R.J. Simpson

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.

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 that...

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

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...

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.

Yes. 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. 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. 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.

Thank you. And I don't want to speak too much about other departments. I don't want to get anything wrong before they appear in front of committee. But one of the main initiatives that I can speak to, because it is in one of my departments, is integrated service delivery. And that is one of the approaches that I hope will begin to address some of these issues. Really, at the end of day, that is the way to stop people from falling through the cracks and deliver the services they need across government. Thank you.