Jackson Lafferty

Masi, Madam Speaker. [Translation] Madam Speaker, I want to talk about senior citizens. We want the best for our seniors, and that's why we are speaking up, and the Premier had just given out the priorities, and one of them is elders. Sometimes, the elders' private home furnaces don't work. We want to make people aware of that to help them. [Translation ends]

Today, I would like to walk the talk and discuss something that is very important to me, and that is carrying for our seniors in the Northwest Territories; more specifically, my region. Madam Speaker, On February 7th, the Premier tabled...

Masi, Mr. Chair. I, too, definitely agree that this should be expanded. The First Nations Policing Program has been very successful in the past, and we should be at a point of, as the Justice Department or as a government, we should be matching the GNWT "G" Division, what they offer at the table. There should be a partnership. We talk about partnership as a government, but we shouldn't just be looking to "G" Division to see if they are willing to add more funding. We should be proactive.

Mr. Chair, I only have 30 seconds of my time. One more question I have is the justice committees. Are all...

Masi, Mr. Chair. Obviously, I would like to see up-and-coming training on the "G" Division as has happened at the depot. I know there has been some in-term exposure for some northern students. Just so it happens, one of my daughters was interested, so she pursued it through her high school. She had a week, I believe it was a week or 10 days, at the depot, and obviously, she is interested now. She wants to be a cop after she gets her degree, so I think we need to do more of those areas of recruitment and promotion. I am glad the Minister is willing to sit down with the chief commanding officer...

Masi, Mr. Chair. [Translation] Regarding community justice and the RCMP, I would like to ask the Minister a question. The past couple of years, we have been advocating for Aboriginal policing, so I want to ask a question regarding that. [Translation ends]

Community justice and policing, I know that there has been training in the past because I have been involved as the Minister of Justice of the day. We have had a successful outcome training an individual to become almost a full-fledged RCMP officer, without investigation. They are from Hay River, your community. We are obviously a huge...

I understand that they may not have been charged, but they were involved. When the drug bust happened, there were nine of them. You know, when there was a person of interest from the RCMP in Alberta just recently, they released the names of two individuals. This is, I would say, similar. I would ask the Minister of Justice if she is willing to sit down with the RCMP "G" Division commanding officer and seek out if there is any way that we can provide those names to the general public. My constituents, I want to protect them, and with those kinds of names, we should be releasing those to the...

I believe that's my fifth question, now, Madam Speaker. I just want to say I look forward to departmental correspondence on this particular, very important, matter in my region. When can we see this happening? Masi.

The Minister hasn't really answered my question about if they had specific certified burner mechanics visiting the isolated communities. I'll just move on to the next question, because these are tough questions that the department should be answering, especially for our elders in the communities. A couple of months ago, I had an 82-year-old senior constituent out of Behchoko who had furnace issues, and this was broadcast on the CBC, as well, when we were in the middle of a two-week-long cold spell. Apparently, her furnace had not been serviced for a few years. In the end, Polar Ice from...

Masi, Madam Speaker. [English translation not available.] ...and families to identify gaps in existing resources. Madam Speaker, question to NWT Housing Corporation: what are the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation's programs available for seniors so they can maintain their own homes? Masi, Madam Speaker.

Masi, Mr. Chair. What I am trying to get at is those communities that do not have detachments, how do we restrain those individuals who get in trouble? I see first-hand in Gameti, they have a restraining chair in one of the offices at the community government offices; it's just a small room. What if we had, like, five of them, five individuals who are making trouble in the community? We only have two officers who every now and then come and visit the community of Gameti. I am just more concerned about the safety aspects of the community. It's not just my community; there are 10 or 11...

Masi, Mr. Chair. Usually, the RCMP "G" Division would inquire or talk about recruitment process, and they want to recruit people from the communities. Obviously, that requires training, and we, as a Department of Justice, need to be proactive. Because we talk about money, we can identify funds towards that to train our own people to become full-fledged RCMP officers. We can't always say it's "G" Division, that they approve, that they have to come up with the training requirements, training funding. We have to be proactive, as the justice department, to move forward, to say we want to set the...