Committee of Supply
May 7, 2008 - Justice Department
Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate getting the opportunity to have a back and forth question and answer with the minister. Congratulations on your appointment, and welcome to your staff. We appreciate your assistance on the floor. I’m going to start out by thanking the minister for support – and I’m assuming that it’s support from this department – for a not for profit organization in my constituency called the Edmonton Community Legal Centre, previously the Centre for Equal Justice, which is an extremely valuable resource in my community because it is a bridging organization for people that find themselves bewildered by the law. It offers a sort of path, an entryway. It will listen to people’s stories, and lawyers, who are volunteering their time for the most part, will try and give them a brief understanding of which direction they need to go in.
We use the organization probably a dozen times a week in referring constituents to them, so we really appreciate the funding. If there’s any way that they can get additional funding, I would certainly like to see that because they’ve been a real wonderful addition. In Calgary I think you’ve had the Calgary Legal Guidance centre in place for many, many years. But this was the first time that we’d really had that kind of a resource in Edmonton, and it’s very valuable.
Now, there are a couple of things that I’d like to talk to the minister about tonight. Just very briefly, one of them is the issue of MEP, the issue of women and justice, a number of the initiatives under the Keeping Communities Safe report, surveillance of the public, and then some very specific questions related to particular votes.
I’m going to start out with some questions about maintenance enforcement. At one point a very long time ago I was the executive director for the Advisory Council on Women’s Issues. Just prior to that organization being established, the files had been transferred from social services, and MEP was in fact created. That was a very difficult, monumental transition to move those files and create that division. I ended up becoming an expert on maintenance enforcement.
I haven’t done very many files in the last couple of years, so I’m a little bit behind on the information. I’d appreciate any information the minister can give me. If it is of a statistical nature and you don’t have it at your fingertips, I’d appreciate receiving it in writing. If I could receive it within two weeks, that would be helpful so that I have it before I’m expected to vote on this particular supply. There was difficulty at one point because, in fact, statistics were not kept and the computer program was not capable of keeping them. I’m wondering if you’re now able to track how much is the total amount of court ordered support that is required in Alberta and registered through the maintenance enforcement program. But, more, I’m interested in what is the percentage of that court ordered amount that, in fact, is being collected on a regular basis every month. One, can it be tracked? Two, if it can, what is the court ordered amount, the total for Alberta? What percentage is being ordered? Also, how much are the arrears coming into this fiscal year? How much were the arrears reduced last year?
You know, when we talk about women being able to enjoy full participation in the life of the province, in many cases their ability to do that is dependent on maintenance enforcement. So this is a really important ingredient to women’s equality and particularly single parent families headed by women and their ability to come out of poverty. Of course, poor children don’t exist by themselves. They’re poor children of a poor family, and often that’s connected to these payments.
I’m always interested in our success rate in collecting. Unfortunately, the stats that used to be kept really didn’t tell us anything because they told us whether there had been any movement, whether there had been any money at all collected on an account. It may well have been that there is a $300 payment that is expected, court ordered every month, but in fact they’ve collected a buck and a half. It would still register as some activity on the account. It really was not giving us a picture of how much money was owed and how much was being collected in the province. If you’re able to supply me with any of those statistics, I’d appreciate it.
I notice that the results of the 2004 amendment act are coming into play soon with the interest payments. I’m sure that in a year we’ll talk about whether we view that as a success and see whether that’s been helpful, but it’s certainly a big step forward.
I’m also wondering what the minister’s review is of any of the other enforcement tools that have been made available to the maintenance enforcement staff. Are there any that are proving to be more successful or any that are less successful and likely to be dropped? For example, at one point we had to wait until a driver’s licence was expected to be renewed before we could put a nonrenewal order on it, essentially. Then that was upgraded so that, in fact, the driver’s licence could be pulled immediately. What is the current status of the most effective tools in being able to enforce those court orders against recalcitrant people who had maintenance orders against them?
I’m also interested if we are getting fewer maintenance orders than we had before. Are the number of maintenance orders that are coming through the courts going down or going up? I’ll let you answer some of those questions.
Ms Redford: Thank you for those questions from the hon. member. I will try to answer some. These specific, detailed questions with respect to maintenance enforcement I may be able to answer, but if I haven’t distinguished the answer correctly, then we’ll get you that more detailed information.
The amount of maintenance that was due on maintenance enforcement program files for the 2007 2008 fiscal year was $199,503,266, and, including arrears, maintenance enforcement collected $199,800,593 during that period. This represents an increase of $7 million over the previous fiscal year. The collection rate, as you’ll see from those numbers, actually puts it at over 100 per cent, but that is the collection of arrears as well as ongoing support. I can probably get a breakdown for you of those.
I think with respect to your specific questions about the number – was it the number of maintenance enforcement orders registered?
Ms Blakeman: Yeah.
Ms Redford: Okay. We will come back to those questions and see what we can do about that.
In terms of the tools I have not had that as a specific discussion with the maintenance enforcement program. I will ask for more information from them on what they are finding to be the two most effective tools in the program and provide that information to you.
The question of, sort of, the recalculation of interest we’re quite optimistic about. I am hoping that we will see some great successes with that. I recall very often, when I was practising family law, hearing situations that were so bad that arguing over maintenance would lead to parents not even being able to talk about the care of their child. If this program can help to stop that, then it needs to, and it needs to be supported so that we can make sure that that doesn’t happen. So I think your questions are quite specific, and I don’t think I can give you those detailed answers tonight, but we will get them to you.
The Deputy Chair: The hon. member.
Ms Blakeman: Thank you. I’d also like to verify that there’s been no change in the commitment to keep the issues of maintenance and access as separate issues. If I could get the minister to comment on that, please.
Ms Redford: Thank you for that question. I think about the time that I was practising family law and know that it was a frustrating experience for many people to see how the courts treated these two, sometimes pairing them and sometimes not pairing them. I understand that this has been part of discussions in the past, and it’s something that we’ll continue to look at.
The Deputy Chair: The hon. member.
Ms Blakeman: Well, thanks. I appreciate that, but I was really looking for the minister’s take on this and what direction she is likely to be driving this. My concern is always that maintenance is about collection of money to help with the upbringing of a child, and as soon as we hook it to access, we’re involving a whole other set of issues. So far the government has managed to maintain those two as separate issues. What I’m trying to find out is: given a new Minister of Justice, is that likely to keep going? Is that the minister’s policy, to keep those unattached and separate? As soon as we allow people to start bartering those two things, we have created a whole third set of problems for ourselves. So I’m trying to determine where the minister is going to come down on this.
Ms Redford: Thank you for that question. Your question clarified, I will clarify. As you referred to the fact that I am a new minister, I can’t say that I have been fully briefed on absolutely every issue up until this point. I know that it has been the government policy to keep those separate, and I don’t see any reason to change that at this point in time.
Ms Blakeman: Okay. Good. Thank you.
The next place I’d like to go is around women and justice. If the minister was practising family law, then she’s well aware of these issues. One of the things that happens that again creates an inequity for women in this province is that they often have fewer financial resources to be able to appear in court. Often a spouse, a husband, has more financial resources and just keeps taking them back to court over and over and over again on a number of issues, whether it’s maintenance enforcement or access or custody or divorce proceedings, and the woman eventually is essentially denied justice because she can’t afford to keep going to court. They give up whatever they give up there: they give up the fight for maintenance; they give up the custody; they give up the access; they give up on fighting for a share in divorce proceedings. They just don’t have the resources to keep going.
Legal aid has never particularly been supportive in these cases. Given the number of changes that we’re looking at around the safe communities and some changes in philosophy around how we approach justice issues, is there any kind of recognition here around special circumstances that women can find themselves in in that they get unequal access or an unequal benefit from the court because their financial position is often less than that of the men that are bringing them into court? Can you comment on that?
Ms Redford: Thank you for that question. I certainly know of what you speak. It is a situation that we need to find some solutions to. Some of what we need to be talking about is something that I’ve spoken about earlier tonight. I take the point about case law being made in court; however, there are an awful lot of family issues that, quite frankly, are not case law issues. They are not issues that are setting precedent. They are issues where people need to be well represented in a very difficult, emotional, and personal situation. I want to say that the work that we have done around family justice initiatives and practice notes and encouraging lawyers and mediators and judges to deal with these situations in a way that is not going to put either party, although very often that is, as the hon. member has said, a woman, in a disadvantageous position, where she isn’t able to litigate – we need to take some of the litigious element out of that. I’m not going step back from that approach. I think that’s a very important part of the philosophy of what a justice system needs to be for people. I think that is very important. We will certainly over the course of the next year be talking to people that are impacted adversely by some of these situations. It may very well be that we do come up with some opportunities to try to find some innovative ways to look at that. I am not in a position today to say that. It’s certainly not something that I would exclude. I’d be quite prepared to have that discussion at a later time as part of what we do under the safe communities task force. It is something about creating a sense of security for people in the way that they live their lives and giving them some certainty.
Ms Blakeman: Yeah. It’s just that there’s an inequity in the system, and it’s a gender based inequity. I think we recognize that, but I want to make sure that the department continues to pursue trying to mitigate that inequity.
I’d like to direct your attention to page 8 of the Keeping Communities Safe report. Under Laws and the Courts under recommendation 7 it says, “clarify the rules and remove barriers to sharing essential information, including information about suspected criminal offences.” Now, to my ear that starts to sound like it’s going to run into personal information and protection of privacy issues. Can the minister expand on what she sees the ministry doing around that particular recommendation? It does fall under her department of law and the courts.
I’m also looking for some explanation around the next numbered recommendation 8, which is “develop, enact and enforce legislation allowing the province to seize money and property gained through the proceeds of crime and use those resources to fund victim compensation, crime prevention and crime remediation programs.” Now, I realize that the victims of crime fund falls under the Solicitor General, but I continue to have serious reservations in that there is a fund there that is now, I think, in the $30 million range, yet there are excellent not for profit organizations working in the community trying to deliver services and there’s a cap on how much money they can get. There’s a restriction, they’re not getting as much core funding as they need, there’s immense pressure on their capacity, and there are huge volume increases that they are trying to serve, yet the victims of crime money that is sitting there is not being directed or loosened up. The caps are not being lifted to direct money to those organizations. So make a linkage for me between number 8 and what’s, in fact, happening. I understand that you’re not in charge of victims of crime, but it is mentioning that in this particular recommendation.
’ll leave those two with you. Thank you.
Ms Redford: Thank you for both of those questions. I want to go back for a minute, take a step back, because I find that when we have discussions about safe communities, I become fully engaged in this, which I think is a good thing. I think the hon. member is doing the same thing.
What we have in that report is a list of recommendations that the government has agreed to implement. They are also very short recommendations, in terms of being three or four sentences, so I think that at this point with some of the recommendations we can talk about the general philosophy of what we would like to do, but we still have to take some time to actually discuss how we’re going to implement some of those recommendations. There will be some that will be a priority because we’re ready to go on them, and there will be some that we may take some time to implement.
With respect to the sharing of information question, I want to emphasize that what we understand that recommendation to be about is the sharing of information between the investigative branch of government and the prosecutorial branch of government to ensure that we’re not letting information that needs to be part of the investigative process and the prosecutorial process slip through the cracks, to make sure that the appropriate arms of government that are dealing with safe communities and justice issues, whether it be Justice and Solicitor General, are doing what they are supposed to do to make sure that there is proper communication and we are getting the most effective results.
[…]
Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much. I’m pleased to get another shot at this. A couple more things that I wanted to follow up on that were coming out of the recommendations in Keeping Communities Safe. Under recommendation 14: “Ensure that schools have access to both a school resource officer and to adequate counselling services.” Is the minister aware if the school resource officer is a police officer? I’m wondering what the thinking is behind that. Under recommendation 15: “Expand provincial support for programs aimed at preventing domestic violence and providing support for families that are victims of domestic violence.” I know that my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona had raised a number of issues around that, but I’m wondering whether there is money attached to that particular recommendation, and if so, how much? If it’s not in this minister’s department, where could I find it? I would appreciate that.
Perhaps I could get answers to those two questions.
The Deputy Chair: The hon. minister.
Ms Redford: Thank you. I will answer the first question and then just beg your indulgence to repeat the second question after. Let me answer the first one first. The recommendation with respect to school resource officers is around working with police officers to find ways to have police officers in schools.
I had a very interesting conversation last Friday with Chief Hanson in Calgary. We had the opportunity to discuss some of the work that he would like to do around developing programs where police officers who are community based police officers can work with social workers in schools to work on leadership programs, to develop information sessions for parents. We had a long conversa-tion about how, you know, kids are growing up in a world today where parents are sometimes even surprised in terms of the risks that are out there. I think those are things that we know, but it’s very interesting when you have conversations with police officers as to some of the very specific examples of some of those dangers. We had a long conversation about how the Calgary city police have started to do some work around developing teams who can work with parents and work with students and work with teachers not in terms of investigating and prosecuting but also not just being a police officer that walks into a school and says, “Hi, I’m here once a year to tell you not to break the law because that’s a bad thing,” but really developing relationships.
Now, that’s the philosophy, I think, behind that. At this point it is my understanding that that isn’t one of the initiatives that is a priority this year for us, which I think means we will begin to have those discussions to see what opportunities might look like. Whether that recommendation translates directly into exactly the same activity, we’ll see because what we want to do is going to be what’s best for safe communities.
I’m sorry. If you could just repeat the second part. Thank you.
Ms Blakeman: Yeah. I’m still a bit uneasy about having police officers in our schools. That’s a double edged sword. But okay; I’ll take your response.
My second question was around recommendation 15 and whether there was money allocated specifically to implementing that, which is about expanding provincial support for reducing domestic violence. So that was that second question. Then I’d like to go on to a different subject, so I’ll just get the answer to that.
Ms Redford: Thank you for that. Again, as a recommendation we’ll be starting to look at that. At this point we do not have specific funds allocated for implementation of that recommendation. There is work that’s being done within a number of departments already, and it is good work. I mean, what we want to do with safe communities is to develop some targeted initiatives. So, in that sense, we don’t have a targeted initiative that has funds attached to it, but we will be working toward that.
The Deputy Chair: The hon. member.
Ms Blakeman: Thank you. The next issue that I would like to explore with the minister is around surveillance of the general public, which is a public policy decision that keeps returning to us. There are debates and facts and figures available on both sides as to whether public surveillance – in other words, closed captioned cameras, that sort of thing – are useful and effective or whether they are an unnecessary intrusion into people’s expectation that they could conduct their business and live their lives without being scrutinized on a closed camera by somebody. I’m wondering what sort of policy the minister is looking at around this issue. Is she interested in pursuing more surveillance of the general public? Less? Does she think what we have right now is about right? How does she see this fitting into some of the other strategies and recommendations that the government is currently pursuing?
Ms Redford: Thank you for that question. It is an important area. I know that in parts of this province and around this world there are governments that have taken different approaches to this. As the hon. member stated, there is research to support different sides of the position. At this point as a government, which is how I have to speak and not in terms of what my personal opinion may or may not be, this is an area where we need to do some more work. I think it’s an area that requires a very good policy discussion. We’ll be undertaking that at some point.
Ms Blakeman: Well, you could send it to a policy field committee, which would be a useful place to put it because that would be all party as compared to one of the MLA committees, which tend to be government MLAs only.
Finally, I have a couple of very specific questions. On page 299 under Support for Legal Aid, vote 4.0.1, I’m wondering if the increase there is related to a volume increase – in other words, there’s higher demand for the legal aid services – or whether, in fact, there has been a change in the criteria so that it’s more or less the same number of people that are accessing it, but they’re able to access larger amounts of money per case.
The second question appears on page 300 of the estimates book under 3.0.5, maintenance enforcement. This is voted equipment/inventory purchases. There’s a sum there that looks like $1.5 million. I’m wondering what this equipment is for under the maintenance enforcement program. There have been a number of challenges in that area over the past, and I’m under the impression that those were resolved, but I would like to know what that money is being used for. We did at one point have computers that didn’t talk to each other and were also not able to calculate what we needed to do. So what is this additional money for? If it’s IT support, I want to know what it’s for exactly and break it down. There’s a lot of money being spent on IT by this government, and I’m starting to get suspicious about whether everything actually talks to everything. Finally, on page 306, FTEs. Full time equivalents for the department, $2,922,000. I’m wondering if I can get a detailed breakdown, please, of how those FTEs are allocated. You’ve mentioned some of them as you’ve gone through the evening. You probably have a breakdown available which you can send to me. If you would be so kind as to do that. I’m most particularly interested in the legal aid, the domestic violence, and the maintenance enforcement sections, but I’m sure you’ve got a breakdown that shows us where everybody is. If I could get a copy of that, I’d appreciate it. On page 304 under Revenue there’s other revenue showing $114,350,000. Could you give me a breakdown of what that other revenue consists of, please?
I believe that that’s the end of my questions. Thank you.
Ms Redford: Well, thank you for all of those questions. I am going to undertake to provide those to you. I’m sure the department will be very busy over the next short while, getting those back to you.
The Deputy Chair: The hon. member?
Ms Blakeman: No. Thank you. I will await getting them, and of course if I could get them within the two weeks, that would be very helpful. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Does anyone else wish to speak?
Ms Blakeman: I’m just picking up on the comments from the hon. Member for Airdrie Chestermere, with his interest in CyberPol. The work that’s being done there, is that looking at bringing back what was being proposed under Bill Pr. 1 from 2007, which was CyberPol – The Global Centre for Securing Cyberspace Act? Is that what the government is considering moving forward on; in other words, the same bill being brought back as a government bill? There were some fairly significant issues that were raised around this at the time that were unresolved. It ended up dying on the Order Paper last year and when the election was called. I’m curious as to what the government is looking to do in following up on CyberPol, or has that now become a catch all word? It was quite specific what was being proposed in this bill, so I’d like to know where the government is going with this. Thank you.
Ms Redford: Thank you for that question. I know of it in a general way. I don’t know of it as a specific program or as a program related to previous legislation. At this point, I don’t believe I said the government was going to do this. I believe I said that it was an interesting idea we’re discussing. I think it might be as a general principle something that we want to look at in terms of child exploitation. If we can find ways to deal with childhood exploitation on the Internet, then I want to look into those. I’m not exclusively looking at one or another right now, but I want to have conversations about it.
The Deputy Chair: The hon. member?
Ms Blakeman: I’m good. Thank you very much.
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