Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. In my Member’s statement I mentioned two questions, which I’d like to ask the Minister at this time. I stated that the emergency planning coordinator position at MACA is an affected position. Assuming that the position is removed, I’d like to ask the Minister who will provide assistance to the communities in them preparing emergency preparedness plans.

Speak to the discrepancy.

Thank you. I’d like to close debate here. I need to respond to some of the comments that have been made by some of the other Members.

I think the Social Programs Committee agrees that the Arctic Tern facility cannot continue in its current state, with the number of inmates compared to the number of staff members. It’s totally inefficient.

However, the Minister, to me, seems to continue to see only one option for that facility, and that’s to close it. As was mentioned by my colleague Mr. Krutko, there’s a definite opportunity to re-profile that facility. I want to emphasize that I don’t believe...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This $83,000 references a coordinator position for the Community Justice program within the Department of Justice. I feel quite strongly that the explanation the department gave us during our briefing wasn’t quite adequate.

One of the goals of the department is stated as, to increase the capacity and the role of communities to address Justice issues. And I think the department, along with this particular position as well as funding for various and sundry Community Justice projects, is pretty much gutting anything that Community Justice committees can do in our various...

I move that the 2008–2009 Main Estimates be amended by deleting $320,000 from the activity Community Justice and Corrections, under the Department of Justice, Capital Investment Expenditures, on page 6-9 of the Infrastructure Acquisition Plan, for the Territorial Women’s Correctional Centre replacement.

Since we’ve had a bit of a windfall, so to speak, of federal money, I would suggest strongly to the Minister that he consider doing that. We probably would do that on this side of the House, speaking only for myself, of course.

Thank you. I give up. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I’ll try my other one, then. I could challenge it, but I won’t. My other question has to do with the intensive rehabilitative custodies program. It was raised earlier by I think Mr. Bromley and Mr. Abernethy. There was an indication that we received money from the federal government for this particular program. I look at the revenue summary on page 7-10, and I see $150,000 in 2007–2008, but I don’t see any money in 2008–2009 for intensive rehabilitative custody. So if I could get an explanation of how the funding from the federal government is being managed, when was it received...

Understood. Can you tell me where the revenue is shown, please?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question which might clarify the difficulty we’re having with the dollar amount. When the department numbers were discussed at the Social Programs Committee, we were given information that indicated that a nurse position at SMCC for a value of $22,000 was going to be reduced. If, as the Minister has advised, that position is not being reduced, could the department advise what that $22,000 reduction is related to? That might help us out here.