Brendan Bell

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would agree and it is troubling, obviously, that aboriginal people are overrepresented in our institutions. We have been working well with on-the-land programming. We continue to make efforts in our institutions. Members in committee will be aware that we have some what we believed to be culturally relevant programming at the institution. We made some change and improvements. We now have elders from many regions coming to the institution to work with inmates from those regions to talk about what went wrong, how they can make improvements, how they can...

Mr. Speaker, thank you. They all get visits from RCMP members from the larger communities and the regional centres, but there are 13 communities that currently do not have detachments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have that information. What we do is go through our facilities and see who would be eligible. First of all, we have to make sure the person is not a risk to the camp operators or to the general public before they are eligible to go out on the land, because it doesn’t have the same type of security that we have our facilities. Next, Mr. Speaker, they have to want to participate. I am sure that our staff and the facilities are going through measuring the people there based on those two criteria, but I can certainly provide the Member with more information when...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday police and emergency personnel responded to a serious situation in Yellowknife. After many hours of emergency action, police were able to diffuse a standoff in a local residence and apprehend a young man before he could commit harm to others or to himself.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the RCMP emergency response team, personnel from the city municipal enforcement division, public safety department, the fire and ambulance department, Yellowknife Health and Social Services, Joint Task Force North, the local school boards, the...

I agree with the Member.

---Applause

A promotion. I agree with the Member, Mr. Speaker. I share his concern. It is of highest priority that we are able to establish some detachments in our smallest communities. There are communities that are very remote. It's difficult to provide and ensure safety. We know that there are weather concerns. So, yes, Mr. Speaker, it's a priority. We will continue to make sure the federal government understands that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The challenge with providing officers and having a permanent presence in all our communities is that, as Members know, we need two in each community now. That's the labour standard. We think community constables, or whatever the program will become, makes a lot of sense and will be well used in the Northwest Territories. We'll continue to lobby the federal government in that regard. It's not about, at this point, coming up with more money from this government for officers. The feds pay the tab when it comes to capital. We are looking at capital for Sachs Harbour...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's a dangerous answer for me to give a comprehensive one. I'll try to be brief and concise. I think as Members know by now, there's a CBC contest running on the radio that seeks to interpret an answer I might have given to Mr. Ramsay yesterday. I think they've decided it was the most obtuse and confusing answer they've ever seen, so hopefully I can do a little better here. We are meeting with the RCMP and communities to come up with strategies for policing in small communities. We're doing a number of things. The old Special Constable Program that used to be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would agree and it is troubling, obviously, that aboriginal people are overrepresented in our institutions. We have been working well with on-the-land programming. We continue to make efforts in our institutions. Members in committee will be aware that we have some what we believed to be culturally relevant programming at the institution. We made some change and improvements. We now have elders from many regions coming to the institution to work with inmates from those regions to talk about what went wrong, how they can make improvements, how they can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have that information. What we do is go through our facilities and see who would be eligible. First of all, we have to make sure the person is not a risk to the camp operators or to the general public before they are eligible to go out on the land, because it doesn’t have the same type of security that we have our facilities. Next, Mr. Speaker, they have to want to participate. I am sure that our staff and the facilities are going through measuring the people there based on those two criteria, but I can certainly provide the Member with more information when...

I agree with the Member.

---Applause

A promotion. I agree with the Member, Mr. Speaker. I share his concern. It is of highest priority that we are able to establish some detachments in our smallest communities. There are communities that are very remote. It's difficult to provide and ensure safety. We know that there are weather concerns. So, yes, Mr. Speaker, it's a priority. We will continue to make sure the federal government understands that. Thank you.