Glen Abernethy

I have indicated that we have no problem doing that; however, doing one for a public service of 5,400 employees might be a little excessive. We might be more interested in doing certain program areas. That has been done in the past and we’d be happy to do that again. On top of that, we have competent staff that are doing it on a regular basis, we have the program review office and we have the Legislature. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I think we’ve got highly competent professionals within the public service. We’ve got HR professionals, we’ve got technical analysts, we’ve got people who understand the business of government and do a regular risk, review and assessment to the services that we provide. Deputy heads are accountable and, at the end of the day, we bring the budget before this House, which includes all position counts, and the MLAs and the Ministers have an opportunity to talk about the positions, where they’re located and the types of works they do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Diversions can happen at many different levels. We have front-line diversions that are actually being conducted by the RCMP. As I’ve indicated previously, our numbers here in the Territories have dropped significantly since 2003, but in the last year and a half or two years we’ve seen a sharp spike, which I think what everybody wants to see is more front-end work done on that end. We’re also doing diversions with our community justice committees depending on different levels of crime where youth, as an example, are engaging with the community justice committees to find alternatives to...

Thank you. Within our youth facility we actually have some teachers in there that are providing basic education to the inmates that happen to be in those facilities. Within our adult facilities we have adult educators that come in on a regular basis and provide training and education supports to individuals who have had it identified within their individual case plans. We also, within the facilities, have work teams. We have people working in kitchens, we have people doing cleaning, we have people doing other things where they can gain some work experience and get familiar with different types...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The report that the Members are talking about today is actually a report on federal facilities only. It does not address territorial facilities. Remembering that territorial correctional facilities, as opposed to federal jails, are for Northerners who have been sentenced to two years less a day for different levels of crimes. Aboriginal programming is strong in our territorial facilities and on average, to the Member’s question, the population of Aboriginal individuals in our facilities is about 88 percent of the total count.

Madam Chair, a plan is a cooperative plan put in place with the inmate and the case worker within the facility who has had a history with that particular inmate, as well as probation, whether it be regional or local. They develop a plan together to reintegrate the person back into their home community or whichever community they will end up in, based on their individual needs and programming that they need, where programming is available.

The probation officers have a requirement to meet and discuss case plans with their clients on a regular basis. Every one of them would be different, based on...

Thank you. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that there is, and in my previous career that’s been suggested. It was usually suggested that we’d see higher incarceration numbers over the winter months, but we’re not actually finding that to be the case. We are at some of our lowest incarceration rates in our correctional facilities than we’ve been at in years. Over Christmas we were down to 121 adults where our capacity is 248. We’re less than half. Today we’re at 177 adults in our facilities with a capacity of 248. So right now we are at some of the lowest numbers we’ve seen in many, many years. So...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member is right. That was federal money, and that federal money is no longer available. But we had dollars that were in there, as well, and we’re continuing our dollars forward so that we can continue to run the program which is quite popular and quite effective.

I listed off a number of programs during question period today, and I think I’ve left my actual list with all those programming by facility at my desk. But I have it printed out with a list of every facility and the different types of cultural programming we have. It’s comprehensive, and I’d be happy to share that with committee, I just can’t quote it to the Member right now.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As every inmate comes into the facility, whether they are Aboriginal or not, they have their own case manager who will help develop a tailored plan to specifically meet their needs and identify what programs are appropriate based on their sentence and direction given by the courts. We do have psychologists on staff. We do have drug and alcohol programs and we have access to AA and other programs that are available that would suit the specific needs of individual inmates. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.