Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I actually think that's going to help some of my constituents at Norseman who complain of people leaving the day shelter and then wandering into their apartment building at night. So I'm happy to hear that.

Next, can the Minister or tell me if her and her department are willing to engage with the past and present employees of the sobering centre to ensure that their experience and their knowledge is being captured and retained in order to inform future operations but also to help with the award of the RFP? I think these are the people that are the most situated to know...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I appreciate that. I guess then again I feel that that is a silo again. You know, we have children that have a need, and it would be nice if we could figure out some way to provide them with the services sort of all around them. But that's more of a comment than anything. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last year Cabin Radio reported on allegations of unsafe conditions and mismanagement at the sobering centre. I asked then WSCC minister about the centre's inspection frequency went and how the allegations would be addressed. Minister Thompson responded that there had been seven contractorinitiated inspections since 2019 in response to incident reports, and that there were no outstanding issues with the sobering centre.

Mr. Speaker, this was in stark contrast to what a then employee described after contacting my office. It was surprising to me that the centre...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am looking at the line item for the Office of the Children's Lawyer, I note that it is more than the 20212022 Actuals, which is great. I can't say enough for the good work that this area is doing and have had friends who have utilized the services of the children's lawyer for the benefit of their children.

I think this is an area where we would want to see more money being put into, and perhaps a lot of people don't even realize, or I'm not sure how it's communicated to them, that there is this option for them. And given perhaps what I said earlier about the stresses...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I should probably know this but if we don't have some of that work that the department has been doing around the victim services and the action plans coming out of that, I would really like to see that information. I'm a big firm believer in collecting of statistics. So again, I just want to really stress that I think your partners there at the YWCA and victim services could be, you know, obviously providing a lot of feedback to the department.

I guess my next question or my next category I just wanted to talk about was the guns and gangs strategy. I'm really happy...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I note that this is the area where money that is provided to the YWCA for the I believe the emergency protection orders, and that is what they meant by "as designate" under the act. This number stayed the same, and I get that this is one area that must be quite difficult to forecast. But given everything that we've been hearing about the pandemic and the affects on the domestic violence situations and mental health, do we anticipate that we're going to need to have more money here? Do we know if the YWCA is busier than they had been before? What sort of...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate that. And I've heard earlier today already some talk about women in trades, etcetera. I guess when it comes around to these economic plans, you know, when I was first started to run for this Assembly, I heard about ridings where, you know, no women had ever put their name forward before or, you know, being told that there'd never be women elected there. And so I guess given that it would be community leadership that's sort of running these programs and designating, what's being done to kind of ensure that the gender voice or the gender lens is also...

Yeah, I have concern with that answer as well, just in the sense of like, well, then if you have nothing to do with it, why is it in your department? I get that it's Justice. Then I would say perhaps it fits better with the Minister of ITI but then I know we would have everybody saying there's a conflict there as the Minister responsible for Industry. So I will just take that as I'm going to continue to harass the Minister about this department or this regulator and hope that, you know, we will see business ramping up in the Beaufort Delta and therefore we will have need for regulators of oil...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And, yeah, I'm going to maybe make the advice that any of these campaign schools being run include some accounting training in them, because it is really hard sometimes for us to figure out where the money has gone. So I'm glad to hear that it hasn't disappeared. And I just want to confirm that that now means that that test can be offered here in the North and they do not have to travel, and I see the deputy minister and Minister nodding their heads yes. So that's great, because I have heard that has been a problem in the past.

I guess the next one I just wanted to maybe...

So will the Minister, then, commit that when they come back needing more money as projects ramp up in the Beaufort Delta that he'll find that money within the Department of Justice and not come back and take it from our social programs or housing? Thank you.