Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Member for that question. Currently the “G” Division has two fully operational drug services in the Northwest Territories. One is located here in Yellowknife; the other one is in Hay River. These teams support the division, all the detachments throughout the Northwest Territories. The dogs and their handlers also visit communities throughout the Northwest Territories, both for showcasing what they do but also to conduct investigations. This is part of our promotional anti, sort of, prevention mechanism as well.

Recently the teams attended some community...

Mr. Speaker, for many years, we had a problem filling entry-level vacancies for corrections officers with northern people who had the basic skills that would qualify them to be hired.

In 2009 the corrections service looked at the problem and developed a six-week training program to ensure we have a representative northern workforce in our corrections facilities. The end result is the Corrections Northern Recruit Training Program.

I am pleased to report that this program has been a success. On November 25th we added 12 more graduates to join the 52 who have gone before and are now trained to work...

During my conversation with the federal Minister of Justice in Ottawa, we talked about options to keep people out of the court system and we have agreed that our department, and the federal department and the territorial department are going to work together to come up with some options in this area. Diversions is certainly one of those areas. The departments will continue to have that conversation. As more information comes down, I am absolutely happy to share that with committee and with the Regular Members. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I can’t say exactly when we’ll actually see the recommendations come forward, but I have committed to work with the Department of Health and Social Services to come up with a working group that’s going to come up with these recommendations. I hope to have that to the Member shortly after Christmas, as far as when the actual recommendations come out. We might need a bit more time. I will continue to work on that.

Building on this is the conversation I had with the federal Minister on Monday. The federal Minister did indicate that they would be willing to work with us on options to help keep...

That would be the financially prudent and responsible thing to do, so that’s what we would be doing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No. No, there isn’t.

With respect to the dog team, like I indicated in my last response, the RCMP is going to do an analysis to figure out whether there is value to bring more dog teams into the Northwest Territories. If they do, they will submit their proposal to the GNWT and that will be shared with everybody.

With respect to additional RCMP, we are negotiating a contract now. Once the contract is negotiated, we can start talking to the RCMP about how many more we can bring in. If we can bring in any, we have to do a cost-benefit analysis on that.

But there are things that we are doing here in the Northwest...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a constituent and employee of the Status of Women Council, Samantha Dechief.

I’ve outlined previously some of the issues or some of the ideas that the RCMP are bringing forward, but for me what I’d really like to do is actually get into the community and listen to the community as to what kind of ideas they would like to see or what ideas they’d like to bring forward, what solutions they would like to see, and I’m open to anything at this point. It depends on whether it will work or not, but really I want to talk to the community and get a sense of what they think some of their own solutions would be. Thank you.

As I indicated before, the Member and I have been having some conversations and I’ll be going to Colville Lake, hopefully in February, with the Member to talk to the residents of Colville and the residents of the Sahtu about their issues with respect to the Department of Justice, policing being obviously one of them. At that time hopefully we’ll have an opportunity to talk about how the community sees us helping them to solve some of these problems and we’ll be there with open ears. Thank you.