Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was in Ottawa meeting the Minister of Justice, not the Minister responsible for the RCMP. I didn’t have that discussion with the Minister of Justice. I was talking more about Bill C-10.

We recognize that community safety and enforcement is a priority, and the Member and I have had a number of conversations and I think we’re of like minds. We want to find some way to help the small communities.

There are 10 communities that do not have policing. Of those, two have money for policing but we don’t have any infrastructure in the communities so we’re not able to permanently...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to update the House on discussions I had with the federal Minister of Justice, the Honourable Rob Nicholson, yesterday. The purpose of this meeting was to bring the concerns of my colleagues regarding Bill C-10 to the Minister and to discuss how best to mitigate the impacts of the bill on the Northwest Territories.

The Parliament of Canada has the right and responsibility to pass national legislation in respect to criminal justice that can significantly affect all the provinces and territories. The motion passed just last Friday by this Assembly details some...

I’ll certainly be talking to my colleagues about community safety and enforcement. It is a priority and I’ll continue to have those discussions with my colleagues. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have that information at hand, but I’m happy to pull it together and provide it to the Member. Thank you.

As I indicated earlier, community safety and enforcement is a priority. It’s something that we’re certainly interested in. I, as the Minister of Justice, will absolutely be working with my colleagues to see if we can come up with some alternative solutions to these problems so that the people in the communities can feel a sense of security and whatnot. I look forward, once again, to meeting with the Member in the Sahtu.

I assure the Member that all issues in all the communities are taken seriously. I don’t know of any specific protocol, but I’ll certainly talk to my department and if there is a specific protocol, I will be sharing that with the Member.

I would say that when issues occur in the communities, it’s critical that the people in the communities contact the detachments. If they don’t have one in their community, there’s usually one associated with them. For instance, in Colville Lake it’s Fort Good Hope. If issues do occur, we need to have people call that detachment so that we can begin the process...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize my wife, Carolyn Smith, in the gallery today.

The department already has been working with the RCMP in increasing the number and length of patrols in the communities. To that end, we have actually put an additional position, an RCMP position in Fort Good Hope to provide some coverage to Colville. But I understand there are still concerns in the communities, and I’m happy to go meet with the individuals in Colville Lake to talk about what they would like to do to address these problems, what community solutions they have, and from there we can build into some larger picture solutions. I’m looking forward to working with the Member and his...

That would be done in cooperation with the federal government. We haven’t had that kind of specific detail, but we have been looking at alternative options, the options that I provided in an earlier response. We are having those discussions, but ultimately there is some federal responsibility here. Thank you.

Madam Chair, over the last four years I’ve heard many Members in this House talk about the programming that they’d like to see in corrections facilities and they talked a lot about culturally specific programs. To consider moving inmates outside of the Northwest Territories means that those inmates will not have culturally relevant programming.

I believe the mandate of this department is a good mandate and keeping our offenders in the North to benefit from our programs, including our cultural programs, is the way to go. I’m not sure that there would be much support for actually sending our...