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SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON SUPPLY
Mr. David Wilson (Sackville-Cobequid)
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order. I would like to now call the Subcommittee on Supply to order. Just before we start, I do have some documentation that I will pass out to the different Parties, which are documents that the minister and his staff would like to table. It was a question that they had earlier in estimates. So I will table them for the minister.
Now, I would like to recognize the honourable member for Cape Breton North, who has 38 minutes remaining in his questioning.
HON. CECIL CLARKE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it's good to be back with the good minister and his officials here today as we embark on the next 38 minutes and I do believe we do need to deal with the timing first.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to ask for the unanimous consent of the committee to extend this session seven additional minutes so that we would finish off our 40 hours for Subcommittee on Supply, is that in order, does the committee agree?
It is agreed.
The honourable member for Cape Breton North.
MR. CLARKE: Now, the minister knows that he gets to spend the next four hours and seven minutes with his colleagues here as we finish out the estimates in the Red Chamber, which I do believe will be all Justice for the remainder of the day.
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As we initiated the discussion the other day and I guess like everything else in life, my, how a day can change things in the life of the Department of Justice. There are a number of things minister, I would like to go through and expand upon relating to some priorities and then we may get to some other numbers associated with this.
One of the things, and I know the honourable member for Cumberland South had some questioning with you over the Spring Garden Road security, the overall security of courthouses. There was some discussion the other day and associated with that was really, a sort of everything is fine, the status quo seems to be working well. Subsequent to that, as I say, in a day's time, things have shifted and changed with regard to Spring Garden and does the minister's position of the other day that the status quo is great and fine and everything was working along, still stand?
HON. ROSS LANDRY: Thank you for that question, Mr. Chairman. Honourable member, I just wanted to say that it is a pleasure to have an extra seven minutes to spend here with you tonight and I look forward to that time.
On the issue of Spring Garden Road, as you know, from being in the seat that I sit in, it is a department that is ever-changing and evolving. The nature of justice and community protection is one that continually needs to be reassessed and evaluated because the environment changes. In this case the environmental change is the fact that we had a young person who came into a facility concealing a weapon and at the Justice Department what risk level does it do? Well, at any time sitting in a judge's chair, and as Minister of Justice, we need to look at this in a very pragmatic way and assess what happened and what we need to do about it.
Well, in this particular situation, effective this morning, as I said on the floor of the House, that anyone coming through the security and setting off the alarm, must prove and establish - and the person doing the security must be satisfied - that they identified the source of the detection or the metal and then take the appropriate action. One of the actions could be that the person may be denied access.
Of course, when we're in these facilities, what we don't want to do, from a Justice perspective and from a government perspective, is create fear or panic when it is not necessary. We take the matter seriously. Security is a serious matter. I spent a lifetime in security ensuring that the community and the people who I serve are safe, sometimes at my own risk and my own life, and that's the nature of the job.
Luckily, as the Minister of Justice, I have a better opportunity. I can sit back and look at the big picture, consult with a wide range of staff and experts in this field, and I'm very satisfied with the decision that you've taken, sitting in this chair last year, to increase the regimentation of the number of sheriffs to 50 - I think it's 51 or 52. It was a good move, and I think one of the things that you always look at in these situations is, can we reassess or
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evaluate where resources are and redeploy them? So that's being done. On the immediate part about the detection, that's being done. We welcome input from others, but I don't think this is a time to panic. At any time we need to be responsible, methodical, and pragmatic in the way that we approach these issues.
MR. CLARKE: Mr. Chairman, to the minister, so with the protocol put in place - I'm assuming that with regard to any detection and then the refusal - a potential or possible refusal of entry to an individual to a courthouse has been put in place. What type of threat assessment model is put in place in terms of if someone is going into the courthouse, is denied but is denied for a specific reason? Is there any other sort of public safety or threat assessment of the potential for at risk to anyone outside of the doors or the walls of a courthouse? If a person - in the case of the most recent instance - goes in, had a very much deliberate purpose of concealing a weapon and was intending to use it to harm, if we've turned someone away, what is the protocol to the sheriff service then, who are doing the security, to identify either to police of a concern of a risk to the wider public? As you know, it's one thing to be inside the four walls of a building, but the public and staff and officials are equally walking in and outside the perimeter of that.
MR. LANDRY: Great question - hypothetical, and we'll talk in hypothetical terms, then. Every day on our streets there are people with concealed weapons and other types of things. That's the nature of our society. On the specific structure of the question that you're asking, is that if someone is turned away, I would hope that the person who's doing the screening, and if they feel or believe, based on the indicators that they get when the person they're dealing with, that there's potential for harm or that they are actually concealing a weapon, that they then respond by contacting the police or the necessary security authority to respond to that issue and to take the appropriate action. As to whether there's someone walking out the door or walking around in public, that's one of the features that police officers deal with every day.
Our crime rate overall is not significantly higher in any one area than another. We have had some violent situations in our community, and any time there's violence, we have to act and look at the causation, what steps we're going to take to reduce it, and there are a multitude of ways that we can go into that. That can be through education, crime prevention, increased enforcement, and additional training for our staff and resource people to ensure that they identify who might be committing an offence, but if there's a criminal offence occurring in the courthouse, the primary objective of anyone seeing that, especially as part of the court system, is to call the police and the police will respond accordingly.
MR. CLARKE: So specifically with your officials, in any direction they've given to the sheriff service, when they're doing this risk assessment, obviously it's someone who has had a surgical device inserted or the like, they're not going to be hauled off because they can't pass a test to get through a metal detector, which occurs in airports, and people have to deal with that - but what specific direction has been given to deal with the threat
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assessment of any individual who is denied access, and what follow-up protocols have been provided or put in writing?
MR. LANDRY: Well, I think there's two - if I'm getting a question clearly, on the issue of security, if somebody believes that somebody is a threat, they call the police. That's the same as it was yesterday, as it is today. On the issue of somebody believed to have a concealed weapon on them and coming through the screen, they won't be allowed in the courthouse. Police will be called and they will be dealt with. So I think reasonable thought and reasonable action by reasonable people who have the responsibility to provide security that I'm confident they will react accordingly.
MR. CLARKE: And I don't disagree with the minister. I'm just wondering if there's a written protocol detailing what the action should be and be taken by the Sheriff Services, given the most recent incident. I do respect that as matters come forward, you have to deal with them, you have to look at what policies are in place and if they were working effectively or not. It's sad that this incident actually occurred in the first place and that people will go to the extent that they will to potentially harm another person.
So is there a written directive that's been brought down to guide people on exactly what they are to do, rather than just go on assumption?
MR. LANDRY: Let me get clarity; are you asking the specific question to the incident at the courthouse, or in general?
MR. CLARKE: As a result of the most current incident that happened at the Spring Garden Road provincial court, there is a written directive explaining it rather than more due diligence?
MR. LANDRY: I have a document here: In the event you are not aware, it is believed the weapon was carried through the walk-through in a body cavity. Many people will be receiving notice of this through the media. Challenges may present for you and your staff if a person claims to have a body-piercing in private areas, 7.29 of the SOAPP allows pat searches but not strip searches or body cavity searches. We will be reviewing the procedure in other jurisdictions to determine how the SOAPP can be modified. Ultimately pursuant to the Court Security Act, we have the authority to refuse access to court facilities if the person is carrying a weapon. If your deputies have any unresolved indications of metal and the reason cannot be confirmed, they should take the person aside and call their supervisor. That person may consent to confirming the source of the metal. If the matter cannot be resolved, access may have to be refused. If this happens, please let me and/or your director know immediately. We will be rolling out training in walk-through procedures shortly. That is by Christine Mosher, Executive Director, Court Services.
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MR. CLARKE: And as part of that, has direction been provided with the Sheriff Services of what the role then of engaging police services would be with that, has that been detailed?
[4:30 p.m.]
MR. LANDRY: I don't think you need to detail them. They should be trained at this level to know that if there's a security risk, where somebody believes that somebody is a threat, then they need to act on it. Because of this incident here today, that doesn't change that.
This directive went out to help clarify the one particular point. If any sheriff is not clear on that procedure, then I would have a deep concern about the training for sheriffs, but I have great confidence in their training so that really is not an issue for me at this stage.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you, and I appreciate the minister's perspective on that but a lot of these directives are also to provide public confidence of what the steps would be. Often a directive is looked at from a public or a media lens, to determine what would happen, and this is just as much - aside from those individuals who are in place, to know what the next steps would be, for confidence from the public, that there is a protocol and a follow-up procedure with regard to a threat assessment so that other people going in are not going to fear going into the facility to know that they're there, so I would just note that my reason for the question is really where the public sees the directive and direction from the department associated with those items.
So it's one thing to know what staff should know; it's really the public's confidence
that they've been given that directive.
MR. LANDRY: I couldn't agree with you more than what you've just stated. That's why I was very prompt and decisive in the action we've taken, the direction given to the staff and on a number of TV outlets, communication outlets, to ensure that message did get out there and what action we did take. That was done promptly.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you, and I do want to note that the minister, and I said it prior to coming to the room, I know that Ms. Mosher, even on the radio at CBC today, handled the matter very well and professionally in dealing with that and I don't dispute that. It's just about the follow-up actions and the public assessing this.
I also recognize, as you would very much, that the volume and the types of crimes that are being brought before the courts can change by region and courthouse. With regard to overall courthouse security, moving beyond Spring Garden Road, noting that the head of the Crown Attorneys Association was also noted about their continued concern - I'm aware
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of them from before. At what point do you see other measures outside of a major population-intense environment such as Spring Garden - what actions are you taking?
MR. LANDRY: If I'm understanding the question you're asking correctly, I think as Minister of Justice and as a manager or as a person having responsibility over any department, we always have a responsibility of due diligence and consultation with our staff about risks, our security issues - how can we improve service, how do we ensure and maintain employee safety? In the Justice Department our job, as you know, is to ensure public safety, so we're always assessing and looking at ways that we can improve the quality of life and safety.
One of the dangers that I see out of these types of situations - and I want to be cautious of my terms when I use the term "overreaction," because I'm not implying people are overreacting - but we have to be conscious that we don't turn our institutions or our facilities or our public buildings - that we have to put such security on them that people don't have free flow. One of the beauties about being a Canadian and about being in Nova Scotia is our freedom of movement and association and ability to speak and to have that freedom.
I can relate, once, to going to a ball game in Detroit as a young fellow, and thinking, well - and I was a police officer at that time, but I was still quite young. I went across the bridge and I automatically got a feeling, got a sense that I was in a different environment, my instincts as a police officer shot right up, but as I started to examine the environment which I was in, I realized that the windows had bars on them, the homes and the doors had big metal screen security with big locks, and that I had to have a different take on where I was. I just didn't feel as nice, but when I went back across the bridge, you could almost feel that sense of calmness.
One of the things that we have in place, that was in place when you were in this job, was the security committees for each of the court facilities. I'm hoping that these committees come forward with their recommendations and ideas and suggestions and that we have open dialogue. One of the good things in this process, that will make people feel more secure, is that their voices are being heard. So I encourage people to come forward if they see something that's a risk.
One of the things I recognized in policing was, especially when you're dealing with senior communities, it's irrelevant whether or not they're safe. What's really most important is how they perceive it. They can be safe in the environment, but if they don't perceive or understand their environment to be safe, it's irrelevant whether they are. We have to address the concerns that they have and ensure that they're safe, so that comes down to communication, talking with them, and different types of programs.
We're in the process of implementing a number of recommendations that the stakeholders have brought forward, and as we bring recommendations forward, that doesn't
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mean the job's done. The next day we're right back looking at that same thing. So as the Minister of Justice, I encourage people to come forward with their ideas and suggestions, and I look forward to working with other members of the Legislature.
I had an opportunity after just coming out of Question Period to talk to a couple of members from the opposite side of the floor about concerns in their community, and I said, we have to make sure that we maintain open dialogue, because it's not just the Minister of Justice's responsibility or the Department of Justice that has the responsibility for public safety. It's all of our responsibility, and each citizen in the community also has the responsibility, so that collaboration - we need to have more open dialogue about the concerns and issues, but make sure that we understand that we have heard them and addressed them in a pragmatic manner.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the comments by the minister. I do recognize that this is something that his officials are taking quite seriously, and I also recognize it's regrettable when any of these things precipitate having to look at another tier. It also maybe speaks to a wider aspect and concerns with regard to public safety in general, and that is to the extent that we're seeing the laws pushed and the parameters pushed, we've seen in the Prestons in the past week, where we are, whether it is someone who is willing to go to the extreme of concealing a weapon in the manner that this woman had done, with the intention of harming other people within a facility, when we see the general sense of public safety, and that really comes to one of the points you've said about where people are.
I'd like to just move with the minister, just to get a sense from him, obviously provincially, but specifically federally, on the law and order agenda that the previous government was very aggressive in pushing and pursuing. I know that last week, when I was talking with Minister Rob Nicholson, he had called me just to do a follow-up, we were saying that was a key priority, obviously because of our political alliance, of where we'd be. I'm just wondering, can the minister provide some detail of where he sees the issue of law and order, legislative changes that are needed, or can be effected from Ottawa, with regard to the Criminal Code and also the Youth Criminal Justice Act and where we go from there?
MR. LANDRY: Well, the four hours are not sufficient enough time.
MR. CLARKE: Start.
MR. LANDRY: I could talk on this topic for hours and have a whole different philosophical approach, but I will take some time to say that I'll go to Boots in the Street. When we talk about putting police officers on the street or adding police officers in a car to do patrol, then what we have just done is say, we've got lots of money to spend where we don't necessarily need to spend it.
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Now I applaud the previous government's step to bring this government and this province to the national average, or above, in police officers, and I think that was a good thing. As a policing commander, it was a beneficial thing because it solved an issue of dealing with front-line drug distribution in the community and, some other seasoned criminals within the community whom we're able to start to approach.
We need a Justice Department and we need a government that's going to look at where we are going? Where is crime happening? Where is crime tomorrow? There are arguably no issues more important to the future of how safety and security are - and I made a little note because I figured you might be asking something along this line, I made a note to myself here - are the co-provided in our communities then how the police and others, whether it's from the academic community or any other stakeholders that we have, are to put an economic lens on how we are organized and structured and how we get focused.
Now I'm going to start to elaborate on that. If we think in policing terms of singular communities or isolated, individual incidents of violence, we lose. We have to look at the overall structure of the society, the integrity of our borders. We have to look at how we align ourselves - and I haven't lost sight of your question with the federal government - how we align ourselves with our national and international partnerships. The federal government has made it known that we will align ourselves internationally, due to border integrity, globalization of economic crime, the exploitation of our children and so on through the Internet. We know that our senior market, our senior population, and as a society Nova Scotia is the most aging population in the country, that we become extremely vulnerable to computerization and other ways to access our seniors.
So if we think in the mentality that if we put more officers right out there on the street, our problem is solved, what we need to do is we need to structurally organize our police officers. When I use the words structurally organize, we have to be clearly focused on dealing with our academic community, look at trends and patterns globally to see how the infiltration - and I'll use a quick example, the Mexican cartels' distribution of drugs is coming, if it's not already here, it's coming.
So how do we approach those issues? Well, if we leave it down to the individual police department of four or five people, they can't do it, and their community is going to get violated. What we need is a systematic approach where we have a strong provincial policing structure. We have aligned partnerships with our federal policing agencies and clear communications with international partners, that we work within our municipal policing structure, that we are all on the same page and focused on dealing with the crime problems while identifying particular needs of a community and then putting those focused resources to address those targeted. I'll use an example. I put it to the Chief of Police in Cape Breton, we talked, he brought up about the drug distribution in the community and how they need drug officers. So I put the question, is the drug distribution from prescription drugs and the answer to that question was basically yes. I said, well is it organized crime bringing
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prescription drugs in and distributing them throughout the community or is it distributed from the medical community because people are getting access, double-doctoring, and other types of access to these prescriptions and then distributing them in the community, which is a community - I know a neighbour and I give them the drugs.
If that is the case, there are two different types of approach or methodologies that you need to address that crime situation. I'm saying as the Minister of Justice we need to provide support to that community and it may be the provincial police force aligning with the local police force to look at, if it's an organized crime, addressing that. If it's a matter that it's prescription-based and frauds are being committed and the drugs are being distributed, then you may need more of a crime prevention and a consultation with the Medical Society because there's a health issue and a social issue dealing with the crime.
We need to have police agencies that are starting to think structurally as to what the problem is. When you have prolific offenders within a community, are you putting resources to identify who that small portion - I don't want Nova Scotians to think that there's a large amount of people out there committing crime. The people who commit crime are actually quite small in proportion to numbers of the population so by having a police force that strategically focuses on those who are committing the crime and dealing with them. One of the nice things that we've put forth - and you had a big hand in it - was in the proceeds of crime and civil forfeiture and how that ties into this overall process. So that if we had somebody who is double-doctoring or distributing large volumes of prescription drugs in the community, let's go after their assets, let's take them, they are a drug dealer, that's it. So there's a multitude of ways.
As I say, I could talk for hours on this subject but the key points that I want to make in regard to the initial part of your question was, are we dealing with the federal government when it talks about jurisprudence and the development of laws? Absolutely. Where do I stand on it? I said we need wide consultation. I'm going to be, later this month, dealing with my counterparts from across the country so I want to get a good flavour of where people stand.
[4:45 p.m.]
I had the opportunity to meet with the ministers in the Atlantic Region and we had an awful lot of success in building that we need to have more collaboration and consultation with each other to look at the crime patterns and approach to crime collectively, as a group. So if we're prepared to do that at the ministerial level, we certainly need the front-line police officers working in that integrated approach, that collaborative way of looking at it, and having a structure to how we address crime because if we're not organized in how we approach the crime issue, we're going to continue to spend dollars.
I want to alert people, when we're at the 199 officers per 100,000, the question is, do we put more in a patrol car, do we put more to walk a beat, or do we put them in strategic,
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focused positions to deal with the prolific offenders, the people who are already out there who are on warrants? Do we support the criminal prosecutions to ensure they have the skills to deal with the complex frauds? Do they have enough support there to deal with their increased workload that these front-line police officers add to that?
Now are we going to add to as we - the ying and the yang in the process is if you add to the prosecution, what about to legal aid? So additional spots need to be put there.
I see, within the justice system, one of our biggest obstacles right now is to make the system more efficient as a whole, to deal with that system, look at it systematically and on the overall structure. So that's one of my goals in dealing with the Justice Ministers this year and how we can ensure we start to make the systems more effective. When we look at laws that have a practical approach, one particular law, as we take the two for one, which I really don't like and I'll share a good story - I tell you, four hours may not be enough here.
MR. CLARKE: We can extend, with unanimous consent, we can go as long as you want. (Laughter)
MR. LANDRY: When we look at the two for one and how it increased the people wanting to go in the remand system. I'll share a nice story with you on the Corrections issue of the cells. I had the opportunity to go in and talk, at a couple of different institutions, to the people who are in there on the weekend and I asked one guy - I'll give you one example, I said well what are you in here for? He went on, whatever his reason was, and I said well how do you feel about being in here? He said, I'm really happy to be here. We happened to wake him up, this was about 11 o'clock in the morning, and I was a little perturbed that he had to be woken up for me to meet with him. However, it's a pretty good deal. The point he was making to me was that he had tied on a couple of benders this week and he figured if he was around home he'd have to tolerate the kids and they would be yelling and screaming and he figured this was a good way to get his time done, get a rest up so he could get back to work for the rest of the week.
I've never been in favour of putting people in for the weekends. I like the bracelets a little bit more or I like them doing it - if you're going to do the crime, do the time. What that means is that it puts an additional pressure on us, as a province, to deal with increased incarcerations and it's also going to put an increased cost in our prosecutions and police resources, so we have to know the impact. We're kind of hoping that if you do have the ear of the minister, being in the same Party, that you'll get them to give us more money to help offset some of the costs that might derive from this.
I support those initiatives, but we always have to look at what the impact is in the overall system. Anyway, I need a drink of water, so that will end that part of the question for now.
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MR. CLARKE: At that pace, we may need more than water. However, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much and to the minister, so what I believe I heard him finally get down to is, if you're going to do the crime, you should do the time, in terms of what the law is. The point being, where the public is, is that the person who crosses over those barriers of a court, willing to get a knife inside and be willing to wield it, whether it is the people who are shooting in their own community, amongst their own citizens and any number - an array of issues, minister - where the public just doesn't believe that the penalties are now meeting the crimes and people are pushing the extent of where they're willing to step over the line, because they don't feel there is any great retribution on the other side. That's really where I was going, in terms of, if that's how you feel, because we have a society that believes that the criminal justice system has become too lenient, thus the tough on crime and wanting to act in that area.
We also recognize the federal jurisdiction is where it is and thus the reason why at a federal level, looking at legislation that not only changes laws but also puts mandatory sentences, minimum sentences, so that it doesn't get watered down and interpreted in a manner that wasn't intended when the laws were put in place, thus recognizing all the other things you've talked about in terms of other outflows of that.
That is more the wider thing, in terms of where we are. The concerns from the public point of view, this most recent one, not only is it unsafe, it's people who don't feel the system is going to hold them to account or that they actually fear the criminal justice system in this province and keep pushing that line. I was just wondering, at what point and where you were, in terms of your own personal sense and direction, as minister, with your colleagues in government, on the tough-on-crime agenda.
MR. LANDRY: Thank you for that question. Do the crime, do the time - I'm going to talk on that. There's some philosophical shift when I hear that we should be tough on crime. As a government and as a society, because someone has committed a criminal act, in and of itself, they need to be accountable for that action, but there may be a whole bunch of other, underlying causations there, whether it is social-economic, that could have a huge impact. It could be race-based prejudice and bias that occur in a community. We know that there's a disproportion in some institutions across the country, where there's a disproportion of Aboriginals or people of minority status.
If our goal is to lock people up - and I believe there's a percentage of the population that needs to be locked up and I have no mercy for them, but I don't think that percentage is as high as some people think. I also want to bring back that thread from a previous answer that I gave earlier about the senior perceiving that they're not safe. We have to be careful, as government officials, as members of the Legislature, that we don't create unnecessary fears.
One of the things that I'm going to undertake, as Minister of Justice, is I'm going to consult widely with the academic community. I'm going to ensure that the staff that work
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within Justice are open-minded and can be creative and bring their ideas forward, because the traditional way is, if you build a jail, you will fill it. My training in literature and I have a background in criminology and law itself, very clearly points out that building jails, adding police officers on the street does not solve the problem of crime. It's a collective component and structure of it from education.
One of the weaknesses that I see, and I don't mean that as a criticism of any previous government, this is not my point, is that we need to increase crime prevention. I think there are a lot of things done in previous governments. We just are in a continual evolution of change and adaptation. Society is changing. Our society is changing so rapidly that we, within justice, need to be able to adapt that much more quickly.
The difficulty is, the laws don't change that quickly. I think that's part of the essence of the question and point that you're getting at. We need a stronger understanding and we need our universities to be studying the issues of crime rather than just dwelling on American crime patterns and criminological studies. We need our own in Canada. I want to see in this government to have more partnerships and consultations and I know I'm going to consult.
I know that people on my staff, I'm going to encourage them to talk to people in their communities and find out ideas. I had an opportunity to talk to an Opposition member here just before I came in and there's a particular issue in his community. I said, let's talk some more about this, let's find out some of the issues that we can work together. Where can we look from an education perspective? From crime prevention? What can we do from a justice perspective?
If it's about enforcement and about the big hammer, we can't win this. We can't stabilize society. We can't afford it. One of the points from the quote that I read, I made some notes on here earlier about if we don't look at policing and justice through the economic lens, we lose. We have to be more creative. We have to be more involved with the community. As the community becomes involved and takes ownership and we work in that collaboration, I think we can have more of an impact.
So let me just see if I missed anything. I got the perception. I believe in accountability, but we can increase the bracelets rather than the weekend offenders. I don't like that but there's a place for it, for some people that's the right thing to do. But are we holding the person that's in that weekend more accountable? Did we check up? Did they have a job, did they have family responsibilities that they're taking and that's the best thing for society.
If we put everyone in jail, we solve nothing. We need to work with the person that does the criminal act, but for those that need to be in jail, we need to lock them up. Some we need to forget about.
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MR. CLARKE: Thank you. As we conclude this portion, I would just note that from there the next thing we'll be getting into - which is the pattern the minister is going - is talking about the incarceration and the pressure on prosecutions. We'll be dealing with the current correctional supports for Correctional Services in Nova Scotia, how that relates specifically to the infrastructure and we'll continue on. I know the time is wrapping up for this portion, but just to note, there will be a continuation of this discussion as it relates to corrections. Then move to Sheriff Services and with that the prosecution for some specific numbers and detail of what specific actions the government's taking. I guess my honourable colleague for Halifax Clayton Park will be up for the next hour.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The time has expired for questions for the PC caucus.
The honourable member for Halifax Clayton Park.
MS. DIANA WHALEN: Mr. Chairman, I'm very pleased to have a few minutes to ask some questions and have, hopefully, a little bit of a dialogue and understand some more of the issues that I've brought today that are important to me. I know there's a lot of issues under your banner. Your deputy minister is here today and I know she and I have had a number of discussions about Victims Services, which is where I wanted to begin today.
In fact, last year's minister had some question on Victims Services as well, which I brought forward. I think it's an area that has been, up to the last year or so, really inadequate. I know you've made some changes and I appreciate some of the changes that have come, but I wanted to look into it further. I still think we have some way to go in this. I wanted to acknowledge that the deputy minister was very good to meet with one of my, not a direct constituent, but somebody who had come to me and actually had spoken to me about a constituent issue, as well, relating to Victims Services and took that information and went forward with it.
I understand you had just actually tabled the Victim Services budget before I came in. I don't know if that was done here at estimates, but I have a copy of it now. Was that just tabled for estimates purposes?
MR. LANDRY: I believe it was a request from your partner, Mr. Samson.
MS. WHALEN: That's good. Anyway, I've just had a chance to look at it and my questions that I had planned to ask really were around your budget and the uptake and utilization in terms of Victim Services and what we're offering to people who have witnessed or been victims of crime.
What I wanted to look at here was - this would be this current year's budget, then, 2009-10? So what is being proposed is almost $1.5 million for the Victim Services budget this year. In some of the previous information that was brought forward, it did show the
[Page 596]
recent years' Victim Assistance Fund - I'm not sure that's the same thing, but I think it's your full budget. The Victim Assistance Fund? Is that right? Would that be the budget of the program that we're talking about? In 2008-09, this particular form shows almost $1.4 million - it's $1.383 million.
MR. LANDRY: The one you have in front of you is the victim surcharge fund portion only. The actual figure should be $3,172,500.
MS. WHALEN: It's $3,170,300? Am I right?
MR. LANDRY: It's $3,172,500.
MS. WHALEN: So that would be the total budget for your Victim Services Program and staffing and office and everything?
MR. LANDRY: Yes.
MS. WHALEN: Could you tell me again what exactly this is - Victim Services budget - because it does include your head office, Dartmouth, Kentville, all the different offices in the province. It talks about telephones and postage, it sounds as though it's everything. It looks like a complete budget for Victim Services. What's missing to get us up to $3.172 million?
[5:00 p.m.]
MR. LANDRY: If you have this one here, that's the full budget.
MS. WHALEN: Oh, okay. And the funding from the surcharge is the $1.5 million, that's the difference. Okay. Very good. You'll forgive me - I just had a quick look at this so now I see exactly what you're saying.
The surcharge fund - I wanted to ask a little bit about that. Is that the funds we actually collected when there are tickets issued or people have fines to pay?
MR. LANDRY: Yes.
MS. WHALEN: Is that applied to every ticket? Is it motor vehicle tickets? Where does it come from?
MR. LANDRY: I believe it's all of them. Wherever there's a surcharge charged by the court, that's where the money ends up.
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MS. WHALEN: What I see then is less than half of the budget comes directly from that surcharge in tickets.
MR. LANDRY: That's correct.
MS. WHALEN: Okay. I'm a little disappointed because I've never known how much had been collected and I was thinking there might be extra there that we could apply to Victim Services. What this is suggesting to me is that it is not and it does in fact take a further commitment from government to add to those funds to provide the services we need.
Can you tell me how many people are working in all of these offices? You have head office, Dartmouth, Kentville, New Glasgow, Sydney, Bridgewater, Eskasoni, Yarmouth, Millbrook, and Port Hawksbury, so you have people in a lot of areas.
MR. LANDRY: The full-time equivalency is 28 FTEs - is that the term?
MS. WHALEN: Are they exclusively working in Victim Services?
MR. LANDRY: Yes.
MS. WHALEN: Can you tell me how many people applied for Victim Services last year?
MR. LANDRY: It's a floating process from one year to the next, but last year there were 6,202 files opened.
MS. WHALEN: Would they all have been approved for counselling and for the full range of victim services?
MR. LANDRY: I would suspect it wouldn't be all.
MS. WHALEN: I should mention to the minister, there's a separate form entirely that's on the Web site that is Criminal Injuries Counselling Program. I'm particularly interested in that and I want to know the uptake or the number of people applying for that.
MR. LANDRY: We'd be happy to get that information for you.
MS. WHALEN: Okay, if it's not available today, which I guess it's not, if you could get me then, I'd like to know the number that applied, we'll take last year, say, let's pick a given year, so last year is the most current and if we could have, among the number who applied, the number who were approved because they won't all be approved, I'm sure. Beyond that, I'm very interested to know what the uptake is because even if they go through
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this application process and are approved, there are certain limitations for people actually accessing it.
That brings me to the cost application particularly. Now, last year, about a year and a half ago when we were discussing this at Public Accounts and also, I guess, at estimates, the amount had just been raised last year at estimates but we had started at $65 per hour being what was offered through the program and anybody who wanted counselling had to find the difference in order to access counselling. I can imagine, since the average counsellor charges about $130 or $140 or $150 an hour, that it would be very difficult for many people who are victims of crime to make up that additional $80, let's say, or $90 that they would have had to put in, in order to access it.
Now, the government has increased the hourly rate to $85 an hour but just as recently as today I was talking to family members who are getting counselling under that program and they're one of the lucky ones that have been able to, through their own personal health plans, have some money that they can match towards this. But for victims of crime who are low income and many of them living in poverty, they don't have the money to access the counselling we're offering because they can't make up the matching funds. I would like to ask whether that has been looked at and if you have any intention of increasing it further?
MR. LANDRY: Well, we basically follow the Department of Community Services rate but we're quite fortunate in this province that there are a number of professionals that will provide the service at that rate and so we try to utilize those services.
MS. WHALEN: Well, can you tell me, when you provide your list - and I know for each area of the province, if you're looking for counselling through this program, you're provided with a list of counsellors and psychologists, people with different backgrounds, in fact, they're not all psychiatrists or psychologists, they're various professionals - do you vet that list to see what they charge?
MR. LANDRY: I don't think we'd vet them for what they charge, they provide a service. What's more important is what is their skill, what service can they provide and are they appropriate for the needs of the client at the time, so they would assess that and that's between the client and the individual.
MS. WHALEN: I guess I wanted to take the opportunity today to really impress - and I know I have spoken to the deputy minister, but to impress upon the minister as well - just how difficult the time is in the wake of a crime and you're a victim. I know you've been in policing services, you've been at the doorstep and you've seen people in trauma.
I came to be interested in this area particularly because somebody in my riding was the parent of a child who was murdered, a young woman who was murdered and they were in absolute trauma, his entire family and extended family. They couldn't manage these forms
[Page 599]
when they were finally given the forms, it was just too painful, too difficult, too bureaucratic. The whole system was absolutely unaware, it seemed, even the Victim Services people themselves, unaware of the kind of psychology of being in trauma after a victimization, after a tragedy, they seemed to be unable to respond.
The list of counsellors that was given to my neighbour and friend who was in this position, the list was very difficult to understand. I wasn't able to understand it really because it would say, so-and-so is an expert in Gestalt therapy and so-and-so does this and that and unless you're really into a lot of different psychology things you wouldn't know what all that means. For the whole list they had, there was scarcely anyone on that list who could really provide counselling to a murder victim's family, because they did call people on that list who said, oh, I do sexual violence, or I've done domestic violence, I really don't have the skill-set, I wouldn't be able to help you.
Here they are, a family in trouble, trying to go through the list and call and get nowhere basically, one after another. When I asked the director of Victim Services whether they could help direct us and guide us to who has that kind of experience, I was told that you couldn't do that, that somehow - it was treated almost like a procurement issue where that would be favouring one vendor over another vendor, but it was not a procurement issue, it was that none of us, myself included, who were trying to help, had any idea of who in the city, who in HRM could provide that kind of very specialized help to a family that needed it. So I think that gives you a little background as to what I'm trying to say, Mr. Chairman, and maybe through you to the minister, perhaps he could respond to that.
MR. LANDRY: Thank you for the question. I spent a lifetime dealing with people who were in trauma, who were in the very situations, examples that you picked. I've been involved in numerous situations of people's death and harm in different families. What the government does today versus when I first started out, I commend those who pioneered the way to provide services.
On the issue that I'm hearing from you, and governments being all things to all people, is that there are the systems there to help those individuals. There's an MLA who could provide support, which you did, and you're a compassionate, caring person. So I know that if someone in your community has a need, you're there for them. That's one option. The other is the family doctor, when someone's in trauma, going there and seeking. If they're in that state of trauma, the first thing I would recommend to anyone is that you need to consult with your family physician, because there are health issues. The other thing that I always stressed to them is that if somebody was religious, I helped guide them in that way to someone for support within the community. There are other community service groups and so on, I had a list of people who, depending on the issue, we directed them to. If you're saying that governments can push a button and solve people's problems, that's not the case.
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There's another point that I heard you saying though, is that if the system bureaucratically is too difficult, then we as a department can administratively make changes to that way, but collectively as a community, we need to find ways to help people when they're in times of trauma and distress, that we come together, and that we don't leave people by themselves, that we provide that network.
So there's a multitude of things that we can do, but from where I'm sitting as the Minister of Justice, if you come forward and say that the form is technically too difficult, but if it's because the person is in trauma, then they need different help, at that stage, to get them to the other stage of where they're getting the counselling and treatment that they need. So they need immediate medical care. They need immediate consultation with someone who can help them who's independent. So there are various ways that can happen.
MS. WHALEN: Mr. Chairman, I do agree with some of the things that you say, that there are other people who can provide help, but the bureaucracy has got to be responding to the program that has been set up. As a province we're spending $3 million, more than $3 million a year, on Victim Services. That's paying for 28 full-time employees. I think those employees should understand fully the psychology of trauma and victimization. I can tell you they didn't two years ago, a year and a half ago. The people I spoke to did not understand that. They saw themselves as administering a program and they didn't respond to the needs that were there. I think we're moving steps towards improving that, but it's important that the minister understand that I don't believe that they did understand. They had simply moved from one program to another and treated it like any other government program. So that's one of my concerns.
If you look at that $3 million budget, the counselling awards are less than $300,000, so less than 10 per cent of our program is going directly to help people. When I asked for the numbers of how many apply and how many are approved, I would like you to also look at how many access it after they're approved, going back to my point that I don't believe everybody is finding the people they need, able to find a counsellor and able to supplement or pay their matching part of the funding to get the counselling they need. I think that many victims of crime are low income and we have to be aware that they may not have any other services or any other way to access the help. So that's one of my big things.
I wanted to ask specifically, because my time is . . .
MR. LANDRY: I would like to answer your question. First off, one of the dangers, whether you're a health care professional or whether you're an MLA or police officer, is having that - we're here to serve. There is no question. I see clearly in your body language that you're committed. This is something you're passionate about, that's important to you individually, and it touches your heart. So I first want to acknowledge that and I respect and value that in a person.
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One of the points with Victim Services is that I am assured that a number of them have social work training. Last year, you did bring this issue forward, and my staff assured me that certain steps were taken because you brought the issue forward. I want to put an invitation out to you that if there are any issues that you feel compassionate about, that adjustments need to be made within the justice system, you're welcome to bring them forward and I will ensure that they get brought and given attention.
The employees - one of the things that I've written down here is about training, that if we see that there is a gap - and now that you have raised this, I'll put that back to my staff, and if they see there are gaps - because when you deal with people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, it's a unique set of skills that are required in order to reach that person and to get them on board so they're in a reasonable state of being able to comprehend information and accept it.
I was also assured by my staff here that filling out the forms and other types of assistance is provided.
MS. WHALEN: Now.
[5:15 p.m.]
MR. LANDRY: Now. If you had an influence on that, I thank you for that, and I think each person in the department thanks you for that. We have to be seen to be a very compassionate, caring government, and as a department I'm hoping that our department, the employees that I've met and worked with so far within the Department of Justice - I feel very safe that they're compassionate, loving, and caring people, and I'm so proud to be associated with them and to be a be a part of that system. But remember, in government, things sometimes take time. So as a partner in the Legislature, let's put the issues forward and work in a very structured way to achieve the goals that we have, and when there are exigent circumstances, we will take those steps necessary to meet those demands.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I just want to let the member know that you have about 40 minutes, so you have enough time.
MS. WHALEN: I know, but I think somebody else is going to come and take my time in a minute. That's why I'm rushing through, but thank you.
I did see training as one of the budget items, and I don't object to that because I think that this is a not a position where you just move people through the bureaucracy from perhaps the Motor Vehicle branch today to Victim Services tomorrow. They need to be prepared because they are going to be under stress coming into contact with people who are very traumatized and upset. They need to be compassionate, they need to understand that it's
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not business as usual, that this is an extraordinarily sensitive job that they need to do. So if they've gotten a little bit better at that, I am happy about it. The form seems a little better.
I want to bring one point in particular where I do see a shortcoming. That is that right off the bat it does say that the - I know the awards time has been extended now for family members to go for one year beyond the time that it goes to. It was previously just two years from the date that you applied, and then if you hadn't used the money, it's over and done with and you couldn't continue to get it. I believe now that it goes one year past the time that the case has gone to court.
MR. LANDRY: True.
MS. WHALEN: That's for immediate family members, but there is an exception here. Let me just see - it's not the exception, it's the family members who have gotten a bigger award, up to $4,000. The other family members who are approved for counselling - and I don't know if you've seen this form, but the first one says, and I'll just read it. "The Victims' Rights and Services Act allows compensation for counseling only. Counseling awards can be provided to a maximum of $2,000.00 for a two year period from the date of the award." That just came off the Web site minutes ago. So that's what it is. It says, "Exception: Immediate family members of homicide victims can be provided with counseling awards to a maximum of $4,000.00 for a period from the date of the award until one year after the prosecution is completed." So immediate family members are going to be getting much greater help, doubling the amounts that they are able to access and extending the period. My issue is that there is no mechanism to apply for any exemption to that, that's sort of cut and dried.
I'm aware of family members, again in the same very horrific murder case that you would know I am speaking of, that happened two years ago January 1st..The court case has not begun yet. The family members who are the major support to that family, the close family members who are going to court with their loved ones and following through the process with them and are equally horrified, as are all of us, they're not getting any additional help. Their two years will be up on December 31st or early January and the case does not go to court - well, it will probably still be in the courts at that time.
I'm just suggesting that nowhere in this process does it allow for a special application or a review to see if there's extenuating circumstances, to see if maybe those family members should be included with the immediate family members. That's what I'm looking for today, some indication from the minister that you would review that.
MR. LANDRY: We can absolutely review it but there's an example of where I encourage you, as an MLA, if you're aware of it, one of the things that this whole political game is sometimes confusing to me, especially when I see questions on the floor and how
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they're answered. I believe that if I got a question or an issue, let's giddy-up, let's get down and get to business and get the job done.
If you're confronted with a situation, rather than - and I'm not suggesting that you're adversarial about it - bring it forward, lay out your discussion. If this is a forum that does it for you, fine, but with me as the minister, you write to us and I'm going to probably say, and 9 times out of 10 or 99 out of 100, that look, this makes sense, we need to look at this.
At the same token, we're in government and we know there's limited resources. I get one person yap - excuse me, I apologize for that Freudian slip - going on about arenas and taking money out is something that I think is important where there are programs in there, when we have victims of crime and we're looking - and the pie is only so big and there's only so much juice in the pie that we can spread around, that where are your choices? What is government going to go?
I encourage you, as an Opposition member, and all, set the priorities. I don't think we're going to be a government that says no to practical approach to making our society safer and healthier and a more enjoyable place to live. I think we need to move beyond the adversarial part of that and get down to where we're at in business and solve the needs of Nova Scotians and make it better for our families - that's my little plug there. I hope I'm makeing my point.
I know that you're a compassionate, caring person and you have your issue and it's unique, bring it forward.
MS. WHALEN: Well thank you very much. I will write a letter, I can certainly do that and bring it forward that way as well. We have limited resources or avenues to raise issues in Opposition and writing a letter is one. If you'll take it seriously, that'll be all the better. I think I've heard you today that you do take it seriously, so that is good.
Sometimes you write letters and we're just told there's a limited pot and that's it, too bad, go pound sand. I hope it will be better than that.
MR. LANDRY: May I answer the question?
MS. WHALEN: Yes, Mr. Minister.
MR. LANDRY: I will look you straight in the eye, for the next four years, that if you think something is vitally important for a constituent in your neighbourhood that involves my department and you think in your heart or you believe that it's in the better interest of Nova Scotians, then I feel it is my duty and responsibility to look at it.
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That's not saying in government that it's going to get done but I'll guarantee you this much, I won't come back - well, part of the answer might be that it's a limited pot but what we will do is acknowledge that we have heard you. Then move your issue forward, where are resources, but if priorities can be set or shifted, but if we're always being here, money for this, money for that, we got to set priorities.
MS. WHALEN: Thank you, and through you to the minister, I do appreciate that and I'll provide the specifics in a letter. I didn't want to speak specifically about the individuals and the case and so on here. I just really wanted to emphasize how traumatic it was. I only had this contact with a couple of families who have been in this situation. In fact, three families that I know in our area have lost a loved one to violent crime. It allows me to see how difficult it has been to access services.
Now I think it's getting better but I can't let a year go by without coming in and discussing it with you because I know we've got room to move. I will, I'll put in a few of the suggestions I have that should be looked at.
Another point I wanted to raise while I'm in here was domestic violence and the prevalence of domestic violence and the tremendous cost it has to society. I read a statistic somewhere, and I couldn't find it today, but for youth that are involved in crime, our young offenders, there was a stat that showed that the vast majority of them have witnessed domestic violence in their own homes. I've heard the government saying a few times - I think it was the Minister of Health saying to me - we want to do programs that are evidence-based, that we've got the stats and the studies that show they're going to be beneficial. If we can address domestic violence in this province, we will have a direct impact on a lot of youth crime and really help a lot of young people who, as a result of their trauma, have had problems.
MR. LANDRY: You know, Ms. Whalen, you and I aren't too far apart in our thinking. As I keep coming back, as a police officer, domestic violence is at the root of a social breakdown in our society and it's part of the fabric. Our youth are imprinted on the images and our behaviours are learned. People aren't necessarily born bad, well, I don't think they are born bad, they're born innocent and we learn the behaviours. So, if in our homes the domestic violence is present and prevalent, it's how we go in there.
One of the difficulties from a cultural perspective is that we as a society have a belief that the parent knows best for the child and government should stay out of the home. Part of that is how do we get the balance to go into the homes, or should we be having parenting skills, partnerships, but it goes deeper than that. It goes back when we're teenagers and young people together, and how young males talk to young ladies, or how they view them, or how we go back into early education. Are we better to invest money at that three to seven years of age and have higher - like the oil commercial used to be that you can pay me now or pay me later, is put the good stuff up first.
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So if you're training and developing your children, making sure that they have the opportunities, that their brains and bodies are able to grow, but if we distort them and they see that violence is an accepted standard in the home, and as adults when we leave our homes, we believe that the customs that we have are normal within society, but then we start to adapt to society to see that some of our mannerisms aren't necessarily the right way, but they were acceptable in our homes, and that's in every family. What happens is when the violence is there, the damage is deep-rooted and it destabilizes not only the youth but the community as a whole, and so our government, and in this particular government that I'm proud to be a part of, the Speech from the Throne made that as a priority.
We need to look at how we move resource dollars, whether it be in a certain particular program that had particular political benefits, and has them today, and we continue to preach in those terms, or do we take those dollars and move them into programs such as domestic violence. That's an area that we have to prioritize.
MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much and I was listening carefully and , again, I can see that this is something that you've dealt with, front line in the first instance, and probably over many years you've seen an awful lot more than I can imagine.
What I'd like to do is go to some of the specifics that relate to the Department of Justice in particular and we did have the Deputy Minister's Leadership Committee on Family Violence, which was the report that was done as a result of the work we began here at the Legislature with a bill that was to work on the reduction in domestic violence. A domestic violence committee was formed that included community members and various government departments, recognizing that it does impact Education, Justice, Community Services and other departments, certainly the Advisory Council on the Status of Women was there, aboriginal and African-Nova Scotian representatives. It's wide-ranging and it affects every community, and as a result of that in June there was a report that was released. We have yet to talk about it in any way at the Legislature, but I'm hoping that it will come up in some way so that we can follow the progress of some of the recommendations that were put forward here. I think although some of them are expensive, some of them may be changes in attitude, changes in procedures, and a lot of the front-line community groups have a lot of ideas like that. These are the women's groups like transition houses, women's centres, men's intervention, we can't leave the services for men out. I was looking at that and seeing some of their recommendations are actually in there on Page 15. It's called Judicial and Legislative Responses and there's a list of recommendations there.
One of them is to adopt a specialized domestic violence court program. I know that you've only been in the minister's seat for 100 and a few days, and you've already got a mental health court lined up. I think there must have been work in place to get us there but I'm very pleased to see the mental health court. I think we need a domestic violence court program as well. A way to, again, have people, the prosecutors and the people who are working in that area, to especially have the training and the sensitivity to work directly with
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victims of domestic violence. Again, at the point where it's going to court or at the point where a woman is leaving an abusive situation, the risk of her being harmed or her children being harmed is great and we need to have very specialized courts so that that risk is minimized.
MR. LANDRY: Thank you for your question and overview. I'm going to talk a little bit about this issue. I don't disagree in principle of family courts if that was where we're at and where we needed to be right today. I see the thing as a much broader issue. It goes right back to when you deal with family violence, you know, you look at the issue of poverty. As a government would we be better to spend our money now to look at ways of how we reduce the impacts of poverty on society, how we look to increase the quality of education and access to opportunities for young children in those early years to get the support? More training for high school students, to look at what's a responsible parent to do, what are the responsibilities, to talk about bias, to talk about communication skills that have mediation components in it so they get life skills when they leave school, so they can resolve issues in a more formal and practical manner.
[5:30 p.m.]
The question that we need to look at right now is let's look at how the mental health court works. Let's look at how we get our justice system more effective and how we get our policing more responsive to the actual criminal problems within the society, how we ensure that our institutions can fully function with the clientele that they have in there and that there is proper staffing. When we look at the word domestic violence or family violence, it's not isolated to some little part. It's about the fabric of society as a whole and it's woven throughout. I hear your point that we need to do more and I think if one of the points is a family court, I know that we've already had discussions on that very issue and we have had a number of them. We need to look at where we're at with our resourcing and how we move forward. So let's chip away at different parts of the overall justice system. As a government I know that we're going to work very hard to address the issue of poverty. I think there's nothing greater on the issue of domestic violence, domestic violence goes across all educational, all social economic backgrounds. It's just more predominant and sometimes based with the poverty issue and how people have access to resources and support mechanisms to deal with conflicts.
So it's a broad issue and I look forward to working with you over the next four years to find ways to chip away at the overall issue. I know that this government that I am part of, that poverty is going to be one of the ones, and I think that that will be a key part in helping to address some of the issue of domestic violence along with a number of other points, but I do stress that out in this part of the answer.
MS. WHALEN: I do appreciate all the other components you mention and that's why the committee that I recommended was multi-faceted and included all the different
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departments. We didn't look at it just as a Justice issue, or just purely as a poverty issue, but we looked at all of the different departments and areas of government that could have an impact on changing. So you've touched on that by going that way but this committee has already done its report. There are recommendations and those recommendations now come back to certain departments to make changes and those ones that are there for Justice relate not only to the court, but that seems to be the one for Justice. There is also something in here about court advocacy workers being trained to help, about changes to the Children and Family Services Act. My big concern is to know that this is on your agenda. That's what I want to know, that it's on your radar screen, that within your area of concern you're going to be looking at advancing any programs that you can see that would help to eliminate, or decrease, the incident of family violence. It will also include laying charges when they should be laid.
There is another thing on the Advisory Council on the Status of Women home page, they have various fact sheets, one of them says that in 2007, 30 per cent of reported sexual assaults in Nova Scotia resulted in laying charges against the accused and that was down from 56 per cent in 1993, so we're going in the wrong direction. Fewer people are laying charges and the reason is pretty clear, if you talk to the women who work in transition houses and try to work with the victims, they don't want to go through this process when at the end of the day people are getting very light penalties, or no penalties at all, and the women go through a lot of revictimization.
So I want to see that the department, that you as the leader of Justice in this province, understand there are many barriers for the victims to be placing charges, to be going through this process.
MR. LANDRY: There is quite a bit there in that point, but I want to start off and thank you for your question. First off, on the recommendations and the point that you're making there, our department is very active on that. I've had discussions, and it should be obvious from the way that I've answered questions already, that I'm committed to that.
I do want to make some corrections on myths - and I've got to be careful how I say this - family violence is family violence; it is not male violence, it's not woman violence, it's not youth violence, it's family violence and when you have violence in the home, everybody is victimized by the violence. We have to be careful when we talk about terms of charging and so on. They're very complex issues and police officers - and I'll just give you a quick situation that all police officers go, and I don't think there's one police officer who goes into a family violence situation thinking that the male is more dangerous than the female, or that the children are insignificant to the potential harm of the officer - each person in those situations is potentially violent and can cause harm.
There is no question that there is a disproportionate victimization of women and part of that has to do with the physical makeup, the strength differential and the cultural design.
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So, I won't get into all that deep situation, but I will caution that you probably won't find me as a minister saying, we want to charge more, I think that if there are charges not occurring that ought to have occurred, then it's up to the whole police department and the justice system component that is appropriate, to be accountable in that regard.
At the same time, I want to focus more on how do we prevent and stabilize the family environment, because I firmly believe that the family is important to stay together. Now, if two conflicting adults decide that their relationship can no longer continue, it's how you allow that, and encourage that to happen in healthy way, with the least amount of harm. There is no question there is harm. But I do caution in term and language of where we genderize the issue. The issue is about family violence, but I will not underestimate the disproportional impact on women.
MS. WHALEN: I do appreciate that. I'm going to have to leave, but I can't leave without saying that I don't accept that we should be calling it family violence, 91 per cent of the victims are women, at least, in various studies. Again, I go back to what I see here from the Advisory Council on the Status of Women site, 91 per cent of those accused of sexual assault were male, the victims are female. I think it's pretty clear. It certainly affects every member of the household, everybody who witnesses it, everybody who is part of it, that's why we need the men's intervention programs and they need funding.
I think there is an attempt to whitewash this whole issue. I've read a lot of different books and studies on it and there is an attempt to try and somehow take women out of the mix and make it sound like it's family and everybody is equally at risk. I don't believe that. I think there are a lot of women right in this province who are living in fear, who are scared to leave. A lot of times when women leave, when they do stabilize that situation, that's when they are attacked or murdered or they have to do restraining orders, which really haven't been saving them from anything.
We read about it too often in the paper. I don't want to sit back in my comfortable home in Clayton Park or in Eastern Passage or wherever we are, reading about women in this province who have been murdered, and half the time they have restraining orders against the person who has murdered them. I think we have to take it really seriously and if it is a little bit more emotional, if it is a little bit more highly charged, I think so be it because the issue has been prevalent and it has been, if not ignored, allowed to perpetuate.
MR. LANDRY: I want to answer a few things here. When I talked about family violence, I'm referring to the domestic violence concept, so maybe I'm interchanging the words and I apologize if I've added confusion there.
I in no way want to undervalue the impact and the abuse to women here. I do not in any way want to minimize the importance of how, as a government and as a Justice
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Department, we have to be sensitive and caring to this issue. As a government we will take it, and as the Minister of Justice, I take this issue very seriously. It is a priority in my radar.
From a police officer, the point that I was making about the violence component - and I once again apologize here for not being more articulate on the point. When a police officer goes into the home, they may not survive if they think in concepts of male/female/youth. They have to look at they have a violent situation, and in many cases I've been directly involved in, when I go to apprehend the man, to be attacked by the partner.
I just want to differentiate, and I didn't want - I was meaning it more from a police context of how you secure the environment which you're in and that the officer cannot take it and it's a very vulnerable - when you talk about restraining orders and so on, I mentioned in an earlier answer about the justice system, if there are breakdowns or gaps within the system of holding people accountable and assuring the safety and integrity of people's well-being in the society, then we need to look at that component. When you raised that people aren't getting the protection, then that's another part.
We need to build on that. We are not going to solve it in our tenure of life, but what we can do is work toward reducing it and making a broader understanding in trying to make our communities and our families healthier. I think in the next number of years I'll look forward to working with you on those issues.
MS. WHALEN: Yes, and I do thank you for that. I'm going to have to excuse myself and I'd like to turn the time over to the member for Dartmouth East, who's going to use the rest of our time. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Dartmouth East. You have about 16 minutes left.
MR. ANDREW YOUNGER: Thank you, minister. I also apologize, everybody kind of has to run out. It seems there's about 12 different things going on today.
I actually wanted to pick up on this issue of domestic violence and family violence from a slightly different tack. Yesterday I attended a trial - it was actually a charter application - at a provincial court here in Halifax. The charter application was around the basis that the charges against the accused might actually get thrown out because of institutional delays resulting in not enough time for a reasonable time for the carriage of justice.
That obviously is of great concern to the woman who was abused. In fact, the person who's charged has previously been convicted on the same things. Interestingly, what tweaked my attention were the comments of the judge. She laid it squarely at your feet, minister, and your department. Obviously you're new, but I guess you take on all the baggage when you
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become minister. The judge indicated that more and more cases would get thrown out - in fairness, she hasn't made a decision on this one, she'll make a decision November 23rd - but she said more and more cases will get thrown out by the provincial court, particularly in domestic violence and those more complicated cases, unless the Justice Department does something to increase the number of judges and the resources to the trial system. I'd be interested to hear your comments on that.
MR. LANDRY: Well, there's a number of points that you've raised there. If a judge has an opinion, I respect their opinion. I had the pleasure of meeting with the Chief Justice for the province and issues were talked about and if resourcing is an issue, I trust that within that process, they'll come forward with that point.
We're presently looking at appointing some new judges and that will happen. Within our system, if we see that overall there's a shortage within the overall requirement to meet the needs of the community, we'll evaluate that and take the steps. I want to answer the question, that the data and the information that I have before me to this point does not indicate that we need to increase at this point. But if it shows from overall assessment and our continuing evaluation that we need to, steps will be taken to address that in an appropriate form.
I want to flip back, when we talk about the charter application, we were talking about the institutional delays. That's in there for a very defined reason and I respect that part of the charter and that is a good indicator if there is a charter argument. If a case is tossed out based on that premise that we need to look from a justice perspective as to how to address that. There are three appointments I think we have coming up and our understanding is that that should meet part of that demand and other than that . . .
MR. YOUNGER: Mr. Chairman, are those three new appointments additional appointments to the complement or are they to replace retiring judges?
MR. LANDRY: They will be replacements but I think part of the problem would be when you have a gap or when you have retirements and that happens in government. I mean, I know we're both new but I'm not new to the bureaucratic process of government and working in and how resourcing and staffing problems come along. I spent a lifetime within the federal system so I'm quite familiar with the delays. It sometimes has an impact on and we're always looking at, if we don't backfill a position quickly enough, what impact does it have on the system, so we'll monitor that.
[5:45 p.m.]
MR. YOUNGER: In your initial remarks, you did indicate that obviously judges have different opinions and I agree with you and this is obviously one judge's opinion. I guess what concerns me is in this case the institutional delays seem to come from - and I
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agree, there's a good reason why they're in the charter and they should be there but they come from a couple of areas. One was just how busy the judge was and the other judges in the court they even, I guess at one point in the two years this has been trying to get through trial, have tried to find other judges. There's a number of institutional delays but we'll focus on the judge's time at the moment - was so bad that the first date that the judge could find to actually render a decision on yesterday's matter is November 23rd. I wonder whether you think that - obviously the judge is sufficiently busy with trials and that, that that is the earliest date but do you think that the court should be that busy that an application of that nature, a charter application on institutional delay, should take from the 14th to over a month and a half?
MR. LANDRY: If that's all the delay is right there, we're in good shape but let me answer the question in a broader sense because it goes back to - we have to look at the overall justice system and I'll use the example of Boots in the Street. If we add more police officers on the front line to pick up people for other types of crime, that has an impact on the system and ties up court time, so what we need to be is strategically focused. We need to ensure that our courts are becoming more efficient so that police officers are not having dead time in courts. That they're not spending time chasing people because you have outstanding warrants, that you have cleaned up those types of issues. That you're not putting your police officers on social problems within the community, when other resources can be applied there. Put them on targeted major crime issues and where the major focus of the criminal behaviour is occurring in the province. You look at it as a system overall and you start to address it.
This problem within the courts isn't isolated to the courtroom. This problem happens in the courts because of events that are occurring outside of the courts, not by putting more judges in there or building more courthouses. If you build more courthouses you'll fill them, same concept as the jails. You could put an army on the street, but you don't make your society safer. You need to be focused on what the priorities are and where the actual rooting of crime is, and so that economic lens - and you weren't here when I read the comment earlier. If we do not look at the justice system through an economic lens, then it cannot be sustained, so we have to be very focused and very practical and well informed of the issues in what the causations are and where the priorities are.
MR. YOUNGER: I wonder, would that comment there - and actually one of the other institutional delays, and this particular case I was going to get to is the RCMP themselves. They were so bogged down they laid their first information sometime in, I believe, August 2007, but didn't have time to compile all the rest of the data and information that they had collected from witnesses to lay a whole series of further informations, which didn't actually get laid until February 8th, even though they were all related around the same incident. That's obviously another one that the judge is considering in potentially throwing this out.
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Now, maybe she won't throw it out, but it does raise the issue that, you know, I'm hearing you say - I think I'm hearing you saying, correct me if I'm wrong, please - that having more police out there isn't going to solve that problem because it will just back up the courts further, and I agree, more police laying more charges would back up the court, but it sounds like in a case like this - and frankly I'd consider a domestic violence case to be a very serious crime - that the police have been very open in the Tantallon Detachment. They didn't have the resources to deal with these charges in a timely manner. The courts felt they should have, and so they laid some of the information late and then that gets back-stopped by a court that can't find time and there's a whole series of other things in there. One day the recording equipment broke in the provincial court and another day they shut it down because there was a security thing. I mean, there's one thing after another with this particular trial.
Are you saying there shouldn't be additional police officers on the street, that that wouldn't help? It seems to me that was part of the problem in this case as well.
MR. LANDRY: I strongly suspect that the issue that you're referring to is not the issue of police officers on the street, but police officers being focused on certain areas of crime and dealing with issues to free up officers so that they're able to put the time there. It's a compounding problem. I think that we need to invest more in our provincial police force. I assume that the area you're talking about - I don't want to get in the particular case, but it's in a rural area. When I look at the overall structure of provincial policing and how we've supported them and how we need to support them in the future, there are some gaps there that we need to address, and in the past there has been some staffing.
I'm also familiar with that if there wasn't - in a particular case where you felt that there wasn't appropriate action taken, then a complaint should be put forward to the particular police service for them to address and review that matter. I strongly suspect, though, that it's more systemic as the overall system, and we're looking at ways of how we support that and reduce the impact on the officers in the front line.
One of my goals as Minister of Justice is to reduce the impact on front-line policing to free up so that they have more time to deal with the community involvement and the community programs in that area. You have to be focused on what the priorities are, what are the major causations of crime across the province, but if we're only looking at the singular community, we won't succeed. We have to look at the overall.
MR. YOUNGER: I agree that you need to look at the system as a whole and so forth, but it sounds to me like you're suggesting the police should perhaps put less focus on certain types of crimes so that they could focus on the major crimes. I wonder if you could give me some examples of crimes that you think the police should no longer deal with or should put as a lower priority?
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MR. LANDRY: I think you have to look at it differently. If we talk in terms like that, we're not moving forward. We need to talk and look at it how we align ourselves. An earlier question was asked about the federal law and approach. We have to partner with our national and international policing partnerships. We need to focus on the integrity of our borders and ensure that we create an environment where we can sustain a good, sound economic environment for business to move freely.
So, your provincial police force needs to focus on some of those priorities in collaboration and partnership with municipal policing. If drugs are infiltrating a particular community, are they a local distribution from thefts or are they an organized crime that's distributing drugs and how are they coming in? You need to focus there. If there's a particular issue in an area, whether it's violence happening in a neighbourhood, then you'll look at if that's an offender issue, then you'll put those resources there.
One of the things that's occurred here is not what you cut out, it's what you're establishing from that analysis on prolific offenders, and you get the data that says these are your crime patterns and they're happening between a particular time. For example, you want to put extra resources on Monday morning and then when people say, why the extra resources on Monday morning, because all the break-ins on the weekend get reported because people come home or they're away or businesses open up, so you want to make sure you have resources on there.
If your violence is on a Thursday night between 9:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m., what are some of the indicators that are contributing to that and what steps, as police officers, can you do to address that? If you have prostitution in an area, or a drug distribution in a particular area, or you have an unsafe environment - I think the Safe Communities and Neighbourhoods Act is an excellent example that gives police a tool that starts to identify people, where the community comes forward.
The community also has a responsibility here. I'll say this maybe 100 times between now and the next four years, police can only police those that wish to be policed. The policing of a community is the community's responsibility in partnership with the police agency that's been hired to administer that function. So we need that collaboration. It even goes back to us as MLAs, what are we doing collectively, as a group, to help address some of these issues?
You're probably going to find me, as a Justice Minister, who really doesn't want to get down to the individual cases or these minor details. Sure, there's going to be somebody victimized by domestic violence who's going to be near and dear to your heart. I had the pleasure of listening and understanding the feeling and the compassion Ms. Whalen, your partner, has shared with us here today on particular cases. I got that message.
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I also heard the Justice staff and they have already briefed me on this issue, it is a priority, and it's a priority of mine as the Justice Minister. So, when we look at this, we need to look at the overall system and we need to be very collaborative. I've had the pleasure of meeting with all the chiefs of police and the RCMP, and I'm going to be meeting regularly with the executive of policing, that involves the RCMP and the chiefs of police executive, and we're going to talk about the priorities.
There's also a process in place where the court services, family violence people, policing services director, all the different agencies within justice, are now coming together to talk about how we get focused on these issues.
I also want to bring in the academic community, whether it's the criminology or sociology departments within the universities, they come and advise us about some of these trends. I'm going to try and consult with the wide range of people in the academic community and encourage my staff to make those partnerships and connections and get that data, that information and knowledge about where patterns and trends are going, how we need to change.
One of the most important things that we need to do as a government today is look at this system through an economic lens and how we shift. A major issue shift when you talk about policing, is changing commanders so they become leaders in their community to resolve the issues in their neighbourhoods, that community-based approach. As a government we need to ensure that they have the leadership skills to start looking at policing differently.
I use the example of one of my speeches here, we didn't have cell phones, let alone a law to prohibit the use of them, just a few years ago. My granddaughter doesn't know a world without a microwave, a remote control TV, computers, that whole orientation. Well, some of our policing managers and systems and approaches in our government - I don't mean that critically - are in the past; we're here today, let's move forward, we need to move out of there and we need to move out of there quickly. We need to align ourselves.
I have one senior police officer say to me, you can fire a cannon down a particular street and not hit a terrorist. Well that just tells me that maybe it's time for a shift in management. If you're having to fight, if you're having to see a terrorist to determine whether you have a problem, you're already out of the game.
We really need that leadership and we really need people talking about how do we bring Nova Scotia to be a leader in crime prevention and addressing crime? How do we ensure the integrity of peripheral lines. We have one of the most open shorelines in the world that has accessibility. You can hide anywhere in this province.
How are we making that stronger? What are we doing to protect that border? Our biggest threat is not from within, it's from without. When you say okay, what about the child
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exploiter - that's all in the computer, they're coming in there. They're coming into your home, they're in there now. So we need to have trained experts who deal with that.
You can't ask a front-line police officer to do that, you need the expert, you need the support within prosecutions, within the courts to deal with this technological change and the advanced commitment of the complexities of crime. There's no easy answer but I'm excited to be a part of this and I know the staff I have to work with, we have talent there and we're going to make some movement.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The time has expired for questions from the Liberal caucus.
Minister, would you like a five-minute break?
MR. LANDRY: I'm going to take some breaks. The last time I didn't because I got tricked into thinking it was shorter and I sat here for three hours. I thought it was bad enough for myself but when I heard from others - don't do that to us again.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, we'll have a quick five-minute break.
[5:59 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]
[6:15 p.m. The subcommittee reconvened.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, we're ready to begin again. The Progressive Conservative start time is 6:15 p.m.
The honourable member for Cape Breton North.
HON. CECIL CLARKE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, it is good to come back. As we indicated just before going on to Corrections, the most recent and truly unfortunate - and I've said it's a blemish - are the recent charges against a deputy sheriff with regard to drug-related activity. Can the minister provide me with an update, more than anything else, of the status of the investigation and, more specifically, the carry forward of what you're doing with Corrections, between Sheriff Services? Obviously there's a concern about any relationship with any of the Correctional Services Division individuals, and is that investigation including Correctional Services?
MR. LANDRY: The investigation dealing with the sheriff, there are two going on: one is the criminal investigation, the other is the internal. As far as where they are or how far they are, I haven't asked, and I probably won't ask for a couple of weeks. I've been assured that the assignments have been placed out and that qualified people are conducting the investigation. Being someone who has conducted hundreds of investigations in my lifetime, I know that they take a little bit of time, so I don't feel they need to hear from me right now.
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We'll let them develop their investigation and as information comes forward, we'll address that.
In relation to whether we're getting into an internal investigation on Corrections or the Sheriff's Office itself, I see no reason to do that at this stage of the game. Where we are right now is that we have someone who has allegedly committed a criminal offence while on duty and under our employment. We have taken quick and decisive action regarding that issue, but let me assure you that we are looking and consulting with management of each department, whether it's in Sheriff's or whether it's in Corrections, in policing, to monitor efficiencies within the department.
If at any time that I come into possession of information, or anyone in my department, where there's an impropriety or actions required for an investigative process, we will act quickly in that matter.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you. So just to confirm what I've heard, is that there is no - as part of the internal investigation, Sheriff Services and Correctional Services are not jointly liaising with regard to that investigation, it's just Sheriff Services, internally?
MR. LANDRY: There is an investigator who is conducting an investigation and, as I said, as an investigator I would look at all the steps of how the individual I was investigating came into possession of the drugs. First off, the criminal is one thing, so administratively I'd be looking at the employee as to how they came into possession of the drugs, what their purpose was. If it involved other employees, it would then lead me into an appropriate direction.
If you're asking me here tonight - and I wouldn't tell you tonight if I knew the answer but I don't know the answer - I would respect the fact that the investigation needs to go on in the direction it needs to go. When I get the report, if I see gaps in it, or if I see an area that needs to be explored further, I will probably give direction to that account. In all likelihood, knowing the efficiency of the deputy minister that I have the pleasure to work with, I probably won't even need to get to that point because it will be corrected before it gets to me.
I'm confident that the person or persons responsible for the investigation will do a thorough job. I would expect that they are in consultation with Corrections and any other department if they feel it's necessary or appropriate for them to conduct those inquiries.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. So who is the person doing or heading up the investigation?
MR. LANDRY: Fred Hildebrand, director of Sheriff Services. I do want to say that I know Fred and I know that he is a very competent, skilled investigator with a deep history in policing.
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MR. CLARKE: I just wanted to clarify where things were with that because I know what we've seen, I guess, in just recent days between what has affected Sheriff Services, what has affected the courthouse in terms of security, where people are in the public. I guess just to close out because there was a third item recently and that was the recent situation that came up with the individual who barricaded himself with a firearm and there were 40 officers deployed with regard to trying to secure that situation. One of the things that comes forward was a concern that if you have 40 officers surrounding a dwelling of 16 by 16, I think it was, and a person manages to escape, what happens with that incident report in terms of how the RCMP reported back to you with regard to that recent case?
MR. LANDRY: Well, I don't expect them to report back to me in that particular case. If I had any issues, I might ask about them. I'm concerned, I should say, when a suspect is able to flee, but I've been involved in situations such as that and there is no electricity in that area. It's quite possible that at night somebody could elude by crawling out in the shadows, it's very conceivable.
The nice thing in that particular situation, the person was apprehended, no further harm or injury to anyone occurred out of that. I'm trusting that the mounted police, being a former member, one of the protocols would be - and I see no reason why that has changed or given any indication that it would change - that the investigation would be debriefed. There would be debriefings and they would look at where their strengths and weaknesses were in there and what they need to do differently in similar or in future incidents.
I would suspect that the commanders would have - they'll do a review and each part will assess its contribution and how this happened and what they need to do differently, but they could have an incident tonight and someone else could get out of the premises that is really hard to secure. I'm not too concerned about it, other than the fact that it is an issue, it turned out well, but I believe in the mounted police, as I believe in all police officers in Nova Scotia and the commanders who are there right now.
MR. CLARKE: I'm not questioning the mounted police. What I'm saying is there have been recent incidents that have come forward and this is one where people are saying, when you see a very large complement and resource put to a situation, albeit one that could have gone in any number of directions - I was just wondering obviously if you had had, through your reports that would come to the Attorney General from the RCMP about how a situation like that had to get to that level in the first place, with such a large resource base.
Anyway, I just would note that the public is looking at and has - just from my point of view - commenting with regard to the level of resource. How does a situation like that potentially go in a different direction with so much resource applied to contain that thing? I just didn't know if there was an operational issue that went wrong or if there was a circumstance that would allow someone to evade that large a complement of officers and force.
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MR. LANDRY: I doubt there were 40 officers surrounding the building all night. There may have been, but I doubt that is the case. There might have been 40 officers involved, and I, from being the Justice Minister - if it takes 100 and that's what they feel to save a life and make sure the community is safe, so be it; if it takes one, so be it. No one was harmed. The community - there were evacuations made. A number of things happened in a very quick time and the sanctity of life is the critical element.
If the deployment of 40 people is what the commanders felt was necessary, I accept that.
MR. CLARKE: Mr. Chairman, again, it was just with regard to recent incidents and looking at where people are seeing where situations are arising and if there are any areas or gaps that need to be filled in and what the response would be from the department or direction from the Attorney General to the RCMP on that matter.
I want to go back to, and before the time ran out in the last session with the minister and we were going down the road with regard to the next level, about the tough-on-crime agenda, that if they do the crime, they do the time. I fully agree with the minister with regard to using every other possible tool, whether that's electronic bracelets or any other mechanism that allows for safe and effective monitoring of persons on conditions.
The other aspect, though, is dealing with incarceration, which I'd like to now just move to Correctional Services, in terms of where things are. As you know, we faced issues with double-bunking, very publicly-disclosed issues that both were brought forward from the union and issues of the day. Can you tell me, minister, exactly where we are with the inmate population issue, the double-bunking specific to Burnside, and your overall facilities management scenario and plan that has flowed out from the Deloitte report?
MR. LANDRY: Well, we're halfway through the Deloitte report and, as you know, with the Deloitte report, the 51 recommendations, we're hoping within - we must be about 12 or 15 months away by achieving completion of that.
I think a lot has happened and there are some incidents in the past, and unfortunately for yourself, you took the hit on them. That happens in this business, but not unlike today; as we know, in Justice there is an issue today, there's one tomorrow. I think a lot of good things come out of what has happened in there in the evolution of how we're looking at where we're going in Corrections. I have the pleasure that we now have a director of Corrections, a new director in place, Mr. Honsberger.
I am excited that his leadership will start to address some - I don't want to be critical, because I like to stay positive - I think there are some gaps in the leadership within Corrections and part of that is the aging population, people moving out, younger people coming in, training. I am confident that under his leadership, in partnership with the deputy
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and other members of the Justice team, that we will fill in those gaps. I'm very confident that discussions I've had with the union, that I see a union team there that is motivated to provide a quality service and to address the needs of Corrections and to be a partner with management in our correctional facilities.
In the double-bunking situation, we have approximately 25 during the week and about 45 on the weekend. I shared with you in one of my earlier answers, I'm not big on these people coming in on the weekends. Let's get them doing their time, let's get it through. I'm understanding of the court having the flexibility to address those individuals, that in their personal situation it is in the best interest of the rehabilitation of the individual, the best interest of public safety, the well-being of the individuals's family and the community, that incarceration for weekends may be a viable option that gets the message across.
I also see the increase in bracelets as a way to do that. In order to achieve some of these points, we're going to need to look at where we get resourcing because I think we need more monitoring. When we talk about accountability, we need a policing approach that is focused on that issue and there's a team able to respond to how we hold people accountable in the community who are on probation or serving weekends because it's not just when they show up on the weekend, that we follow up on them during the week. Especially, for example, the one person who is supposed to stay away from drinking - he comes in on the weekends and goes out on a bender all week and sober on the weekend, drunk during the week - that's a condition of their release. It's that type of accountability.
I think in our society - and once again I don't want my comment to be viewed as negative of past governments. We're here today, we have to take responsibility for this, but we need to hold the community and the individual more accountable. I think that's the message I'm hearing from you and what you're saying that you want to see. But it's not just about locking them up in an institution, we need to find other ways to make them accountable and still make the contributions. At the end of the day we want the person back in the community, working and paying taxes, because we want to expand our programs.
[6:30 p.m.]
MR. CLARKE: Mr. Chairman, my appreciation to the minister. So what I've heard, as we go forward, I think there's probably many areas where we jointly would concur. So we have a public that is looking for a greater response in terms of how society, governments and the judicial system deal with those who clearly have broken the law and how they're held to account. Of course you have to look at the mechanisms and the bench.
We have a tough on crime agenda in Ottawa that is trying to move forward with regard to mandatory sentences - changing laws to be very clear on what types of offences are just not acceptable, and a society and offenders that know they can reoffend and reoffend and ultimately they would have to do something severe before they would end up getting a tough
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sentence or penalty and agreeing that for those who truly are seeking rehabilitation and/or are not considered a public threat, things like electronic monitoring and the probation system and the like are very important.
For young offenders, where there is a big concern on that front, the Restorative Justice program - I understand we celebrate in Nova Scotia that we have probably the best restorative justice program in North America and it is recognized as that, and anything that can improve upon that is great. However, it is the severity of the actions of those things that are making it to the public light, that are causing the public concern, and thus the perception you've talked about before, with seniors or other citizens - young offending issues are a concern of seniors but they are just as much to other youth that are intimidated and/or bullied and the like.
I want to bring it back because you said if you do the crime you do the time, and we have a Deloitte report that is being implemented and should be, given the need, and one of the things that has been identified is the fact that the physical infrastructure - the minister is going to know where I'm going - that we have and the supports, because it was raised about double-bunking, it was raised about our largest facility, it was expanded in southwestern Nova Scotia, having a model that would truly work in responding to the work concerns as well as those of the general public, in moving to put new infrastructure in place. The member for Cumberland South had indicated with Springhill and the reason for collaborating with Corrections Canada and recognizing that if you're looking at other tools where you can share services, where you can share programs, where you can deal with education, rehabilitation, all factors that come into play about where a collaborative relationship would go.
I've already heard the minister, Mr. Chairman, state what he viewed was in paper or not, but I also recognize the discussion. I do welcome the minister's comment earlier that if there is anything we could do with regard to the federal Minister of Justice or the federal Minister of Public Safety to help cost-share or supporting initiatives that would be there. What we do know is your officials, in trying to handle the Deloitte report, were also going to be provided with new infrastructure to help manage the growing pressures that are there within the current system as it is, to deal with the public priority of ensuring that those who need to be incarcerated can be and that those who are on the bench and/or seeking penalties as a Crown Prosecutor can know that there is the ability within the system to do that, because we know the trickle-back effect is, well, we just don't have capacity, we're over-capacitated.
We had an ability to bring in substantive new infrastructure specifically to the one that the $17.1 million that your government chose to take out, at the same time saying we're doing a review - well, there was a review, there was a need, there was a reason for taking very explicit action to deal with a whole multifaceted, multi-disciplinary approach to enable all of the various tiers of people who are in the system providing a service to have greater infrastructural ability to build on that.
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So I would just come back, Mr. Chairman, to the minister and just indicate if, through any efforts on his behalf or, quite frankly, on ourselves with the Government of Canada, if there's a willingness to partner through Corrections Canada with the Province of Nova Scotia either/or through the Department of Justice, Canada, and the federal government in general, then I'm assuming that we could re-evaluate the Springhill correctional facility with you. Did I get that right? You said, Mr. Minister, if we could help bring some support to the table, we could look at that.
MR. LANDRY: It's going to take a while to answer this one. I am going to come back. I'll answer one part of the jails right now and then I'll come back. Nothing is changed on the jail from the day before I came in, the day after I came in to this seat as Attorney General, Minister of Justice. There is one shift, that I have asked to get a review and get information and to look at something I see as a complex issue.
As I had the pleasure to share with Mr. Scott earlier in our discussions the other night, I met with the Atlantic ministers and we talked very clearly about collaboration and about working together and about looking at ways to do differently. Remember, I'm coming to this job with the belief that we have to look at this through an economic lens at the overall system of justice and look at crime in a very strategic manner, that we need to create a vision of where we're going collectively with the overall system. For me, the exciting part is that I think in those processes, rather than in detail processes, so I find this opportunity both an honour and an exciting opportunity.
I want to come back, and I will re-flip back into the issue on instutionalized structural design and come back to your question, because I haven't forgotten it, about the federal partnership. That goes back to the heart and Mr. Scott and why he's promoting Springhill and what is probably one of the major assets, besides the energy component there and the nice people in the community, looking to provide economic well-being in his community, which is an important factor for any MLA. The concept of tough on crime is a conservative-based language approach to the issue of justice and predominantly from a federal perspective, and it has worked well for them. I see it a little differently. I believe that we need to hold criminals accountable. When I see the term "tough on crime," I see it more as an adversarial bang than holding someone accountable. So I hear the message when you say it and I think we're both on the same page; we just might use different language and approach to get there.
When I look at the word "reoffender" and that we have some room in the justice system to look at how we deal with reoffenders and we need to invest more directly in that and hold people accountable in that repetitive crime pattern.
What I would hate to see us do is to get to where we were in the States where three strikes and you're out. That whole philosophy undermines the social fabric of what we stand for as Canadians within our society and what we're trying to represent and how we're trying to build our communities.
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I do believe that there are sociopathic and psychopathic individuals within our communities who suffer from those mental structures and when they're involved in crime, versus being a corporate director of some institution, or within government, or universities, they're everywhere. Some function quite well in society, are productive and work within the community. Some choose crime as their pattern and for those individuals we need to lock them up. The sooner we can identify them as a youth and as a young offender, in all likelihood, to be able to invest the money and the dollars and the possibility of correcting anybody who is in that state is probably pretty slim, from what I've read, and I do stand to be corrected. I'm going to learn more about that whole process because it rises to the heart of your question when you look at youth and young offenders and what do we do with them.
One of the whole things with youth, if each of us think back to when we were young people, we did some things that we're not proud of and we're glad to have had the opportunity to be corrected by a parent, a neighbour, by a friend or, in some cases, the justice system, to have that opportunity to turn our lives around. As adults and as a society we have to have compassion and provide that opportunity for our youth to get back on track. I have even known some people who had been hardened criminals that turn out to do really well in their lives. How they got to where they are on their journey is a story in itself.
When we look at youth, and we don't have a system that says we can lock a youth up and they can continue with their petty crimes, we know that it's time to change the philosophy from a youth committing crime and locking them up to a youth in distress. Is there a way we can redefine what they're doing and to give the court an opportunity to secure somebody in a secure custody, not jail in that sense, but in custody where they're getting assistance and help because it is a youth at risk, a youth in trouble? It may be that we need to change the Young Offenders Act to accommodate that, so those are factors in there.
On the physical structure and infrastructure, we absolutely need to get new correctional facilities, there is no shyness on my point, whether it's in Amherst or Antigonish, we're long past that. I only wish that the institution that you're referring to, that was announced on April 29th, a couple of days before an election, that it's being built. I only wish that the ground had been broken and the building had been built, it would have made things - that part of it. But a new government coming in looking at the dollars that we're faced with, the economic reality - and I don't mean that as a criticism anywhere, we're here, we're responsible and accountable for what we're going to do.
I feel it is prudent and responsible to me, as the minister, to gather information, to learn a little bit more and to look at where we're going to build, what we're going to build and how much money we're going to have to put into that. I don't know that answer, I'm sitting before you here tonight and I have absolutely no idea where that is going and I'm looking forward to reading the report. I will stress very clearly that Mr. Scott has made a very passionate - and heck, if I could have built it the other night I would have had it built - on
[Page 623]
how he articulated the importance to him and the community and how it's important to him. I clearly hear that and respect that.
On the point of federal Justice and working with the federal government, I look forward to it and I'm going to be meeting here later this month and I'm looking to form partnerships across the country. I've already had the opportunity to speak to Minister Nicholson and I see that you speak to him regularly, so that's even a bonus, we can get a couple of people trying to get his ear and maybe move our interests forward together. I share with you - I think if I'm hearing you correctly and I've had the opportunity to hear your passion on different points on the floor - that we need to do something about some of the criminal behaviour, but we have to be careful how we move forward to make sure those who are either psychopathic or sociopathic in behaviour, that we lock them up and keep them there and those who are rehabilitative, that we have the potential to rehabilitate, that we provide the opportunities for them to get the treatment and the support.
Also in crime there is this socio-economic background of it and the poverty issue that contributes to that and the disproportion of minorities and Aboriginals within the system that we also need to work with and we need to work with those communities that most represent disadvantaged groups in some areas, that we provide that support and consultation and work together to reduce the incarceration and time that especially young people are involved in the criminal behaviour.
If they're an organized criminal and involved in organized crime and patterns such as that, I think our laws need to be very clear and very firm in some of the discussion there by the federal government dealing with weapons and being an organization. I think some great strides have been made there and I think as a House, as a Legislature, that Nova Scotia can help be a leader in that. It doesn't have to be on a partisanship basis, I'm quite prepared - and I had the opportunity to speak to Ms. Whalen earlier and I said, if you have issues or concerns that you need to bring forward, or you feel that the Justice Department needs to be assessing or evaluating, that I'm more than prepared and willing to listen. I really don't care what your political stripe is and that we will listen. That's not necessarily saying it's going to be implemented or agreed upon, but at least you'll be heard and we'll look at it with regard to the programs and processes that are moving forward.
I know from the Justice Department that the staff who are there are very committed to making Nova Scotia the safest and healthiest place in the world to live, not just Canada, and they are committed to that. I firmly believe that the staff works hard in that regard and if they hear a good idea from someone else, they will go with it. I'm hoping that I'm mature enough in my understanding of the world that I listen and prepare to implement what's right for Nova Scotia.
MR. CLARKE: I guess where I'm going with this is in terms of the actions that were taken and the pressures that were brought forward and where we will find ourselves another
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day. If it was politically expedient in terms of where we would have been, in terms of the budget - with no disrespect to my honourable colleague, the member for Cumberland South - a case could have been made very easily to replace the Cape Breton correctional facility with regard to its mixed use and the type of environment that was there. As minister of the day, the choice was to go where the most collaborative relationship would be. It could have been very much for the Deputy Premier of the day to insist, we could have broken ground at any point, but it was making sure where was the best relationship that could come forward.
[6:45 p.m.]
I go back to the Government of Canada because of the ability to work and recognize that Corrections Canada has a whole other level of capacity and service exchange that could have been made available. It would have been politically very advantageous if I had just wanted to replace a facility in my own constituency, even though work was going to replace Cape Breton as part of getting all of the facilities. I would urge the minister, as he does his review, to recognize that we definitely need to have additional capacity within the Cape Breton region.
The other thing that we had was to say that these new facilities would be of equal size and capacity and the Cape Breton one, even though it is the second largest and is a very large facility, it's dated and very awkward in some ways, so it definitely has a need of replacement, that they would all be the same. We also recognized in our largest facility, if you have a major incident you have to be able to move capacity around to have the same operating environment within those facilities so that what has been a very large frustration, not only for the government of the day, of which you will find your frustrations as they come forward, but also for the people working in the system who have been asking for a better operating environment through the union, but also for our officials who have to manage these facilities, that it was a next step.
The Cumberland facility in Springhill was to build on where the most obvious strategic partnership would be, otherwise I would have gone to Cape Breton and made the case as minister of the day to do it there first and because it's the second-largest facility that needs to be replaced. We recognized about building other capacity that would accommodate two bunks per cell, that it would be built-in infrastructure, it would move along. As we see it, the federal government and/or the public look for other capacity.
I will just note because we'll have the Hansard of this, the government's choice to eliminate the construction program for that facility will now have a long-term impact on your government's ability and future governments' ability but, more importantly, the people who work in the system, both as correctional officers and those who have to interface with the correctional system, because we have delayed it. And every year delay is moving out and moving out.
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If a major incident occurs at Burnside and that isn't done, you know where we're going to be, as a past government, about why to move forward and get a new facility and to have a mix, geographically, in the province, so that there wasn't a mega institution because you can also get problems that culminate with them and also having the same operating environment in all of the five facilities in the province so that if there was an issue, situational or otherwise, anyone could leave from one facility to another and be in the same operating environment, not going to the system that right now is totally different - you go to Antigonish, you go to Amherst, you go to Cape Breton. If the worker had to provide relief, they would not be in the same operating environment - it was to build on a model of, quite frankly, service delivery, but also operational excellence and to get to a new platform.
The fact that the government has chosen to walk away from that commitment and do another review, even though Deloitte has told us where we're going to be, then you're going to find, I would think, Mr. Minister, when the next wave of major union and other negotiations come forward, which I believe - and that will be a question, just exactly when the next round of negotiations will be due - it is going to create an issue.
All I would say is, and this is not to be over-critical, we, as a prior government, but also as a current caucus in Opposition, we'll be noting and tracking and it's important. The reason I say this is to give you the advantage of making sure your officials can track this for you because we'll be asking those questions of you, about - you've made a decision. It has delayed continuing with infrastructure and operational advancement that was much-needed to get corrections within Nova Scotia onto a better path, which is very much where Deloitte would have them go. Now that has been put off, and depending on what comes out of that review, regardless of what choices you make, regardless of where the locations are, the integrity of our Correctional Services infrastructure has been compromised and it has been a political choice, albeit of the new government and Cabinet, to do that.
As we go forward and as issues come forward, I think it's only fair for me to provide to you the disclosure that we'll be looking at and tracking the system-wide implications of that. It is everything from where the Crown Attorneys are and trying to deal with the pressures that they have on them, the court systems, what the ongoing capacity is or isn't in our system as it is today. We could have built five of them, there are three new ones. If we built three new ones and they were all under construction now, you and I know there would be people who would find their way there and I don't disagree with what the minister said.
As we go forward, Mr. Minister, there is a philosophical position that as Progressive Conservatives - and you had mentioned about conservative-based language like tough on crime, but in your own words, if you do the crime you do the time, that's pretty much conservative-based language too.
MR. LANDRY: That's what I say, we shared . . .
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MR. CLARKE: But the point being, no matter what words you use, because you've used them - and I do agree with you - but your government has made a choice to move away from a strategic investment and it will be put in the balance of your government also choosing to deficit $66 million additional dollars for land acquisition in a deficit situation. Yet, you took $17.1 million out for built infrastructure at a time when stimulus was and is needed, when the infrastructure itself goes to the very integrity with the Deloitte report and the systemic problems that have existed within the justice delivery system, you've moved past that and now we find ourselves in a situation where a community and a core partnership that could have been put in place and be fully on the way of implementation, has been delayed.
So part of what you will face as other problems come up, you know we will be looking at it from the point of view of saying, you made a choice, you chose buying some Irving lands over building jails, your government did, and it wanted to say it wants to do a review. That is something that as we go forward, as we deal with these issues, as we look at other matters, those will be things that again, I will just reiterate, should be tracked - because we'll be tracking them - and it's good to have those questions because it will come up again in Question Period.
From the perspective of what truly is going to help with a lot of the other - you've quoted about academic and engaging the academic community, engaging in a holistic manner all of the components that are going to be necessary for Nova Scotia to be the best delivery model it can, but the government itself had made a fundamental decision to put infrastructure aside in an area where there is a core public need and yet still borrow money to buy Irving lands. Do you think there's a disconnect there?
MR. LANDRY: The Progressive Conservative Party has an ideology and approach to issues and the NDP has a philosophy and principle. Some would argue that jails aren't necessary and there are alternative ways and building such a building is a waste of tax dollars. There's a large part of the population - and I actually was quite surprised by the number of people who went out of their way to congratulate me - on behalf of the decision made by the government, about taking the land and the importance of that issue.
Now I don't fully understand the issue to the level that I think that needs to be out there, but I understand the importance of looking at a green environment and how we need to develop a province where we protect our lands and the value in that. If you dropped the point down to the salient issue of buy a piece of land, build a jail, delay a concept, well, part of that is a way of how you look at that. I don't want my answer to be disrespectful to you and to the previous government in any way because we're here today and what we're going to do is we need to look at the overall system. I was asked to review the issue; I thought it was important that we review the issue on jails because it was a matter - the salient point of this question comes down to, do we build one? Do we build two? Do we build three?
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We know there is a problem in Cape Breton. I didn't know enough about the overall to feel comfortable with making that expenditure. The Finance Department felt it better to move the $18 million or $17-some million to another area, and I respect the decision that was made.
I understand where the previous government came from, but the people of Nova Scotia asked us to look at things differently and to take a different action, and we came into government for that. We all believe and we're here today and I'm not so naive to think that a few years down the road that this government will be the government of the day. That will change. That's part of democracy and I respect that.
I feel that whatever decision we're going to make in regard to the jail or jails, that we'll make a decision that we feel, as a government, is in the best interest. Now will we make everybody happy? Once again, I don't know where this answer is going with the facility or facilities. No, there will be some people who are not happy.
The number of MLAs that have approached me already about building the jail - don't build it in that one location, come to ours, we need it more. I've even had people in my own riding say, oh, you're doing this here and that there, and I'm saying, well, that's news to me. So part of this whole issue is about a philosophical shift, definitely. There are costs to delays versus - but at the end of the day maybe it's a saving if we end up building an institution that is more applicable to our short-term or long-term needs, given the changing environment we're in.
Maybe we won't make the best choice in the world, but what we're hopefully doing is, we're going to make a well-informed - one that meets the principles and ideologies of us as a government, and that's our prerogative as the majority. But I don't want that comment - I think that came out in my mind a little bit different than what - I don't want to mean that as a disrespect to where we're at now or where we came from. I respect the fact of what you've done there and where we're at, but we're looking at this just a little differently. I don't make apologies for that, and I won't be the only one involved in the decision, so it will involve quite a few others, as you know, and quite a bit of discussion and consultation, and I look forward to that.
I do know and I expect in the House that whatever decision we make, if it's not in line with the Opposition, from what I've learned in there, you're going to line up and take your position and make your arguments known for Nova Scotians and I respect that, I have to respect that process. I don't necessarily agree with how that's all carried out there, but I'll be prepared to stand up on whatever direction we go. I think we do have something in common, I believe we both want to see a change in how we hold people accountable in the province for crimes that they commit. I believe that we want to reduce the cost of how we administer crime. I come back to the term that I referred to earlier - and I'm glad I wrote that
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statement down because I would never have remembered it - about the economic lens and structure of policing and justice and how we have to look at this.
So dollars do matter, but at the same time I think Mr. Scott said a very important thing that hasn't left my mind, the viability of communities and the need for them to sustain themselves is also a critical element, so I don't want that to be tossed out with the overall discussion.
When we talk about Irving lands, when I hear the word "Irving" in that tone, in that manner, then I draw that there might be a negative connotation that they're Irving lands, I'm going to take the word out of it, that it's lands and I think from a philosophical position as a political Party, we felt that trying to work toward the 12 per cent is a very important issue for us as a Party. I support that and I will pull no punches, I believe that. But the question comes down that you raised on the borrowed dollar and that's an issue whenever you have a deficit, however, I support the decision and I'll live with it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: There's 15 minutes remaining in the Progressive Conservative hour.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Irving example was the one that was most public and the minister would be aware of that. At the time it was all about the choices of what was more important. The previous government that was voted down by your colleagues in the House was on the basis of a balanced budget, of those numbers being within that $17.1 million being in there, but an additional $19 million that was there for land purchase on an ongoing basis. We've taken great pride as a former government from - in Cape Split, to help buying islands down the South Shore, acquiring lands throughout Nova Scotia if they were at fair market value, to be able to assist there.
[7:00 p.m.]
My point being and for the purposes of this Hansard and literally for another day, is to recognize that choices have been made - and they were very strictly political choices, I respect that too. You made political choices as a government - to step away from an investment, the $19 million alone for lands that was there in the regular budget, that you added $66 million on, you could have left $17.1 million in the balance if you were going to deficit finance everything. Now we're going to have compounding debt occur over the course of time that's costing the taxpayers millions of dollars, to accommodate what is an NDP political agenda. Again, I'll respectfully respect the fact that you're the government, you've made those choices and you'll have the numbers to put them through the House.
When it comes back to the core justice delivery model for Nova Scotia, what is clear is that your government has made choices to push back and step back from the obligations that were being made to move Nova Scotia forward, to deal with the infrastructure that is
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necessary for the services and the people who work within them, to accelerate the public safety agenda of this province.
There's another aspect that has come up and I've heard it from police officers around this province - and I can actually say around this province - in wanting infrastructure. I've heard about the benefit of Southwest Nova Scotia having new infrastructure working. Police officers, themselves - of which you were one - get very frustrated when they go out, they do their job, they lay the charges, they know that person is guilty of an offence and/or should be held to account for that offence. The next week they're out on the streets, their time and their resources are being utilized again to pursue the same offenders and to monitor these people. Because the system has not provided the capacity to support at the street level, the community level, strategic priorities that are there.
As we go forward we'll be looking at the choices that have been made, the service delivery that's coming from the department, the cuts that have been provided and what the impact will be.
As I mentioned about the policing, I'd like to discuss that a little further, and we may have to do it when we come back after the next aspect. I just want to go back to the minister and again, if I've heard the minister's statement right - and just to reiterate, Mr. Chairman - if we can get the Government of Canada, through Justice or Public Safety, to look at abilities to step up and to partner with the province, there's a willingness by the minister to do so.
MR. LANDRY: I'll answer the last part of the question and there's quite a bit to the other part that I will answer. Any time we can get a federal dollar, and if it makes sense to take that dollar, and in most cases it does, any time that we can partner to further a common interest, I think that's a healthy thing.
As a government, I'm prepared to work with the federal government, and any other government in the country, to help and improve our justice system and I'm committed to that. If the federal government is prepared or wants to put proposals forward of how we can reduce our cost of operation, I'm open to that.
I want to come back and talk about the land issue that you started. Part of this issue is that from the time - situations change quickly, as I understand, with the lands that are presently available, they are lands because of a massive sale and if I remember following the papers last year, or earlier in the year on this issue, there's an opportunity for the province that may not present itself in the future. When you look at dollar value, and I hope you put into your equation, is that if we were to buy it at futuristic prices down the road, would those costs of land, or potential cost of land, in escalating dollars, would that far exceed the year delay in building an institution? So it is not just quite dollar-for-dollar.
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When we talk about compounding debt, I agree, I don't like compounding debt, but I can remember a government, and I don't know if I'm allowed to use names, but if my history of Nova Scotia serves me right, the Buchanan Government was one of the major proponents of developing where we're at today, why we're in the deficit that we're at today and on the downward revenue intake over the last few years and the non-controllable projection on expenditures put us in the course where we're going, where we're on a sustainable course.
As governments, we all have a part to play in where we're at today. History will show whether or not the decisions we make are in the best interests of Nova Scotians and the best utilization of our dollars. I'd like to think and believe that we'll make decisions and choices that are in the best interests of all Nova Scotians, for the benefit of Nova Scotia for well into the future, and that the finances of this province are paramount. One of the reasons I got into government is because I had a different belief than the previous administration in the management of the dollars. It had an effect on me making the choice to become involved. Whether I'm right or not, or how I see the world, that's part of the motivation.
One of the nice things about a democracy, it allows people to assess and evaluate principles of government. I don't think that the previous administration, or future administrations, they really come into government - because I certainly didn't - to do a bad job; we came in to do a good job. I believe in my heart of hearts that most people I met from government believe they've done the right thing and they work hard. If people are working as hard as the ones around here I see working, Nova Scotians should be proud of their elected representatives, the dedication that they have. So I am very honoured to be part of that team and to have this opportunity.
You come back to the point about reoffenders. I want to look you straight in the eye and tell you clearly that I have a problem with people who are repetitive criminals, what we're doing and how we're holding them accountable. I'm looking forward to working with the other Justice Ministers.
I did have the opportunity to read some of the things that you've said before on this issue and I know it's an important matter to you. I want to stress that I do share that concept. How we hold them accountable, I just don't believe that building more and more institutions is the answer to that and we have to find ways not to be building so much mortar. When we talk about infrastructure design once again, and I don't know if I'm misreading the point, I think that we need to have good, proper facilities for our people to work in.
I know we need a new court system in the Halifax area to bring people together. We talked about security of system, that's all part of the discussion. So we have to make some decisions. We have to be careful about when we put monies into Corrections and building a facility there, that we're not overspending or misspending or misdirecting the dollars, so that we get the best bang for the buck so that we have other dollars to reinvest in other areas.
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I share that we do need to make a more modern and a healthier infrastructure than what we have, and that's an ongoing thing for any government to look at, how we modernize and upgrade.
As the Minister of Justice, I'm going to be active with the team that I work with to look at how we prioritize and move things forward. As a government, I'm going to consult with the caucus that I work with and make sure that I get feedback from the members that I have the pleasure of being associated with, but also it really doesn't matter to me if they're a caucus member or if they're a Progressive Conservative member or a Liberal member or an NDP or whoever. If you've got ideas and you want to talk about the justice system or bring forth your notions, I'm open to it. I'm here to learn and I'm here to get a job done and I think one of my weaknesses is that I like to giddy-up and get it done and I don't like some of this other smoke and mirrors and clogging down. Let's focus on what we need to do and solve the problem, and I'm prepared to work with whoever in that regard.
MR. CHAIRMAN: You have about six minutes left.
MR. CLARKE: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the minister, just in dealing with some of these items - and the minister referenced past governments and where we would be with the debt of this province and where things have come forward. I would just note that the government of the day - and speaking of the Buchanan Government, they as a government did choose to work at the time with a federal Liberal Government and then a federal Progressive Conservative Government in dealing with public spending on other priorities of which Nova Scotians had choices on and funding.
However, they funded schools. They built hospitals. They dealt with public infrastructure. They weren't dealing with buying massive tracts of land when there were other public priorities of the day, and what they did do as well is look at where we would be in our needs for infrastructure, albeit with a cost. I also know what it's like to be part of an administration that presented eight consecutive balanced budgets to the people of Nova Scotia, that was able to balance the needs from preserving nature and bringing as much into trust as you could. I also recognized, and even as the Irving example, what we said was, it was beyond the means and ability, given other priorities of Nova Scotians, to invest in at that time - and by the way, if we didn't buy it, no one else was because no one else was stepping forward. I didn't see the lineup at the Irving company with people with cheques to put deposits on the land.
So the thing, when we talk about this - and I'll come back - it has been the government choice. In doing those types of choices through a deficit budget whereby your government now, when it was in Opposition, insisted that there be a balanced budget - voted against a measure to deal with resources - and now are going against everything they said in Opposition and doing in government. That is a reality, but what we also knew was, within the Justice system there was - it wasn't about future. There was a choice of what was the
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most pressing piece of infrastructure and the most logical choice of getting that infrastructure to deal with a pressure and a demand in the system that was not being met. In all fairness to those who built the Burnside model, they had one person per cell on a best-case scenario. The reality is our numbers and the pressures on the system demand that we have more. I believe they have accommodated that very well, but they also said we need other infrastructure that takes the pressure off Burnside from being the pressure cooker, where everything just blows up because of the intensity, having additional capacity to work within the same operating environment.
Again, that opportunity has been missed, and as we go forward, you're going to find that the other pressures that come will be faced by the government. As you say, I'm not being political. I'm just talking the reality of where we will be versus you, and people will be looking at the choices that were made to be able to deal with what was the best arrangement we could have here in Nova Scotia to be able to go and partner with the Government of Canada through Corrections. That was the only facility that made sense. It wasn't in Cape Breton, and if I was being totally crass, I would have pushed as minister of the day to have that one done first, but I understood the model and I was willing to plan toward getting other infrastructure brought in line in an appropriate way, and then Antigonish, and then Cape Breton.
But, that wasn't the case, Mr. Chairman. It is the politics, as the minister indicated. There was a bill of goods sold to Nova Scotians; they bought into that bill of goods and now they find out, as the people marching around this Legislature tonight, that they didn't do what they said they were going to do in Opposition, are doing something totally opposite in government, and as we go through these estimates and dealing with the budgets that I think a good portion of the people sitting around this table tonight will vote for, and subsequently be held to account for.
As I said to the minister before, it is about being thoughtful and being thorough and doing what was the number one priority first, to meet the actual real-time, everyday needs within a system that goes beyond just one issue of the day, one matter that didn't work, or one issue. Long before this I recall having to deal with the issue between Amherst and Springhill. We looked at infrastructure and the supports and the needs and where the court facility was versus what made sense.
The other thing that occurred because of public investment and looking at infrastructure and being fair on a regional basis was the Corrections Canada. You'll note, you can go into all the Orders in Council that relate to investments that have been made to companies to build up infrastructure and other types of support that directly contribute to that economy, helping it get the type of revenue that supports the public justice system and I'll be back after my Liberal colleague is finished his hour. Thank you.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: Actually, could you keep your response to the 29 minutes remaining for the Progressive Conservatives? It is now time to start the Liberals.
The honourable member for Dartmouth East.
[7:15 p.m.]
MR. ANDREW YOUNGER: Minister, I want to pick up on where I left off, which was this idea of policing and resources in the courts. It's certainly not my intention to be dealing with an individual issue, there are many reasons why I didn't give any details of the particular court case I started talking about, primarily because, as far as I could tell, it happens a lot and with increasing frequency.
One of the things that you had alluded to as our time was running out was the issue of focusing police on other things and reducing crime. I certainly think reducing crime is the solution, it's part of the solution, but that's a long-term solution. I certainly support programs, in fact I was involved in getting a youth advocate program in my own community last year that helps prevent kids who are at risk - it's called the Youth Advocate Program. Unfortunately, I don't believe there was any provincial funding, but there was federal funding, and that helps kids who may be at risk of gang violence, prevents them from getting further involved. It's a very successful program.
However, as much as we might want to talk about terrorism and external threats, which I don't deny their importance, that really doesn't have a lot to do with issues like domestic violence and some of these things that are going on, serial break and enters, these sorts of things that seem to be clogging the justice system and police resources. In the past few days I've talked to a number of police officers in east division in HRM, for example, who tell me they can respond to a domestic violence call, be stuck for hours at that call, and then that's an officer not on the street.
I guess I'm unclear how refocusing the police resources is going to be the immediate solution to the problem without actually putting more officers on the street. What these officers are telling me is that they can get the paperwork and the other requirements - and you were an officer yourself so I'm sure you're aware of this - that they're required to do for some of these complex calls, which I'm sure you're not advocating the police not respond to anymore, that's what is taking them off the street. That's what's taking their time.
I guess what I want to know is if we're not going to put more police officers on the street to help deal with those kind of issues, and I understand your concern that more charges are going to end up in the courts and then the courts get more backlogged, but I don't think that's a reason not to deal with crimes that are making people feel unsafe. I wonder if you could address that disconnect - or what seems to be a disconnect to me.
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MR. LANDRY: I've got my work cut out for me.
MR. YOUNGER: You do.
MR. LANDRY: My work is trying to educate and to communicate - and I do apologize, I mean no disrespect in the following part of my answer - trying to orient people within the Legislature, within the province, that if we don't look at crime and look at the justice system through an economic lens, we need to work smarter, not harder. I understand fully because people are working hard. I have a brother who's Halifax Regional Police, who works in one of the busiest districts in this area, and some nights he doesn't get a coffee break, he doesn't get his lunch break, because they're so busy going from one call to the other.
If we don't make the shift in how we look at policing and how we look at our statistics and our data and look at where our call ratio is coming from, how we dispatch resources, what time resources are on, what time resources are off - if we don't look at structural changes, what you're explaining will be the problem. If we have people - and please do not take this personally - who think putting police officers on the street solves the problem, that mindset is part of the problem. I'm comfortable saying this in the one sense because you raised the point, but I really think I've got to be hard on the issue and soft on the people around the issue. The issue is that we need to be strategically focused and know what we're doing and that we're not staying the status quo.
There are times that you need to put officers in the street. If you have a group of teenagers in the month of September and they want to get liquored up because they're going to university and the first time they're away from home, and they think they can come downtown and do all kinds of foolish things through their evolution of trying to mature as young adults, and they make bad decisions and as a result of that we need extra police officers - yes, there's a time for that. That's a place. We know that's going to happen and we know next year at the same time, that same group is coming in - only a new, young, fresh group - and so yes, you put resources there, so you plan as a police service for that event.
But when you're talking about child exploitation, when we look at the complex frauds and what is going to occur in our senior community, you need highly-skilled police officers. You need prosecutors who are highly skilled. You need judges who understand the complexity of the cases that are before you. You need Legal Aid services that are going to support that, and then you need an institution in order to lock some of those people up because they deserve to be locked up.
If we don't work smarter, we're going to pay, and we know that we can't sustain the policing costs that we're in. We can get on the floor there and talk about all we want and attack whatever we want, but we need to address that issue and we need leadership and I believe firmly that some of the leadership is in the Department of Justice, some great minds.
[Page 635]
I believe some of the leadership is in the universities that we have such close relationships and such an economic investment that we've got a resource there to tap.
I believe, within the members of the Legislature here and other stakeholders within the province, that we can get the best for our province. I think we can be a leader in policing. I think we can be a leader in justice. We just need to tap the resources that we have and give them the opportunity to grow and express and put those notions forward. I believe that firmly and I'm committed to that, but what I am not committed to, and I want to be clear, that looking at the way we did things yesterday and how we look at the policing issues and how we look at the justice system, what we're doing isn't going to work in a global community, that the economy is global and the commerce is global. It doesn't matter if you're sitting in Italy, in Tuscany or somewhere, having a nice bottle of wine, eating some good Italian food; you could be committing your crime in downtown Halifax, or in Inverness, or in Yarmouth, or Annapolis where we have a small department. There's not a whole lot that we're going to do if we're not focused and thinking in that mindset.
Yes, domestic violence is an issue, and I'm committed, and as a justice system we're committed to domestic violence. I heard your colleague, Ms. Whalen and I assured her and I'll assure you, very clearly, that on those social-structural issues, there are criminal elements within the domestic violence, but the primary foundation of the domestic issue is a social issue within the society in which we're structured and that we as a society need to work in a holistic manner - I used that word earlier - of trying to find approaches, whether it's social services, whether it's we as legislators making laws, putting funding into the poverty issue, changing the language that we use to deal with it, educating our children younger and investing more in early education, investing in our high school students to improve their communication skills so that they can learn to resolve disputes under a mediated approach, that we invest in our men's mental health and wellness in the community to deal with people in conflict who believe violence is a way to resolve the issue.
I'm hoping that you didn't take my comments personally, but we cannot think - and if we think in those terms, we need to restructure and work with our police chiefs, work with our policing commanders, to try to ensure that the service - and this government and the previous government have invested heavily in municipal policing services - policing is a responsibility of the municipality and we're very honoured to be able to support the municipal departments and our provincial police force, but there are areas that we need to refocus.
We don't have a whole lot of time, we don't need to be waiting four or five years down the road, we need to be working every day toward those ends, and I'm confident that the staff that we have, and I'm confident the government that's here today, I'm proud to be part of a government - and I heard you speak on the floor a number of times and I know you're a person with a lot of ideals and compassion and commitment to improving the community. I just challenge you not to be working against us, but let's work together and
[Page 636]
we're not seen to be working against you, and where we can find common ground, come together and let's get the job done.
MR. YOUNGER: Mr. Chairman, you'll be happy to know I don't take the comments personally because my background is such that I've been involved in restorative justice programs and I know how effective they are. Actually a group, Cons for Christ - although I think they changed their name to Bridges Over Canada, or something. Monty Lewis - who would be a great guy for you to sit down and talk with sometime - considers himself a retired bank robber, he was in Springhill Institution for awhile.
I think you might be missing my point. My issue isn't restorative justice and crime reduction programs, like the one I fought so hard to get in Dartmouth East, the Youth Advocate Program, they are all really good and they are all measurably reducing crime and that has to be the goal. The goal has to be to reduce crime. We can talk about the child exploitation or the crimes that are committed via the Internet or internationally and all these things, and that is a different segment of crime than what I'm referring to.
I think we completely agree, the only long-term solution to whether it's a break and enter or domestic violence or any of these types of crimes, bank robberies, is to get at the root of crime. That's fine, that's one element. The problem, as I see it, all of the things that you've just described - and you may know this since your brother is in the Halifax Police force - in the five years that I was on regional council, we made every one of those changes in East Dartmouth, in that zone, and we went from the highest crime rate area in HRM to the lowest, so it made a difference, but that doesn't mean the crime went away. The police officers were now being able to deal with crimes that the calls came in and they never got to those crimes before, but that didn't mean that there wasn't still a backlog, because it just means there were fewer crimes that they were not getting to and now they were getting to them.
The problem as I see it, when I talked to those officers who were very involved in turning that system around and making it a community-based system where now the community officer in the East Dartmouth Division, he has guys coming up to him and turning themselves in when they hear that he's around looking for them or something. It's a great system because the guys come down and say, I hear you're looking for me. It's very great, the officer has a relationship with the guys selling dope on the street or something else.
But, the question it comes down to and they keep bringing up is, when I go to some of these crimes - where the requirements are set out in federal legislation that you will have no control over changing - they are tied up for the rest of their shift dealing with Criminal Code issues that you're not going to be able to change the reporting requirements for police under the Criminal Code. The burden of proof has been set by the judges and the courts, you don't have the opportunity to change that. So the officer is still going to get tied up on those issues when he goes to that which means that the other crimes that happen during that time period will not get responded to.
[Page 637]
That's what makes people feel unsafe in their communities. That's what I'm concerned about. I agree with everything that you said, that we need to do all those things and I support you 100 per cent in terms of changing the way we look at justice. That is a long-term solution and hopefully some of the results will be short term, but in my view, you will still have things going on just as you did when I was a kid, that require police support. The reason the province and the federal government and people were putting money into policing is because police detachments were under-resourced. The municipalities can't afford, with all the other responsibilities they have, can't afford these officers.
If you just take HRM alone, they have a mixed police force, of course, but if you look at somewhere like Tantallon where they have the RCMP detachment, they would love to get more officers because there are more people moving in there. In East Dartmouth, there are 3,000 homes being built, but there's no money to put additional officers there to deal with 3,000 additional people.
Now, hopefully, none of those people are going to be criminals, but there's 3,000 homes going to be built over the next five to six years there. They don't have any money to add officers. Bedford has a similar subdivision being built and it's worse when you go into the rural areas. Last weekend I talked to people in Inverness who said, we have a golf course being built down the street and we're expanding the hospital, there are a couple of other projects going on down the road - that's all great for them. But they're like, my goodness, what are we going to do when something happens because we don't have the resources.
[7:30 p.m.]
I guess outside of everything that you've said, which I agree with, and I applaud that initiative, I don't want to see that done in isolation of supporting building police infrastructure - whether that's community policing - but manpower because they have been under-resourced and that's where my concern is.
MR. LANDRY: The shift from being a city councillor to being an MLA should be an interesting one, especially from having a responsibility - I think an MLA has a responsibility to Nova Scotia as a whole. They're elected by a region and they have particular duties and responsibility to their constituency and I respect that.
If there are 3,000 houses being built there, the tax base is there to pay for the officers. Policing is a municipal cost and I think some people might be losing sight of that. It's not the Department of Justice's responsibility to pay for police officers in municipalities. We are very honoured and pleased to be able at this time to provide some assistance in police officers. I think we have 51 that we're paying for in the HRM - 52 - so it's about $5-plus million that this government, even though it started out with the previous one, but I'm saying this government's paying for policing in Halifax. We're paying for something like 25 per cent of Cape Breton Regional Police Service.
[Page 638]
We're responsible for the Province of Nova Scotia. That, as the Minister of Justice, is what my concern is, the safety and integrity of this province as a whole, not its parts. The sum of its parts, collectively, is my responsibility. The municipality, if they're having trouble with their costs, I'm not surprised. The message that I'm trying to say and I'm trying to say it loud and clear, I'm screaming it, if we don't look at policing and Justice through an economic lens, we are doomed. So one of the challenges that I see is to help educate, and I don't mean that I have the answers, because I don't. I have a team that's bright and talented, and I know part of my responsibility is to help get the message out that we have to look at things differently. I think the leadership is here with this government, and I'm hoping within the Opposition, that we can join on these common interests. We can fight the battle politically in four years' time.
You heard parts of the previous comments there, they lost the election. We're here and we get to make decisions, and I don't mean that disrespectfully, because there will come a turn for us to lose. That's the nature of politics and the beauty of a democracy, but I want to talk about restorative justice, when you talk about that, and I think this province has a proud history and a leadership in that. Let's expand it, let's reduce the number of institutions we need to build and save those dollars and put them elsewhere in the system. The highest calls to the lowest calls, where the crime - we're just shifting crime without attacking the ones responsible for crime and holding them accountable. We're not making inroads in the issue of dealing with crime.
When we look at the issue of domestic violence, although - and I'll repeat this because I said this earlier - part of that issue is criminal, violence in and of itself is a criminal act and needs to be dealt with on its own. The social structure around that issue is a social problem within the community, which is a broader-based issue. So money and policing and saying that this government should - and I encourage you to reflect on this and we'll have some discussion on it - that if we're in there trying to preach to put more money into front-line policing, what you're saying is that we're not going to invest in the holistic approach to the province, to the needs of Nova Scotia as a whole to prevent crime overall. We're dealing with a particular situation and only that. So we can't look at individual police departments and say that we're going to support them and build them up.
What we need to do is look at the crime patterns and ensure that the provincial police is assisting when it's appropriate and that the government is assisting and through the crime prevention that we're looking to work with the community, and if in your area there's a particular number of calls, what can we do differently and as a community come together collectively to address the problems within that community? If it's break and enters, there's an idea on how to handle those, but if it's an organized crime group coming in and stealing particular items, that's a totally different approach to it and front-line police officers don't deal with that issue. Let me see, did I cover all my notes?
[Page 639]
So I'm hoping that I make the point. I hear your concern about your community and I will work with you to deal with the issues if there are problems in that community, but when it comes to policing in the HRM, maybe we need to look at some things. We are working as a Justice Department, but as a councillor, as an MLA, you see things need to be done. There are a number of avenues where we need consultation.
MR. YOUNGER: With respect, minister, you can point to the HRM because I used that as one example, but I also used hearing it in Inverness and, you know, I've spoken with a number of the people involved in the Board of Police Commissioners and I'm hearing from every community across the province that they are concerned about this. You can talk about elections, but members of your Party went to the doors and said that they supported the Boots on the Street program and supported additional police officers on an ongoing basis by the provincial government. You may feel differently about that, but members of your Party have previously stated in this House that they applauded the previous government for putting that program in place, and when they were asked about funding, many of them stated at the doors - and the person I ran against was one of them - a Board of Police Commissioners member asked her at the door and she said, no question, we will maintain that commitment and have additional police officers just as promised.
MR. LANDRY: At no time during the seven hours that I've been here, at no time have I suggested, indicated, or implied that we're not going ahead with the officers being hired. What I'm trying to orientate people for is, if you're putting them on the street to walk a beat or to drive a patrol car, that is not the best utilization of that resource. We need to look at putting resources to clean up the backlog of warrants. We need to put police officers in the internal investigative unit, we need to put officers to deal with cyber crime, we need to put more people within the courts.
Just so you know, in 2009-10, this government, this one right here, added $3.7 million to the policing budget. I'm not talking about not getting police officers, I'm not just talking about the way that we were doing them yesterday, we need to be smarter, we need to work smarter not harder. Our police officers are working too darn hard. So what we need to do is have a clear focus. So if you're under any illusion that I'm saying not put the police officers there - what I'm trying to articulate and I do apologize for not being able to get the message out there clearly, is that I'm committed. I believe. You're never going to see me openly criticizing a police officer, that's not going to happen with me as the minister. I support policing, I support municipal police officers. I support the RCMP.
I just think we need a stronger provincial police presence, a more clearly defined partnership between our municipal policing, our provincial police force, and have a very clear focus with our federal partners. I separate that because some people get confused between the RCMP that are hired as provincial police officers versus the RCMP that provide provincial policing services. Let me assure you that I have already met with our deputy commissioner from Ottawa and the deputy commissioner here for the Atlantic Region and
[Page 640]
we have had some very clear discussions about where we see - once the Olympics are over - how we want to use resources within the federal policing.
I'm assured that all of the federal policing resources will be up to strength and then we need a more focused direction with our federal policing partner, our provincial police structure and our municipal to address where there are prolific crimes occurring, the offenders who are doing that, then we go after them. It is only then that police officers in the patrol car will get their coffee breaks at the right time and their lunch time, because the people perpetuating the crime in their neighbourhoods will be removed. So, we're on the same page. We're talking the same thing. It's just maybe we're not fully there on some of the language and where we're at.
I'm going to have to ask the chairman for about a five minute break. Can we take one for five minutes?
MR. CHAIRMAN: It is agreed.
[7:40 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]
[7:51 p.m. The subcommittee reconvened.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: We are ready to begin again. There are 34 minutes remaining in the Liberal time, we had a 10-minute break.
MR. YOUNGER: I'll just wrap up what I was saying, we'll see where it goes. I'm appreciative of your clarifying remarks there at the end and I appreciate that and we'll see where it goes. I do want to reiterate, I'm the first one to say that justice has to change and how we deal with justice. Most of the stuff that I did in my previous political life, at least in policing, was in terms of getting at the root of things. One day I'll send you a whole list of some of those things, and some of them are real cheap, so maybe they work in other places; some of them won't; some of them might. I can also send you a list of the things that didn't work too, because there were a few of those.
Related to this policing and doing things differently, you may or may not be aware that the Halifax Regional Municipality is undergoing a policing resource study at the moment, and there are a number of things that they're looking at, but the one that has the potential to be most contentious is the possible shift from a blended police force of RCMP and Halifax Regional Police to a single - well either a single Halifax Regional Police Service or a single RCMP service. I'm just wondering whether you have had any discussions yet with the municipality because they indicated to me that ultimately this will cross your desk, or whether you have any thoughts on that.
[Page 641]
MR. LANDRY: The answer to your question is, I'm aware of that. I'm going to talk in a different term. Municipal policing is a municipal responsibility. As the Minister of Justice, we must hold our provincial police force in its structure, the integrity of its structure must be balanced. So we need a centre core support and strength and so we need a strong provincial police force.
This government will invest in our partnership with municipal police departments. We will invest in a strong provincial police force. We will invest in a strong relationship with our federal policing partners. We will invest in ensuring that we align ourselves with our international responsibilities in a global economy, in a global world.
Our commerce and business that is done in Nova Scotia and our survival is being able to compete in a global economy. In this region we're very fortunate to have businesses that compete worldwide and sell their products or their knowledge. We also have a vast wealth of intellectual base and a diverse intellectual base within the area in having the benefits of the universities that we have.
I'm hoping that other policing studies, that we have a clear focus, that they've looked at things through that economic lens that I've discussed throughout my discussions this evening. The Halifax region, in my view, would best serve itself and the province - is that if we are able to look at things not only from within but how it impacts decisions that are made, impact the province as a whole. Because our very survival is on our ability to work in a collaborative manner with each other and to integrate resources and to be able to bring together those resources to address the issue of crime within the community.
I'm looking forward to this study. I'm looking forward to the different stakeholders putting their points of - and I suspect and trust that the study will be a very broad-based consultation that really looks at the policing, the ever-changing demands on the resources and the costing of policing, that at the end of the day we come out of this with a very vibrant, strong, progressive policing structure that makes Nova Scotia a safe and secure place beyond where it is today - we are a safe and secure neighbourhood now, but I can see where we can improve - that we become a leader in policing models and policing service, and that the rest of the country and the world looks at us as an area that gets things done and we work together.
MR. YOUNGER: Thank you, Mr. Minister. So, obviously, I have no idea what the recommendations will be and I wasn't on the Police Commission but I do know an economic lens is one of the two primary things they're looking at when they assess these models.
While I would argue that the combined policing model of RCMP/HRP has actually served the municipality fairly well, obviously they're looking at other options, both for economic and resource, because there have been some challenges with that as well.
[Page 642]
I think that their consultation has been fairly broad-based, at least from what I hear thus far. What I hear you saying on the one hand, I like what you're saying when you say municipal policing is a municipal issue and they should make the decisions and I agree with you on that. Then I also - and maybe I'm hearing this wrong, but I think I'm hearing between the lines, that while maybe the municipality, HRM, has some responsibility to ensure that the provincial policing service or in the obligations through the RCMP are met, and I'm not sure that you can have it both ways. Obviously the municipality is paying the lion's share of the police service and will in the future. As you mentioned, you are contributing the cost of 52 officers and that's very important.
Hypothetically, and I don't want to prejudge, because I have no idea what the report is going to say, but if they were to come to you and recommend that we go to a solely HRP service and not use RCMP for municipal policing in HRM, would you have any objection to that?
MR. LANDRY: I think that's a premature question. I think one would have to look at the assessment of the report and see how it values the overall integrity of security of the Province of Nova Scotia. As the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General for Nova Scotia, I look at Nova Scotia as a whole, and if any decision has a negative impact on the province's ability to provide security and to maintain that security structure, that would raise some concerns.
As to whether or not the report goes for it one way or the other, I won't speculate. I've been elected to represent the interests of Nova Scotia as a member of this Legislature. Although I come from a particular riding, I do not just hold my views for the riding, I believe in the sanctity of this province to exist as a province and to be maintained as a province. I think one of the elements required to do that is security. As the minister responsible for the security of this province, I will do everything to ensure that integral position is maintained and that the interest of the province as a whole is that. I respect and value the relationship between the municipalities and we continue to have collaboration and open lines of communication and we will do that no matter what.
On your specific question, I won't answer that because I'll wait for the report to come out and see what that really means. To be hypothetical on that would prejudge potential outcomes without seeing all the data and information that support that.
MR. YOUNGER: I am concerned, Mr. Minister, to hear you say that you would balance that, that one of the things you would look at is the security of the province when, on the one hand you're saying that for 45 minutes - you spent 45 minutes telling me, between my time now and my time earlier - that municipal policing is a municipal responsibility yet, when they come to you with this report, you're going to look at it from how it impacts the province as a whole.
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[8:00 p.m.]
If the municipality should decide, whether they choose the blended or they choose all RCMP or they choose all HRP, if they decide that through the economic lens, that you've also spent 45 minutes talking about and the one you talked about yesterday as well, which I agree with, that they come to you and they say it's better for HRM - the place where you just said the municipality is responsible for municipal policing - if they come to you and say it's better for us to not be involved with the RCMP, in terms of policing, I don't understand how your two positions jibe. You would therefore be asking the municipality to effectively bankroll and support justice in the rest of the province, when I am reasonably certain that isn't a condition or something that study is even looking at.
The study is solely for a municipality, for a municipal police force. It just happens that they need to come to you for final approval, as I understand it, if they decide to change the model. I think they want some comfort that you will support whatever decision that study comes to.
MR. LANDRY: I find the question and the way that you've framed it versus my previous answer somewhat alarming. You are trying to box me into a position A or B, yes or no, on this particular issue. On the issue of the question that you posed concerning the decision that the Halifax region put forward, I will wait to see that decision before I answer that and I will not answer that question here tonight. What I will answer is, what makes you think that the Halifax region has any less responsibility to the province any more than the province has to the Halifax region? This is a partnership. We live in Nova Scotia together. We need clear lines of communication and we need to be open and collaborative with each other and make sure we discuss and are honest with each other about what is in the best interest of Nova Scotia.
I am the Minister of Justice, not a member of the Council of Halifax, and I mean that in no disrespect to Halifax. I have the utmost respect for their council, for their mayor and for the community, but my focus is on the Province of Nova Scotia. So you can ask that question 10 different ways and I won't address that issue because I don't think that's appropriate here tonight. This is a Supply debate and it is about the budget. I'm very liberal with my philosophy of principles on questions, but to address that question is best left for the town and for a later date.
MR. YOUNGER: Mr. Chairman, I will move on, but I would respectfully disagree that it is very much an issue of this budget. It will come down to an issue of whether, if they come forward with a recommendation through an economic lens and they make the determination that it's going to cost them substantially more to stay with the other model, then frankly it's going to cost your department money to stand with that. So it is a budget question, it's a concern the municipality has expressed, and frankly one of the issues they're facing right now.
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I don't see any money in the budget to help them deal with it this year or any other municipality is when - and I don't know what will happen with the Olympics as an example, but I know that I was involved in the G7 Summit when it was here and RCMP officers, as part of the deal with the federal government, got called to work on the G7 Summit, leaving some communities - well, they would have considered themselves underserved for a period of time. I know that's part of the deal with the federal government and the policing thing. I understand that, I know the municipalities have gone into that knowing that's the deal and that's perfectly fair, but if they choose they no longer wish to do that, I don't understand how you can turn around and say that's bad for the province so I'm not going to allow you to make that decision, and this is where it becomes a budget question.
I know you're not going to answer it but my follow-up question, which is related directly to the budget, would be, if the municipality did go that way and you approve it, what's your plan to deal with these terrorism concerns and everything else that you've outlined that are primarily RCMP? It is a budget question.
MR. LANDRY: I don't know how this is going to come out, this part of the question, but I find your line of questioning offensive from this perspective and judgmental, in that you're asking me to give an answer on a hypothetical that has a profound impact on the relationship between the municipality and the government. I will not put myself or my government in a position, in a hypothetical situation, in this inquiry here tonight to give you an answer one way or the other. A lot more analysis and the evaluation on analysis needs to be done.
I also find it somewhat short-sighted that I spoke for seven hours, over seven hours now in these debates and the main focus of what I've been saying is that we need to have a more clear focus. We need to have a Justice Department and a government that is geared towards looking at how we protect Nova Scotia as a whole, how we work in a collaborative nature with our national police services and all other provinces in the country, how we align ourselves in our commitment with our international partners and how we move forward.
We are a province, we are not the City of Halifax, we are the Province of Nova Scotia and that's who I represent. Yes, the Olympics are on and the City of Halifax has the responsibility to Canada to provide support services for that because that's a national interest. Giving doesn't go just one way, from the federal government to the province or a municipality. We all have to give back to the system in some way so if, for example, the provincial police force is the RCMP, we get compensated as a province, in part, on the funding split and, yes, we have a requirement.
There's also a direct benefit that officers from the Halifax Regional Municipal Police who go to the Olympics get an opportunity to acquire knowledge and expertise. For the city to pay to get that knowledge and expertise would be very costly elsewhere. They get the benefit to be included, to be a part in the sharing and exchanging of knowledge. We're in a
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knowledge environment, where we need to have continual learners in evolution, in the way that we learn. If we look at learning as just something that we go to a university, get a book and read a book, write an exam, and that's how you express your knowledge, we're going to lose. It's a combination of that. It's a combination of life skills and theoretically dealing with other police departments and seeing how they operate.
The officer who goes from here, out there, brings back experiences and the exchange of ideas that only enriches our knowledge base. That's a critical asset we have and one of the beauties in the policing structure in Nova Scotia is that we have municipal police officers who perform a very unique task, we have a provincial police force - which in our case is quite fortunate - that is part of a national police agency, that we continually have an exchange of officers with different skill bases, different opportunities, they bring that and we gel that in.
I've been saying since I came here that we need to look at policing and the justice system differently. It's that exchange of knowledge and ideas and the beauty and the spirit of that that we can grow and be stronger because we have those opportunities to look at it and say that we have the mounted police here in Nova Scotia and they're going to go away. Why would Halifax pay for that? Halifax is gaining because of that. Halifax is gaining because we're sending the municipal police officers over there to work with the RCMP and the RCMP is gaining because they get to work with the officers in Halifax.
I had the opportunity to work on projects with other municipal police departments, whether it's Winnipeg and Brandon and Vancouver and Edmonton. I worked with a number of police services - Toronto Metro - in my service and I learned a lot from them and from their world view in that exchange. I think I'm better at the job that I'm doing today because of those experiences, and if I hadn't had those opportunities, I wouldn't bring that certain skill base and tools to this table that I think are valuable to this. We need to enrich diversity, both from a cultural perspective and a knowledge perspective, and from that overall experience.
I'm not going to answer that question. You could ask me that 50 times and I'm not answering that until it's appropriate, until I have the knowledge and I have that information, but I hope that my answer talks about the beauty of learning and the exchange of ideas. We sent people from our department, from all our departments within Justice - we send them to conferences across the world. Some of them lecture and speak. We had a recent conference here from Australia; people came over from Australia to speak on the violence and the victimization of people in our society, and our staff are going to those countries and sharing their knowledge and ideas. Those events occur because we understand that importance.
Our prosecutors go to a number of conferences across the area, our people in Corrections. We need that exchange, we need that pollenation of ideas and that unifying to come together and see the diversity and accept the differences.
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I put a challenge out to you and the Liberal Party: if you've got ideas on how to make the justice system better and how to make it work smoother, bring your ideas on. I welcome them, but if we're going to be adversarial in the approach, well, it's a long four years and I know how it will end up at the end of the day.
MR. YOUNGER: Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry the minister found the question offensive, and I understand you're not going to answer it, but the fact is if we want to be - it's not about being adversarial. It's the fact that the Police Commission for HRM is wondering whether they should bother continuing with a study when the commitment they had previously was that the recommendations that go through an elected body would be honoured.
I understand you're not going to answer it and I will leave it there, but the fact is, it is my view that it is you, in fact, who are being adversarial with those responses. There is a significant concern being expressed just a block up the street that there is a change in the Department of Justice since you became minister, maybe whereas before the understanding and the commitment was that they would go through the study, it would be funded, 24 duly-elected people would make a decision - and I have no idea what decision that will be, I honestly don't know. They just wanted to know that the decision that they reach after this long process would be respected and it was something that was part of the Clairmont report, which was done by - I can let you comment on it, but the fact is that Don Clairmont spent a lot of time as a university professor doing a report for almost no money and this is was one of the recommendations.
You talked about getting involved in the universities, you talked about academics - all of those people were involved. I don't know what the recommendation will be and I'm sorry that you found the question offensive, but really - and it's not intended to be an adversarial question. In fact, I thought it was going to be a quick one-question and you were just going to say, yes, we'll respect it - because, as you said, municipal policing is a municipal issue - and we'd move on to my next issue. I didn't expect it to be this big fight. It looks like you want to make a comment before I move on to another subject, which is okay, Mr. Chairman, if the minister wants to do that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Certainly a question can be as long as one wants and an answer can be as long as one wants.
MR. YOUNGER: No, I'm going to move on to another issue, but I do want to be fair to the minister.
MR. LANDRY: Let's back it up a bit here, then. I didn't know you're representing the City of Halifax. I thought you were the MLA for a particular area. If the City of Halifax, and if you're representing their interest, you can bring back to them that if they have concerns and they wish to consult with our department, we have representatives on there that they can
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bring their points forward and our department will be glad to answer any questions or concerns they have.
In relation to the question that you're posing to me in this forum, I felt it inappropriate, and I've expressed that. I don't wish you to take that personally. I just felt that I've given the answer and how that was going to be. I do encourage and I maintain that if there's any confusion between that committee and the City of Halifax and the Department of Justice, that they're more than welcome and I encourage them to come forward through the chain of command - not command, I'm thinking RCMP - but through our procedures for policing, Director of Policing, that they can bring their issues forward. I'm sure that we'll be very prompt, timely, and professional in the way that we address those concerns.
I'm a full supporter of the City of Halifax, its council, and its administration. I respect what they do, but I see the separation there. I thank you for bringing your question forward on their behalf, but I do encourage you to go back and speak with them and to put their concerns through the appropriate channels.
MR. YOUNGER: Well, Mr. Minister, thank you, and I will be seeing them in about 25 minutes, in fact, over in Dartmouth, so I will certainly pass that on. I would say that - we could probably go on all night about semantics, and I won't, but I'll say that you can assume that most of the questions brought forward, either in Question Period or in forums like this, come from groups or people or through consultations that we have ongoing - concerns that are raised by us. They very rarely come out of the blue, and they see their MLAs as their duly-elected representatives in this forum, and that's why I'm here.
I wanted to move on. As you are no doubt aware, in 2007 - I think it was passed in 2007, it was certainly introduced - oh yes, Royal Assent, December 13, 2007 - was amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act that provided for red light cameras and I think, if I'm not mistaken, speed cameras too. I'm just wondering where the status of that is.
[8:15 p.m.]
I know this would predate your time, when it was brought in, but at the time everybody kind of expected a few trials would go up right away. They haven't, to my knowledge, so I'm just wondering where we are on those red light and speed cameras.
MR. LANDRY: It's in the basket of issues to be addressed.
MR. YOUNGER: Do we have any idea what the process is going to be? I assume that being "in the basket" means that you are still okay with them going ahead, and I don't want to misquote you, but I just - the only reason I'm asking this is because shortly after the Act passed in 2007, I think the public expectation was that within a couple of months the first couple of trial ones would go up. I know I can give you a list of places that I'd like them and
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I'm sure the members across from me could probably give you a list too. If you don't, that's okay, I just want . . .
MR. LANDRY: It's just an issue. There's many issues in Justice. Are you asking, has it been presented to our government?
MR. YOUNGER: Well, no. It has been passed . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair was recognizing the honourable Minister of Justice.
MR. YOUNGER: I think he was asking me a question.
MR. LANDRY: No, I'm not done yet.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, we don't want to-ing and fro-ing here. I personally don't care what anyone says - you're using up time and that's what we're about, right?
MR. LANDRY: Okay, who has the floor?
MR. CHAIRMAN: You have the floor at this moment.
MR. LANDRY: It hasn't been proclaimed yet and hasn't been presented to this government, so with all the other priorities it's an issue that's there and we'll get to it when we get to it.
MR. YOUNGER: I guess I'm a little bit confused. The Act received Royal Assent in 2007, which I understand was not under your government, and at the time it was announced with great fanfare that the department was getting ready to do a trial somewhere of one of these things. I know that Chief Beazley up the street has said repeatedly to the media that they were waiting for the Justice Department - I mean, I think they would probably do the trial for you, but maybe another municipality would like to.
Maybe a better question would be, is there something that has to happen? I understood that it was going to be a trial first, see how the trial worked out, and if you, as minister - it would have been a previous minister then - if the minister and the department were happy, then they might allow it to be rolled out. I'm just trying to figure out - and maybe you don't have the answers now, and that's okay. Somebody from your department can get back to me. I get questions about it quite a lot.
MR. LANDRY: I'll answer it. I won't bother getting back to the department. It's an issue that's there. We have lots of issues that we address. I have other priorities. First off, we are sitting in the House here, we're Supply Committees, and there's a number of priorities that I have. It's not up there in my priorities right now, and I don't mean that in disrespect
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to the issue. Eventually we'll get to it and read on it, but if you have a particular interest or you're representing someone's concerns and you want to write on that, we would definitely - I respect the fact that that would come forward and that we would be very responsive to giving you an answer as to where we are.
MR. YOUNGER: I'm going to move on to another issue, but maybe there might be somebody in your department who you might wish to direct me to because I wouldn't mind knowing - and this wouldn't be any slight against you because you are new - I would be interested to know what happened, because at the time of the announcement under the previous government it sounded like this was imminent.
I'm not saying that it should be the top priority for you. I respect that you would have your own priorities. I wouldn't mind finding out from somebody in your department at some point what happened that it dropped off the radar screen - before you were minister, in fairness to you.
MR. LANDRY: Well, I would recommend highly that you go talk to the previous Justice Minister and he would probably have an answer for you. If that government didn't move it forward, they didn't move it forward. It's a matter that there's a number of issues that are in the chute. This is but one of a number of issues.
If it's a priority and you feel it's a priority to your constituency or to the council that you're representing, the municipal council, as an agent of theirs, and you feel you want to bring that forward officially, then certainly go ahead and do that. If you're representing the interest of Halifax Regional Police Department - because you mentioned the Chief - then you can bring it on his behalf and we'll be glad to address.
I'm a minister who believes in open lines of communication that are clear. You may not always agree with what we have to say, and like I shared with our counterparts, we have a political philosophy and principles and guidelines that we're going to do and we're here to do that, but we're open to discussion.
MR. YOUNGER: That's fine, and I will pass that on to both constituents and to the others who are interested. The reason for the question was nothing that you said, in fairness to you, and as I say, I have no problem with you setting your own priorities. The previous government had put out quite a press release, saying the prosecutors, Crown, police, injury prevention community, all these groups were getting ready to almost imminently do something and nothing happened, so that's okay.
I have only a couple of minutes left, so the last thing I wanted to ask you is, we're seeing an increased use of surveillance cameras, obviously, in public places and by municipal police forces and by the province, too, provincial government facilities. I'm just wondering
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whether you have any views or thoughts on the limits of public surveillance in public spaces - video surveillance, sorry.
MR. LANDRY: I've got to get clarity here. Are we asking the question, do I believe in more surveillance cameras or do I believe in less surveillance cameras? Or are you asking what my overall view of surveillance cameras is? I'm not sure which.
MR. YOUNGER: I apologize for not being clear, Mr. Minister. I guess just in a nutshell, I'm wondering whether you feel that they're a valuable tool in terms of law enforcement, or whether they're over-hyped, or where you fall on that.
MR. LANDRY: As a previous police officer, from that perspective, I think that the cameras of good quality are invaluable. They're an asset that's vital. As the Attorney General for Nova Scotia, I think that we need to balance the public's right to freedom of association and movement and the protection of one's invasion of their privacy, and so the difficult task for us as a government and as a department, within Justice, is to say, what is the appropriate level and where is it appropriate to put cameras and for what purpose?
We are in a free and democratic society, and one of the goals that I as a police officer held out was to stand and put my life on the line to protect that principle. As the Attorney General for Nova Scotia I stand to protect the freedoms of people and to protect the invasion of one's privacy. So it is a very interesting question that requires deep thought. Depending on the particular circumstances I'll be highly in favour of it; others, I may not be so much, depending on which hat and which role I'm playing at the time and what my personal views are, when it's appropriate to put my personal views forward to make that assessment.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The time for the Liberal caucus has expired. We have 29 minutes remaining in the Progressive Conservative time frame. The start time is 8:25 p.m. and the finish will be 8:54 p.m.
The honourable member for Cape Breton North.
HON. CECIL CLARKE: Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to continue now and go on to another subject area. Further to the last session, we dealt with certain items and the Premier said that all commitments made by the PC Government would be honoured by an NDP Government. Those are Premier Dexter's own words. However, we have now seen that by virtue of moving away from correctional infrastructure, which we had a discussion on.
I would like to now move over to the area of policing. The 250 police officers and Boots on the Street program, specific to that I do believe that the minister has indicated they will honour the 33 positions for the upcoming year and that those positions would be there. Of the 33, what was actually publicly committed and announced was 12. Of course, the
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minister is familiar with those numbers because seven of those were the Cape Breton Regional Police Service and he's familiar with that discussion on that front. Three positions were designated with regard to the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods investigative unit for Cape Breton and the two policing positions for the New Glasgow Police Service of what was going to be for the current allocations. Those were the only ones that were publicly committed to by the previous government and announcements made around those. My question, to the minister is, of the 33 positions, are those 12 positions being honoured?
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable Minister of Justice. You were trying to get my attention a moment ago. I think you probably wanted to respond to the last question of the previous session?
MR. LANDRY: Yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: So you have two questions before you.
MR. LANDRY: Yes. I will answer his other question there because it's deeper and it goes back to other parts. First off, before we left off we talked about - I was referring, and not as much as a criticism, but as I understand Nova Scotia history in regard to the Buchanan Government and the establishment of the debt and choices that government made and put there. Mine was not so much to be a criticism and I think maybe it might have been taken that way, and for that I apologize. It was about the history of where the foundation of the debt was, the political difference of how we got there, and I also made reference to the previous government and how we knew that revenues were reducing and expenditures were still going up and whether the government acted in a timely manner to start to address that, and we're here today to face that issue.
When we talk about debts and so on, it is very much about balancing in our spending, and some people feel that building the institution is a bad choice. Although I agree that we need to build an institution, I do not disagree with that, but there are many out there that do - versus buying land, they want us to buy more land. So it becomes choices and balances, and one today is the land - is it a better price today to buy it than in the future? We may be saving money. So I won't go down that road. It's just about how we prioritize it.
When we talk about the federal and jails, if you know anything, if I'm hearing it correctly, or reading between the lines with the consultation with Mr. Nicholson, that if there are monies there with the federal partnership and so on and you can help facilitate that end, I would be willing to hear about that. I'm prepared to partner with any other government in Canada that furthers our interests, as I stated before.
Also you made reference to the people picketing outside and their range of positions. As I understand the facts, the previous government was prepared to give 0.05 per cent in the budget, so we can agree to disagree on philosophies or principles in how we got there. I know
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on the floor that that will be lots of entertainment and discussion and dialogue that will help, but as I understand, there is a matter of record on that point. I support the union's right to bargain and I respect management's position to have their needs and interests put forward for the interest of all taxpayers of Nova Scotia. I respect that process. How this is going to shake out, time will tell. Nobody wants a strike. We all feel uncomfortable about the idea of a strike, but that's not something that I control in this room here in this discussion tonight - but because those points were made earlier, I just wanted to make sure that I did respond to them.
Now, the issue of the 33 positions. I'm going to get relaxed because I think this might take a while, and I'm freezing in this place. We're going to fulfill the 33 positions, there's no doubt about that. Times change from when people make announcements, whether they're based on good, sound business decisions or political decisions, and we're in the political game. Politics is where we're at at the end of the day in a lot of issues.
[8:30 p.m.]
When I look at policing resources - and we had a long discussion with the previous Party here about if we continue to look at policing, from putting a police officer on the street and they're in a patrol car and they're walking the street with their Boots on the Street, then we've got lots of money to spend on policing. We need to make sure that our police officers are where the police chiefs actually say they need to be, or the policing commanders and leaders within the RCMP.
There's a disconnect in part of where we're at in policing, and I've heard a number of stories here about different areas being short-staffed and this and that. We need to ensure that we have a policing structure that has full collaboration between the federal policing and the municipal and that we have a clear strategic focus on the priorities and when we look at issues. I mentioned earlier here about prolific offenders, and we need analysts to establish that data so that police departments can work more efficiently in addressing those areas.
My commitment is to ensure that Cape Breton gets sufficient policing resources to meet their needs, and that does involve seven officers in that general area. And I would comment on the New Glasgow police. That's my riding, and I support the New Glasgow police and the other municipal police departments that are there. What I was faced with there as a policing commander - I had the opportunity to be in that area this time last year, sitting there wondering, how can one school or police department get three or four extra resources from the province when I have a school of equal size just a few miles down the road that got zero? Can't help but believe there's a disconnect there.
When I have a reserve that's in my command and the community is saying to me we need an extra resource on the reserve, and for four years as a commander I try to get that reserve but overnight there's a resource put in that could be put overnight for Aboriginal
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needs within a school versus the community. Now, I support the principle of providing support in that school for young people and for the First Nations community.
The balancing act, that as the Minister of Justice today, I have an MLA - actually I'm looking at one of them - who has been screaming at me about getting resources for the other school. I have the Speaker of the House on the side screaming at me - where are the resources in that school? How can we have a disparity of resources within the same geographical area for 9,000 people versus the greater of 30,000-some people. One of the balancing acts, one of the things that I have to come to grips with in this decision, is where's the best interest of the resource? Why was that decision made? What was the benefit of that? I'm not sure whether the resources are going there yet because that decision is not made.
I also had the pleasure of meeting with the deputy commissioner for the RCMP. I met with all the chiefs of police and asked them what their priorities were, what they needed, what are the things this government can do today. One of the things they mentioned loud and clear was the importance of an independent police investigative team. Where do you get resources to put that forward, if that's a priority, and we know politically - and where you were sitting before, the importance of that option.
We also know there is an overabundance of outstanding warrants that is having a negative impact on the police departments themselves. We know child exploitation and computerized-based crime is an issue and we need a resource there. We happen to know there is some expertise in the Cape Breton Regional Police that might work very well within that team, we need to consult with the commanders and see what resources we have.
We know that we need to invest more in civil forfeiture, in dealing with the taking of assets away so the person who is committing the crime, whether they're in New Waterford or Sydney - they're distributing prescription drugs and exploiting a community and gaining wealth and assets in the community. We want to take those assets away so that crime isn't beneficial to them.
We want to look at how we can get analysts in place to deal with the prolific offenders. All these systems here will help make the police department more efficient so it reduces the impact on the front-line policing, so we increase that service while at the same time working more together.
We also have to look at how we get trained prosecutors in position to deal with the complex frauds. Where does that resource come from, is that a responsibility of the 33 officers for those dollars that are there? That's a question that we need to examine. Is there a part there for Legal Aid that needs to come in and help balance that interest out?
So when you want to say specifically, the answers in those questions aren't totally committed here yet. I'm committed to Cape Breton. You don't need to worry about whether
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Cape Breton is going to get resources, what we just need to work out is how those resources are going to be aligned. How do I meet the demands of all the police chiefs in Nova Scotia, who made it loud and clear what their priorities were, and make sure that I'm consulting back with them so we make the system more efficient?
We heard from the Liberal representative here earlier tonight - the impact on the courts and the potential of throwing out cases because of delays and how we address that issue. I've heard from people here about Corrections, about the impact on Correctional Services and how we need to get resourcing there.
So it's not just an easy situation to say, and I said this earlier, if we're focused on putting a police officer in a police car or on the street walking, then we're not looking at the justice system or crime through that economic lens and seeing the impact, because we cannot feed that machine enough money to keep it going under that model. We need to be more strategically focused and, as I said earlier, we need to work smarter - not harder, because our police officers are working very hard.
I met with Chief Burke - I heard it clearly in his voice - and the police board representative about the impact on the policing services in Cape Breton Regional - I went down there to meet with them very early in my tenure, and I plan to go back again - and the importance of that. We cannot just focus on Cape Breton. Any approach that we take has to have a total approach across the province, and get a consensus amongst the chiefs that the overall priorities that they set are being achieved. So I'm going to have more dialogue with Chief Burke and some of the other chiefs on some of these issues.
But on the primary part of your question, I'm struggling with a few parts of it because of the demands that other people are saying, and how do we meet theirs especially when some of the - no, I better not say what I was going to say. I'll leave it at that.
MR. CLARKE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In listening to the minister's response and responses that we have had forward, there is a consistency of approach by the Premier, the minister, and his Cabinet and government with regard to what they said on one occasion in one breath and what they're prepared to do in another. What I also heard is that he probably understands the political math of a colleague, who is the Deputy Premier, who understands that seven officers were hired and are on the beat and are trying to do something. So I definitely would not want to be the person to back away from that commitment because hell would have no fury like the CBRM, given the fact that there were a lot of strategic business case, evidence-based decisions that were made to support the initiatives within that community.
Likewise, I do get the sense, though, that the minister has definitely stepped away from Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods in terms of having an investigative unit that would deal with the second-largest urban area in this province - the only other metropolitan
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area outside of HRM with an investigative unit. What I've also heard - and the community will deal with this and the police board and the wider aspects - as it comes forward we will also be looking at a community where the minister has counted some numbers, and I've heard him talk about policing per capita.
The other reality is that the minister has failed to talk about - and he talks about the academic aspect and approaches to this, to look at the systemic problems that are both social and economic. If he's talking about an economic lens, and the minister obviously has taken into account that the CBRM and the Cape Breton area in general have faced systemic problems that have been generation to generation, and wanting to overcome those issues was to strategically look and build on successes that are evidence-based, that are supported by data, that are proven to work, and to see the successes within that community and know that in an area that has an unemployment rate three times that of the HRM, that has the cluster of the provincial police service, it has the ability to draw upon federal resources much better, that the RCMP made a decision and previous governments may have had decisions to step away from some of that relationship.
I do know that the people in the community have seen and have experienced the success of what the investigative unit has been able to do to add a voice to those who otherwise would have been intimidated, and to recognize they saw the ability to take their streets, their neighbourhoods, and their community back from the brink of uncertainty. When you talk about seniors who now have the ability to pick up a phone and to anonymously be able to respond and have action taken and allow the Department of Justice and Public Safety to deal with the local community policing services, to be able to build on that capacity, and that has now been thrown into question.
We've seen the fact that the minister talked before about prescription drugs. Well, I can tell the minister that the issue of drugs in the CBRM and in the wider Cape Breton area goes well beyond just prescription drug use and abuse, which is a real issue. Organized crime bringing illegal products into the area has been an ongoing concern, and more importantly, the complexity of what is happening in terms of the types of drugs that are coming in, thus precipitating the types of crime that are being committed and even further engaging those and going after younger people and targeting younger people and trying to work with them in a proactive way.
Also recognizing that when the decision was taken with the New Glasgow police service, and I clearly heard the minister say he is looking regionally, but I do believe that New Glasgow is the largest municipal unit within that entire county and dealing with different programs and services. It was a municipal service that was able to collaborate with the RCMP, as the minister would know, to try to do some initiatives. That relationship had some stress and strain for a while, from what I understand, got back on track and recognizing the partnership of tying the two together and building and forging those abilities - no different than the safer communities initiatives in Cape Breton, where the decision was to
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work. It could have been put in the Cape Breton Regional Police service; the decision was to partner with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police recommendation was to do one of the detachments, of which there were two in the urban area, to pick one. It happened to be North Sydney. As you know, I've told your colleague, the Deputy Premier, I don't care where it is, but it was a way to try to heal some longer-standing wounds that were there because of the relationship and the transfer of policing services, to allow the municipal policing services to work with the federal force, to build a rapport, build on those strengths, forge some ties, and move forward. That has not, in my sense, been a commitment that the minister has indicated is a priority to him. I've heard him say the Cape Breton Regional Police - I've not heard, nor has he detailed that, and I've also heard him say in Pictou County there are wider aspects and applications that he wants to look at, and that is his prerogative.
I do know the consistency of what we've heard so far, of a Premier who said all commitments made by the Progressive Conservative Government would be honoured by an NDP government. There is a pattern emerging, and it's a very disturbing pattern, about how the overall justice delivery model for this province is being eroded chip by chip, decision by decision, back-step by back-step away from those things that were endorsed by the communities. Now we find - and we have communities feeling the impact of the loss of credibility by a government that said they wanted to restore what they felt was a void of credibility.
In the balance of all that - and the minister has also said that having had eight consecutive balanced budgets that a Progressive Conservative Government had, coming in with a Party that campaigned on a must-balanced budget, we would never go back and turn and go against some of the measures that they themselves have put into the budget, have made choices about spending, massive deficits they've brought forward, historic levels of deficit.
The most important thing that the minister did not indicate when he talked about a Buchanan era or our trying to rebuild this was where strategic investments were made and the fact that over the course of eight balanced budgets we were able to bring the debt servicing levels down, the credit ratings of this province going up, and never did a past government stack the deck with debt that its own independent auditor said they should never do, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to public burden that they now have to deal with, and at the same time, talking about it being in the interests of Nova Scotians.
[8:45 p.m.]
What we do know is public safety in Nova Scotia is now being compromised. It is being seen with regard to our correctional infrastructure, it is being seen with regard to the relationship within the policing community, it is being seen with regard to our criminal
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intelligence capacity, of which I'm told there's great concern over criminal intelligence and the work within that unit in this province. It is being carried forward with regard to the pressure on the Public Prosecution Service. It is being carried forward with Legal Aid in this province.
We are seeing the stacking of a deck and the stacking of burden on the backs of Nova Scotians who were told there was a new era that was coming forward, that there was a legitimacy of a new government coming forward that had a new brand of dealing forthright, transparent, with the people of Nova Scotia. What we've now seen is a total move away from that. What we've now seen is uncertainty, and while I don't dispute that the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of Nova Scotia has at the core a sincere interest - I don't dispute that, but I do take issue with the fact that he and his government have moved away from key substantive issues that were in the public interest and for one reason only. We know that to be politics, not the public interest being served.
We know in this province that an expectation has been set. We know that a new government comes in - if they're going to go into new directions, that is the prerogative of the government, and as they move forward they're going to have to deal with the counter-balance of the decisions they've made and the implications that are coming forward. I can tell you, the Minister of Finance has said there will be a balanced budget next year. Mathematically we now know that is impossible for the minister without widespread cuts throughout the areas. My concern, Mr. Chairman, and I would reflect to the minister, is that if they're going to start to look to the justice system in Nova Scotia for those cuts next year, after having an opportunity to strategically invest this year, then there is going to be a new awakening in Nova Scotia to what was supposed to be a new deal.
What I do know is that the minister has talked, and I've heard it several times, about the economic lens. I don't dispute the need to do things, but when there is economics, an economic case, a business case, a supported case, politics was the overriding, overarching factor in the decisions that are now getting made, in the delays that Nova Scotians will see to the integrity of the justice system here. We have people looking - had looked, I'll say it past tense - Nova Scotians had looked to the New Democrats to think that they were going to come in and somehow re-change things.
I heard the minister as well talk about where we were, and he referred to wage settlements and the like. The one thing we were clear on was the fact of consistency and application that was applied universally in making sure we could maintain, because I heard the minister say we were on an unsustainable path. Well, we knew we had a Spring budget that came forward with numbers and assumptions to meet also the needs of service delivery and maintaining a balance within a balanced budget - of which the two Opposition Parties demanded and insisted would be there, the NDP the most vocal of all in doing that. Then we come forward with a model that talked about that balance.
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Now we find ourselves $600 million practically in the tank in 119 days or so now. So in four short months, we went from a government that talked about public safety being a priority, that has walked away from key strategic initiatives and supports that Nova Scotians deserve, going into areas that are not sustainable - they know they're not sustainable - and yet putting in jeopardy core programs and services that Nova Scotians know they need and deserve within the justice system. So the minister has basically stacked the decks against himself on two sides, one from the Cabinet side and now within his department and portfolio; the deck is stacking of all the things that will not be able to be done.
More importantly, as issues present themselves, the minister is going to have to grapple with how we deal with these things. Because they've set precedents with their labour negotiations, how do they deal with their program supports, how do they deal with the follow-up to Deloitte, how do they deal with dealing with the Public Prosecution Service and maintaining the levels of pressure, making sure our courts are safe, making sure our Legal Aid services can provide good service to those who otherwise can't afford it - how can we make sure that we continue to benchmark and maintain the levels of what are seen as the best services, for instance, with restorative justice? How can we make sure that we follow up and know that this new government and this minister and the decisions they've already taken have already impacted his department?
He has people that I believe and know he's sincere in dealing with, but his government, by their own choices, has now basically crippled the ability to do the job better, as was indicated were going to do. You can talk to as many academics as you want, you can put as many economic lenses on things, you can consult as much as you want, but the one thing that was said is, we will provide the work leadership. Within the justice system that is the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General, and he has taken away necessary tools and resources to serve the people who are there to serve him and all of Nova Scotia and a government that's made choices not to fund previous decisions that would benefit the very system he is working toward.
We also know that we've shaken some of the relationships that are out there and when I know and we talk about where we are - and I'll go back again to the policing commitments that were made about the Boots on the Street, and I know about trying to strike the balance, and it's never easy and it does come down to choices, admittedly - but when a choice was made, a decision was clear, a commitment was offered and extended from a Premier and a government that they would honour their word and they immediately go against their own word, it only tells you what Nova Scotians can expect: if it's not politically expedient or convenient, the government will walk away from their duty to serve the justice system the way they expected them to do.
Mr. Chairman, I would expect the minister will have a good, sober second thought with him and his colleagues in Cabinet as this budget process proceeds with the administration of justice in this province.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: The time has expired. We will now deal with the resolution.
Shall Resolution E13 stand?
Resolution E13 stands.
Resolution E20 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $400,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the FOIPOP Review Office, pursuant to the Estimate.
Resolution E22 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $2,144,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Human Rights Commission, pursuant to the Estimate.
Resolution E31 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $18,725,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Public Prosecution Service, pursuant to the Estimate.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall the resolutions carry?
The resolutions are carried.
Thank you very much. We appreciate the input from everyone. It has been very informative, to say the least. Thank you.
I'm sorry, Mr. Minister, we do have to have a vote here.
Would all those in favour of the resolutions as presented please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The resolutions are carried.
Thank you very much for your time.
[The committee adjourned at 8:56 p.m.]
