is Ms. Sylvia Haener, deputy minister, Department of Justice, and to my left is Ms. Kim Schofield, our director of corporate services with the Department of Justice.

Mr. Speaker, in ‘12-13 there were 67 inmates from the South Slave and Deh Cho regions that were in remand. Last year we had 71.

The current facility in Hay River is a minimum security facility. It’s not meant to house remand offenders and we have moved forward now from the decision that was made in 2005. It was a cost-cutting effort, but again, because the program is available here at North Slave Correctional Centre for inmates that are on remand, it was deemed more appropriate to house them here at North Slave Correctional Centre given the fact that the facility in Hay River is a minimum...

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. One heck of a curler, too, Mr. Delorey.

---Laughter

Good to hear you’re here, Paul. When the coroners’ reports come in, if recommendations are directed to various departments, the coroner would follow up with the departments on their response to those recommendations. That’s how that works. Thank you.

There would be a wide range of equipment and facilities that would be required, and again, the department is interested in talking to interested folks across the territory that have responded, about what equipment they have, what services they have, what facilities they have, so that we can get a program up and running here in the NWT once again. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Members for their support for wilderness and on-the-land programming. I know there are a number of Members interested in seeing the Department of Justice move forward with this initiative. Last year we were unsuccessful. Earlier this year, on January 20th, we had an REOI, a request for expressions of interest, across the Northwest Territories looking for proponents to help us get a wilderness, camp set up so we can have programs for inmates here in the Northwest Territories. That closed on the 20th of this year, 2015, and we had a number of folks...

Again, this is an industry advisory panel to the Minister. They will also be able to provide input to other Ministers as needed. In the Northwest Territories today, we have a very stringent regulatory system. Again, there’s ample opportunity for the public and groups to comment on developments as they occur. We can’t lose sight of the fact that this is an industry advisory panel and nothing more, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The composition of the board will be made up of folks who have a wide range of experiencing in the mining industry, not only here in the Northwest Territories but across the country. The full complement will be somewhere between five to seven members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d be pleased to respond to the three Members that provided some opening comments.

Starting with Mr. Yakeleya and looking at the RCMP detachments, I want to let Mr. Yakeleya know that our community justice and policing folks met with the chief and SAO from Colville Lake in December of ’14. We are also just coming off a meeting that was held in January with the community again. We’re in the process now of compiling a report from the information we received from the community leaders in Colville Lake. So we will be working towards a community safety plan for the...

I do, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.