David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our role as a department is to, again, provide legal advice and support to departments. We do have some new enforcement responsibilities. Those will be carried out by other departments. Our role in this was to add five new positions at our legal division and they’re not just the ATIPP position the Member referenced, but we have beefed up our staff complement in the legal division by five positions in anticipation that they will be busier after April 1st. As we go forward, if we need further resources in that area, through the business planning process we could...

Thank you, Madam Chair. For that detail, we’ll go to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we will. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories today has the best trapping programs in the country. The reason why our programs are so successful is because we work out of our regional offices to help deliver the programs that we have, and in the area of trapping specifically we have a strong relationship with the local operations at the regional level through our department. As things change – I know the Member is talking about the potential economic development happening in the Sahtu – it’s even more important that we continue that close relationship with the hunters and trappers in that...

It’s being spent on compensation and benefits for the employees that we have at the Department of Justice. We operate 24 hour a day, seven day a week, 365 day a year operations at our facilities and those dollars are spent in the areas that the Members see in the main estimates.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In developing community policing plans, the RCMP do work with communities around the Northwest Territories and community leaders. As I mentioned to MLA Moses, there are protocols in place, when it comes to emergency events in a community, on how things will happen. I am going to be providing him with some further detail on that – response times – and we can share that with the rest of committee as well.

We also need to continue to dialogue with the RCMP and also with the community members. Crime Stoppers is certainly a good avenue for community members who want to report...

That work has been concluded. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Members for sharing their general comments with me. There are a few areas of concern that overlapped most Members.

I guess what I would like to start out with, and I know was raised by a number of Members, was policing in smaller communities and the need to look at services. We do provide services, especially a community like Gameti or Wrigley, Tsiigehtchic are serviced by the RCMP.

Just to put it into perspective, today there are 12 communities in the Northwest Territories that do not have a detachment. Three of those communities are within a 30-minute...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we can.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The wellness court is on this page. The integrated case management is under community justice.