Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, okay. Well, it was communicated by committee through one report. I'd have to look at our review of the Legal Aid Commission. I am -- no doubt it was brought up in questioning. But, anyway, notwithstanding those points, I am just going to assume that if a decision is made, funding is appropriated, then that would be provided. It sounds like that would be the case. So I am going to leave it there. I eagerly await seeing the official response to that report, that comprehensive report. This is, I think, a key area that we've been hearing is a gap for long, long periods of time. And access to justice is, of course, an important matter for any government. And I know there's a cost involved in providing that level -- that service for that type of hearing, but I was quite pleased to see that other jurisdictions have taken the plunge, so to speak, and done that, including Nunavut, which has a lot of similarities with us and a very similar rental market, including the same players in the private market space. So I think there's a lot of value in this, and I hope to see more progressive leadership around legal aid services for rental court in the future. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. Is there any further questions before I move on? No further questions, please turn to page 314. Sorry, oh sorry, mMy apologies. The Member for Monfwi.
Legal aid clinic, so it's lawyers providing services. I just want to ask -- I know that, you know, like I said, in the small communities, the only time that we get to see lawyers, especially legal aid, it's only on the court date, so -- and they're giving advice. I would like to know is -- are they giving adequate advice? Because, I mean, there's 140 inmates at the North Slave Correctional Centre, so how many of those got adequate advice? And, mostly -- I am sure most of them are Indigenous. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will just respond to the 141 inmate comment. There are 18 sentenced inmates out of that 141, and there are 116 that are there on remand. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go back to the Member from Monfwi.
Yeah, really. So that's -- 118, you said, that are -- 16 that are -- they're on remand? Okay, well, I think there's something seriously wrong with the justice system in the Northwest Territories. I think we need to do a better job.
Another one too is that -- so how many of these that provide legal aid clinic are lawyers from the Northwest Territories or employed by legal aid? Are there out-of-the-province lawyers that don't understand our language, our culture, our traditional way of life? Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will pass to the deputy minister.
Okay. I will go to the deputy minister.
Mr. Chair, all of our clinics -- and I believe there are four in the Northwest Territories -- are staff lawyers, family and criminal, and the outreach lawyers, and they all live in Yellowknife. We do have panel lawyers, so those are not staff lawyers. They receive payment. They're contracted, and they -- some are from the Northwest Territories, and some -- we do require some because of conflicts and other issues from southern jurisdictions, perhaps like Alberta or BC or Ontario. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Monfwi.
Mr. Speaker -- I mean, Mr. Chair, the reason why I ask is because, I mean, a lot of us are here for a reason, and I am worried about our young people, especially young boys, because it's only young men that we're talking about, and I don't hear much about the women, and the kind of advice they are represented in court, are they providing adequate court services, you know, that's -- it's just more of a comment. It's up to them if they want to answer, but -- if they want to elaborate more on it. But I do worry about our young people, especially young men. You know, most of them are probably, you know, not serious crime but still, you know, something that -- if we have sentencing circles and, you know, that restorative justice, maybe a lot of this would have been avoided and just -- I do care about our future generations. And it's -- yeah, it's -- it's ridiculous. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go over to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will pass to the deputy minister.
I will go to the deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will just say all lawyers have ethical obligations, and they can be disciplined and sanctioned by the law society who regulates them, so that would include all the lawyers that I spoke about, including lawyers not from the Northwest Territories, in that they're required also to take continuing legal education every year, and this involves ethical legal education. Some jurisdictions, and I know our law society in the NWT, is looking that -- at specific cultural training and working with Indigenous clients and people in the system. So that is on their radar, their self-regulating body. But it is something that they monitor. And, again, all lawyers are required to take ethical training every year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. Next on my list here I've got is the Member from Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. When you talk about the legal aid clinics, are they held in every region once or twice a year? I couldn't remember. Or are they done quarterly? Once a year? How are they done in each region? Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. If the Member is referring to outreach, there is an informal schedule that is shared with all the MLAs that outlines the proposed dates of the visits to the communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from the Deh Cho.
Okay, thank you. Thank you for that. You said there was 118. My colleague from Monfwi was asking -- you said there was 141 incarcerated. 18 or something and 116 are remand? 18 are -- thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the 18 number refers to inmates that have received a sentence from the court and are currently incarcerated. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Member from Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister tell me why there's 116 in remand? Is this a backlog, or the courts are not able to do the sentencing, or what is the -- what is the holdup there? Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the remand inmates are waiting for a trial or a hearing, and that is at the direction of the judiciary, not the Department of Justice. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from the Deh Cho.
Okay. I, like my colleague, too am concerned about how many incarceration rates we have in our communities. I go to a court hearing, and it's standing room only in the small communities, our Indigenous people. And we had something years ago called the Dene Laws. And I used to be a community justice worker way back, and I used to say that if we followed the Dene Laws we didn't need a justice system because we would be governing -- or we would be organizing our own selves and following those laws, the principles of the laws. But that's not the case. So is there room, or is there something that the justice department can do to look at incorporating some of the teachings, using -- utilizing the community resources, like elders and stuff we have in the community? To do on the land stuff -- like, there's on the land programming so that these things could be looked at and dealt with in a way that reflects the community's needs. That's what I wanted to say. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Maybe I will just -- I will make a comment, then I will pass to the deputy minister. But criminal items within the court system are federally directed, not territorially directed. Having said that, we do have programs within the Northwest Territories that sort of fit into what you've described. So for some detail, I will pass to the deputy minister. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And specifically on-land-based programming, we do do that in the department. Our specialized courts that we spoke to earlier do have a contract with Protect Your Path operated by Rainier Erasmus. This is on-the-land programming for that court. As well as we have another -- had another contract with Shake the Dust Consulting. That's operated by Frank Pope. And we've also partnered with YK Dene First Nation for the wellness court as well. In corrections, we have four program areas that are delivered by a traditional counsellor. They're located in the facility, but they are outside of the facility. So on the land there. Elders also attend land-based events in corrections to share their traditional knowledge, and they meet with inmates on the land. SMCC in Hay River offers a made-in-the-NWT Indigenous pre-treatment healing program that prepares offenders for their healing journey, and this is with the participation of elders and rooted in Indigenous tradition, spirituality, and world view.
Our community justice funding funds on-the-land programming. We -- so far, they've had seven events with five organizations: YK Dene First Nation, Liidlii Kue. Echoes of the Drum, that's a Yellowknife-N'dilo land-based aftercare. Deline Got'ine government annual on-the-land spiritual gathering. And Acho First Nation. Kakisa fish fry and community gardening workshop. And then there's also our men's healing program which are often on the land as well, and we spoke to the six earlier. So we have stuff in our facilities but also preventative programming in our community justice where we take applications from communities where they develop their own initiatives as they know best what's good and preventative for them and their folks and their young people as opposed to the Department of Justice in Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go back to the Member from the Deh Cho.
Thank you. Yeah, what an extensive list. Thank you so much for that. And I, like my colleague Mr. Morse, am thinking about how this day and age we -- how it's amazing that we don't track and look at -- we can measure things by saying this year or last year we had 54 programs. Of the 54 programs, 256 people participated. Of the 256 people that participated, 75 people are working, went to treatment, went to -- back to school, did something good, you know, so that way we have something to report that's so positive that people will say, you know what, I can do something like this too. I can change my life. It's that easy. But we have nothing to say these are what's -- these are -- this is what's happening. If we had more success stories -- like, I see some of it on Facebook now. I've seen people talk about their -- how their addictions has kind of changed their way of life. So that's a really good thing. So some of these success things, we need to talk about it. We need to start talking about it because lately we've been focusing on the not-so-good impacts of what's happening in the North. And, you know, if we change -- start to look at it in a way that the glass is half full, we might see some changes in the way things are being done. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay. I will take that as a comment. I am going to continue. Oh sorry, I am going to go to the Minister.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to speak to that. I mean, we do track some of the information on these programs. One of the reasons we don't do extensive tracking is a lot of these are community-based and community-run, and we don't want to increase the burden on the community to have to track a whole lot of data and report as part of the reporting back process. Having said that, we certainly could do better. So point well taken. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I am going to go to the Member from Monfwi. And then the matter of time, I am just going to go until about 7:45. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Since we're still, you know, in small communities, we have a lot of addiction issues. We have a lot of drug dealers, things that are happening in small communities. So -- and with reference to the inmates or to the North Slave or South Slave, I just wanted to ask the Minister, how many of those that are incarcerated are non-NWT inmates? Because lately we've been seeing a lot of drug busts in the Northwest Territories. So I would like to know how many of those are non-NWT inmates. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that's not a statistic that we keep. The reason that the inmates would be remanded in the Northwest Territories is because they were charged here, so they become part of the system here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Monfwi.
Yes. Okay. We're trying to keep our community safe, and it's good that, you know, there's more -- the police are doing the job of going after many of the drug dealers that are coming in. So once they are there, after the convictions or remand, are they going to be just released into the NWT population and/or do you send them back, or how does that work? Especially, they're transient. They're just coming here to do the job, to deliver and leave. But in the process, I am glad that they are incarcerated. They're in jail. But then I just wanted to know how does the court deal with them. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will pass to the deputy minister for some detail. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, I will go to the deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So inmates who are sentenced or folks who are sentenced to two years less a day, they'll serve their time in the Northwest Territories in one of our facilities. If they're sentenced to two years and more, they are sent south to a federal institution. They are -- if they do serve their time in the Northwest Territories, immediately they're starting to be case managed. So they're connected with supports, with counselling, with programming, with housing options or information. And they have to have a release plan, which the case manager who's assigned to them works with them on before they're released, and includes all these things. They can be released into a community, but, you know, they would have to -- there would have to be a reason why they would -- you know, they have a support plan, they have housing there, they have support people. So they wouldn't be released into a community where they don't have any of that. But it sounds like the Member is speaking to significant offenses where a lot of those folks would probably -- could be assigned -- or sentenced to a penitentiary time or a time of two years or more and be sentenced -- sent south. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
