R.J. Simpson

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the House that the honourable Member for Thebacha, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, will be absent from the House today and tomorrow for the Canadian Council of Forests Ministers meeting in Cranbrook, British Columbia.

Thank you. And the Member for Yellowknife North stole my thunder a bit. I was going to say that deleting over $200,000 from the budget does not give us the ability to hire people in the regions. So just so everyone's clear who might be reading Hansard or watching this, this is actually reducing the ability to do what the Member is saying. So it's a bit backwards. I just want to make sure that the Member himself is actually aware that this is a deletion and that taking money away does not somehow allow us to hire more people. So just for everyone's information, I just wanted to add to that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, in terms of the specific numbers for food banks, I will have to get back to the Member. But as I stated, there is funding through the antipoverty grant and other areas where we do provide support. But I can commit to getting that information. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So currently, the federal government is undertaking an internal review of the Nutrition North program, and so we're waiting to hear what comes of that. But I can tell you that there is constant advocacy to the federal government regarding the Nutrition North program. It was spoken about in this House many times by the former Premier. I'm sure it'll be on future meeting agendas when I meet with the Minister of northern affairs as well. And so this is an area where there's obviously significant interest across the North. Is it a perfect program? Of course not. But I know...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to recognize one of my constituents, Ms. Colette Langlois, the current ombud of Northwest Territories, and I want to thank her for her service and for establishing the Office of the Ombud in Hay River. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, and maybe I missed it. Did we call the vote for the supplementary health benefits? Because I recall we called it and then there was about three more people who spoke afterwards. So I'm not sure if it was official, or. Thanks.

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. To operate a correctional facility, there are a number of different positions that are required. And so the majority are correctional officers. There are case managers. There are supervisors. There are and similar positions. Thank you.

Thank you. There are 13 this year. That includes the four under the First Nation and Inuit Policing Program, and those are located in Fort Resolution, K'atlodeeche that will be based in Hay River, Tuktoyaktuk and Whati. The crime reduction unit will be based in Yellowknife, but it is a territorial asset, and it's employed territorially. That would include six, seven staff. Six RCMP. And then we have an increase in the emergency response team. I believe that's two fulltime positions in Yellowknife. And then we have an increase of one position in Fort Providence detachment. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, that is correct. That position has not had a case load and so it hasn't been representing children in court. Those duties are done by the panel lawyers. So the position over the last number of years has been working on updates to policy manuals, assigning the files to the different panel lawyers, working on migrating data into the legal aid information network, and similar tasks. Thank you.