Député de Hay River Nord

Premier ministre
Ministre de l’Exécutif et des Affaires autochtones

R.J. Simpson a été élu à la 20e Assemblée, représentant la circonscription de Hay River Nord. Le 7 décembre 2023, M. Simpson a été élu premier ministre de la 20e Assemblée législative des Territoires du Nord-Ouest.

M. Simpson a été élu par acclamation à la 19e Assemblée législative et élu pour la première fois à la 18e Assemblée en 2015.

M. Simpson a été élu pour la première fois à la 18e Assemblée législative en 2015. M. Simpson a été président adjoint de la 18e Assemblée législative, vice-président du Comité permanent des opérations gouvernementales et président du Comité spécial sur les questions de transition. M. Simpson a également siégé au Comité permanent des priorités et de la planification, de même qu’au Comité permanent du développement économique et de l’environnement.

M. Simpson a habité à Hay River toute sa vie. Après avoir obtenu son diplôme d’études secondaires à l’école secondaire Diamond Jenness en 1998, il a décroché un baccalauréat ès arts à l’Université MacEwan et un diplôme en droit à la faculté de droit de l’Université de l’Alberta.

M. Simpson a précédemment travaillé pour le gouvernement du Canada, la Northern Transportation Company limitée, la section locale no 51 des Métis, et Maskwa Engineering.

Pendant ses études en droit, M. Simpson a été président de l’association des étudiants en droit autochtones. Il a également siégé au conseil d’administration du Centre d’amitié Soaring Eagle, à Hay River, et donne de son temps au projet d’éducation Canada-Ghana.

Committees

R.J. Simpson
Hay River Nord
Bureau

Yellowknife NT X1A 2L9
Canada

P.O. Boîte
1320
Bureau de circonscription

62, promenade Woodland, bureau 104
Hay River Nord NT X0E 1G1
Canada

Ministre
Premier ministre des Territoires du Nord-Ouest, Ministère de l’Exécutif et des Affaires autochtones, Ministre de la Justice

Déclarations dans les débats

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you. Well, that's hard to predict but we -- even if we have more, it's highly unlikely that it would be enough to put us close to that full capacity of our facilities. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you. In the past few years, we have had some increases in our court officers. Because it is -- they have been stretched prior to this happening. I'll tell you a tough area to get support in a budget is for administrative positions and, you know, court services are no different. So people want frontline staff. They want money for health care. They don't necessarily want people who work in offices with paper despite the fact that they can -- you know, some of the work they do is invaluable. So we try to balance where we put our resources, and we try to do the best that we can with what we...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And no, that is not the policy. It is just the way that we like to do business is by cooperating and communicating. And for the past eight years as I've been an MLA, that has been common practice. In the last government, the Regular Members would actually share the -- at least the titles of their Member's statements and their questions with Cabinet early in the morning. So it's just we're just all trying to get along here, and we want to make sure that when Members have questions that, as Cabinet, we can provide good answers. We don't know everything, all the ins and...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Staff lawyers. There's a higher expenditure on staff lawyers. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you. By law, we need to have a youth open and secure custody but we may be able to shut that down and send them to another jurisdiction. We may be able to shut the women's facility down, send them to another jurisdiction or to the youth facility. We could shut down a few more correctional facilities if the Members really wanted to, but that's not what we're doing. We understand that that's a massive impact that we don't want to have on the communities. And this is -- as I said, this is not an easy decision. And we could keep it open and keep spending that money, or we can try and save...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you. When there's an influx of money, you can see an influx of crime. When there is an economic collapse, you can see an influx of crime. And so there's correlations in many different ways. I don't think we've seen the dramatic shifts in our economy that we would -- we could say led to an increase in crime at this point. That being said, I have not confirmed with the stats bureau on any type of correlation that there may be. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

I'd like to direct that to Mr. Bancroft. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you. The GNWT has a staff retention policy in situations like this. The Minister of Finance would be the expert in that -- on that policy, and so I'd prefer not to comment. But I know that the department will be working with those employees directly as they make their way through this process. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you. So I mean, I could answer as the Minister of Justice. It sounds like it might be a much more broad question than that, but there are things like legislation like the SCAN legislation which I guess in Alberta is actually the sheriffs use that legislation quite often. I just saw a story about the sheriffs in Calgary closing down a drug house in Calgary. But, you know, ultimately, it's a public health issue and we need to move towards integrating our services, making them easy to access, and ensuring that they are appropriate. At the end of the day, the solutions are community driven...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Yes. Thank you.