Louis Sebert

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that the main change will be the fence that I have referenced earlier, and I understand that some other minor or less expensive modifications are needed to the actual facility itself, again, removing it from a minimum-security, which it is now, to a medium-security.

Sorry, I might be talking about the wrong place. I'm not fixated on the facility in Hay River, although it has been paramount in my thoughts because it is so important, but I apologize if I misunderstood the question. Are you asking about enhancements to North Slave? Thank you. I think that the things...

Yes, I understand that it falls under community justice and policing, but we can certainly take the questions if there are questions.

As the Member opposite has mentioned, there is now a housing accommodation for the RCMP in Tsiigehtchic, which I think is a marked improvement to the situation which existed prior to that. I don't think we are looking at setting up a detachment in the community at this time. Thank you.

Yes, of course. Initially, we would have to determine whether there was a need, and whether it made sense, and whether it would be more efficient. Ultimately, I suppose, part of any cost analysis would be rent costs. I don't think we are at that stage yet of looking at what the cost of rent would be, and I don't know whether that would be part of our initial analysis, but at some point, if we did move ahead, obviously the cost of rent would have to be looked at. Thank you.

As I mentioned or has been mentioned, we are willing to enter into discussions with the committee. To my mind, the surplus has been growing simply because there are fewer applications or the applications are not eating up the cumulated surplus over the years, which I see has grown over the years. Again, yes, we certainly would get back to this committee with respect to our committee discussions with the committee that, after all, I appoint. I don't think it is necessary to go to them and say, "You must spend this money," but there probably are projects out there that are worthy of...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. As Members will know, we are advancing this project of transition of the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre to a facility that operates under a therapeutic community model. This is based largely on the Guthrie House program in Nanaimo, British Columbia, that some of us had the opportunity of examining by going down there. It was thought that the Hay River facility would be ideal for this, and I understand that staff has bought into the idea.

When we were down at Guthrie House, it seemed that this was a path that could lead to success. Now, what we don't want, of...

Yes. I suppose I can ask. I mean, one of the points of the legalization was to remove this from the black market. We will know what sales are in the Northwest Territories, and I would like to think that is money that is taken out of the hands of criminals. That was one of the major points of the legislation.

As I said, this was long in coming. I mean, if you are asking me how much the market for marijuana has been diminished by the change of law, that is rather hard to determine because it was a black market before. I would hope that the fact that now it is being sold legally in some of the...

I don't think we are in a position, really, to examine such an idea in that kind of detail. I do know that setting up a new RCMP station would be extremely expensive, but certainly I would be prepared to have a conversation with the Member opposite about this matter. I have some idea about the overall cost of setting up a new RCMP detachment, and it is very high. We would have to decide if there was a need, first of all, before we examined it further.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that we could do some preliminary investigation about this with respect to costs and get back to committee. I am willing to do that. Thank you.

Yes, clearly, information is important because a lot of these disputes might be able to be resolved informally rather than going through the rental office. Certainly we do recognize that education is important. Thank you.