Louis Sebert

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can advise from my own experience being on town council in Fort Smith that we did receive monthly reports from the RCMP, which involved, I believe, the number of people in custody, the general nature of the charges, whether they were traffic-related or crime-related. I can't speak for every community, but certainly in the larger communities I am quite sure there is that information provided to council. I would like to think that it would be provided to all of the communities, but I am not absolutely certain of that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, the services in the communities, whether small or large, will not be affected. I understand that the decline in the amount is largely as a result of the construction of the new police detachment in Inuvik, so we are not anticipating cutting service in any way. Thank you.

I'm sure committee would not want us to make any rash decisions on this. I do appreciate that this is an ongoing problem, but I don't think there's been a sudden spike in the issues that the Member quite properly raised in the House. So, I mean, I don't think that amount of time is unusual or unexpected. The point is that we do realize there may be an issue here, and if it is determined that we should hire a second rental officer, we can certainly look at that in the business plan.

Again, I don't see this as a crisis or anything that has happened recently. Maybe it's more of a long-term issue...

Mr. Chair, I am not aware of the policing agreements with every community. I imagine they have a certain amount of similarity to them. Again, there may be a bit of a disconnect between the number of calls and the number of patrols, but that may be the nature of the calls. Again, the police always have to make a determination of whether a call merits a patrol apart from their regular patrols. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right is Martin Goldney, deputy minister, and to my left, Mandi Bolstad, director of corporate services, Department of Justice. Thank you.

We are always looking at ways to improve the service. I think that we will be looking at wait times. The current wait time, if I can put it that way, for the hearing date is between two and three months, which is consistent with other jurisdictions. However, if it appears that wait times are becoming too lengthy, and they may be, clearly we can look at the appointment of a second rental officer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, we do not generally deal with the operations on the detachment-by-detachment level. There has to be a fair amount of operational flexibility with the RCMP because events may occur that require a lot of resources. I do not think any of the money is being wasted. I could ask the commanding officer to attend before committee, if I receive that request. Of course, it would be up to him. Again, we do not have that sort of breakdown by detachment-by-detachment. I do believe that the operational flexibility I spoke of is required so that the police can carry out their duties, and I would...

I am told that it has to do with licenses related to exploratory work under the Oil and Gas Regulations and Operations Act.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled "Government of the Northwest Territories' Response to Committee Report 3-18(2): Report on the Review of the 2014-2015 Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission Annual Report." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

These issues were examined at our retreat last August, and one of the important issues is to determine whether the Ombudsman has the power to initiate investigations. I understand, in the jurisdictions that do have an Ombudsman, the answer to that question is yes. I'm not sure that the Yukon Ombudsman has that power yet; I think they are seeking it. So it would seem that the trend, if I can put it that way, is towards the Ombudsman having that type of power. So when the legislative proposal comes forward, committee -- in fact, this Caucus -- will have to determine whether that's the route we...