Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the Member for that comment.
Okay. Is there any further questions from the Member from Range Lake?
Not on this topic, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I am going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will stay on the same general topic. I am curious if justice tracks the number of evictions executed by the sheriff's office. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Not data that we have directly in front of us but certainly able to provide that to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And in the suite of public safety legislation coming forward to us this year, such as SCAN and the Residential Tenancies Act review that has been pushed a little bit to the back burner but, you know, I think is still very much a consideration for this Minister, will it be looking to track more data about -- will any legislation be looking to track more data about evictions and trends over time and if not, in a statute in interest and policy that the department has? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, I am a big supporter of, you know, having that data type of collection as part of our processes to ensure, you know, we can actually see those things, trends over time. I think that's a little perhaps deep into the workflow of the proposed bills that are coming forward to be able to give a real true comment on that at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, yeah, no, I can appreciate that and I don't want to get into the weeds of something that's not yet before us. But I appreciate the Minister is interested in tracking data over time and success of any actions such as evictions over time. So more of a comment, and I am happy to follow up with the Minister later. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Is there any further questions?
Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask about a few different programs that are run, I believe, out of court services - the wellness court, drug treatment option program, and the intimate partner violence treatment option court. Are those under this page? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will go to the Minister.
Yes, they are, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So on that subject, Mr. Chair, how are we tracking outcomes associated with those programs; how do we measure success?
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the programs were recently reviewed by the court but we do have some statistics that we have been tracking over time.
So the wellness court, as of December 8th, 2025, we had 217 individuals who were referred to the wellness court of which 112 participated in the program for some length of time, and 29 completed their wellness plan and graduated from the program.
The wellness court program has five active clients and one client in an assessment phase.
The intimate partner violence treatment option court, 264 participants have successfully completed the intimate partner violence treatment option program. In-person intimate partner violence treatment option programs were run in Inuvik in January and July of 2025. There were 11 successful candidates. These semi-annual programs are expected to run for the foreseeable future. Overall, we had -- participants were -- 82 percent were male, and 18 percent were female. This continues to increase in the female -- there continues to be an increase in the female referrals in January of 2026.
Specialized courts will be running a women's group using a trauma-informed lens, and there are currently nine women registered for this program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And the third one there -- and I do forgive the Minister because I had listed a lot there -- was the drug treatment option program, if he could just list the success associated with that one.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. So that's the same as the wellness. The wellness court is the same program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the -- I appreciate that. Can the Minister help us understand are these programs helping us to reduce recidivism in the justice system, is it reducing repeat offending or severity of crimes? Are we tracking those kinds of statistics?
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will pass to the deputy minister.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will just repeat. The Minister did say there was a review in 2023-2024 of the wellness court and IPVTO court, so we do have that report and recommendations which the department is reviewing and implementing as appropriate as well. Recidivism is something very difficult across the country to track. When you have so many different partners in the justice system, like the judiciary, courts, RCMP, public prosecutions, GNWT, we don't all track data consistently. So this is a national issue. We do our best, but it's very hard to track when a person leaves the criminal justice system and then comes back, how many times they come back. It's just we all collect data differently as partners and stakeholders, so we haven't perfected that yet in the territory and across the country. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. And I appreciate that. And is that report something that MLAs can have access to or already do have access to? Thanks.
I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's a report that was done by the judiciary, so we'll have to confirm if that's available. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go back to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, certainly, if it's a confidential item, I am sure we could probably find a mechanism to get that to social development.
Lastly, on these programs, Mr. Chair, what can justice do to ensure appropriate and necessary interconnectedness between these programs and other services to ensure that the aims of the programs achieve their goals? So connecting them with mental health services, medical services, housing, etcetera. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will pass to the deputy minister.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And we at the department certainly work with our partners, the ones I just mentioned, largely the RCMP. We have corrections services within and other court services within. But we work together to try to align our services and intentions to rehabilitate and reintegrate folks into the community as well as within departments. At GNWT, we have our own social committee, deputy ministers, and committee of Cabinet that we work with as well to align social issues across departments in programming. And some of those do focus on rehabilitation, programming, and reintegration with our partners across the department. For example, in EIA, they have a government services officer, so we help try to connect our recently released inmates in communities with those types of services as well as our own. We just mentioned the navigator program earlier today. So there is strong attempts, I would say, to align within government and within the territory to support our folks and reintegrate them as best we can. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that that work is being done.
Just on the point that the deputy minister made about the issues that we have with data collection, I mean, what is being done to -- I wanted to say streamline but streamline isn't the word I am looking for -- to better coordinate that data collection? I mean, this seems like -- I am always blown away by how difficult it is in this country with the various different things that we regulate. Every single jurisdiction does things differently. Anyways, focusing on this issue, is there an effort to streamline that data collection? Because, I mean, when you're talking about recidivism, I mean, if you're tracking recidivism for each individual person, I mean I would assume that their data travels with them and it would be a relatively simple thing to track, I would think. But the fact that we're having difficulty with it, I think is a problem, simply for the reason of the questions that I am asking. It's hard for us to determine if our programs are working, if we need to change them in different ways. So, yeah, is there any effort going on to try and better coordinate that data collection? Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So there is work on a couple of fronts. So the Department of Justice works directly with the RCMP to help to address some of the data challenges as well as there's work at the FPT table that's going on nationally on this issue as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And so back to the data collection issue, I mean, I guess I would just -- yeah, I look forward to seeing the report that was produced. Generally speaking, I am just hoping to see if we can point to local successes of these programs and, most importantly, just track whether the programs are having success, whether anything about them needs to change, whether we need to resource them differently. That's all information that will help us decision-makers make better, informed decisions.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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.
