Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Decades ago there were RCMP officers based in Tsiigehtchic, but now we only have patchy coverage from officers based in Fort McPherson. We are puzzled by this. The population has doubled, even tripled, but the community has lost its police service.

Last Thursday I had an exchange with the Justice Minister about the issue of staff housing. He said that housing shouldn’t be a hurdle to having RCMP officers overnight in Tsiigehtchic. I am glad he agreed to follow up and I look forward to hearing the results.

The budget review in the final year of the 17th Legislative...

Will the Minister meet with the community leaders in Tsiigehtchic to discuss ways to build up a grassroots, community-based policing presence? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

At times it takes anywhere from two hours to 24 hours for response calls, just so the Minister has that information.

I’d like to ask the Minister to describe the benefits of having a permanent police detachment in those communities lucky enough to have them.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few questions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two Pages from the Mackenzie Delta, Gordon Blake and Randy Omingmak. Also, their chaperone, Ms. Elizabeth Wright.

Just one more thing. I know in the past it has been the practice to go to the auction house but also to some fur auctions and also take harvesters from the communities, usually one from each region.

I’d like to ask the Minister, do they plan to do that? I was actually one of them that went to North Bay back in I think it was ’97 or something. It’s really interesting. You know, you see the whole process right from when you harvest it to handling and they even show you, pick out one fur and just put down the tag number and it tells you where it came from. It’s a very interesting process and it...

That’s good. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to ask, under the wilderness camps, how many camps does that funding represent? Is that one in each region or what is the breakdown per camp that is out there? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have two concerns to bring up. As I mentioned earlier in some questions to the Minister, policing is still an ongoing issue in Tsiigehtchic. In the past we did have RCMP in the community, and ever since, I believe it was the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, that was taken out of the community. Since then the community has wanted to have the presence of the RCMP back in the community. We feel that if we could have RCMP in a community half our size, there’s no reason why we can’t have RCMP in our community.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few questions for the Minister of Justice. As you know, policing has been an ongoing issue in Tsiigehtchic and I’d like to ask the Minister, since the commitment to overnight in Tsiigehtchic, how many times have the RCMP overnighted in the community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.