Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re currently piloting that Community Safety Strategy in three communities in the Northwest Territories and we will be evaluating how that goes and looking to ensure that if it’s successful then getting it into as many other communities across the territory as we can. It’s still in its early stages but we hope to see it expand past the three that are being piloted.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Committee, we’re on 9-17, Justice, activity summary, community justice and policing, operations expenditure summary, $4.900 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 9-18, Justice, activity summary, community justice and policing, grants and contributions, contributions, $2.331 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Page 9-19, Justice, information item, community justice and policing, active positions. Any questions? Seeing none, 9-21, Justice, activity summary, policing services, operations expenditure summary, $44.906 million. Does committee agree? Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. A quick question here. I guess we’re up again 10 percent, perhaps a little over in the fees and payments, contract services, of course, which is essentially the sole item here. What additional services are we getting for this substantial increase?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are really no additional services. It’s a variety of items that cause the increase to that line item.
I know recently I think we signed a new 20-year agreement with the RCMP. Was that a year or two ago, and if so, how is it working out? Are we noticing any changes, any improvements or otherwise?
The Member is correct; it was April 1, 2012, where the new 20-year agreement was signed with the RCMP. We have, and will maintain, a good relationship with the RCMP. I know the Department of Public Works and Services is moving forward with a new way of maintaining RCMP assets here in the Northwest Territories, so we have a close relationship with the RCMP and it is getting closer. Of course, as Minister, I work very closely with the RCMP and the commanding officers here in the Northwest Territories, and I know they have done a lot of great work here in the communities in developing the policing plans for communities around the Northwest Territories, so yes, we are happy with the service we are being provided and look forward to the RCMP and the Government of the Northwest Territories continuing to work well together. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that response. Just in terms of the variety of items that account for the 10 percent increase, I assume there’s the usual forced-growth stuff here, I know a good number of people, and utilities, et cetera. Are some of those expenses related to the new conditions of the 20-year agreement?
Mr. Chairman, there is a number of items in there. The accommodation program is the biggest item that is just $2 million, so that is part of the new agreement with the RCMP. There are also many other things, RCMP relocation, inter-divisional cost related to compensation and benefits for “G” Division, public service salary increases, as well, so there are a number of different items in there, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I know that a lot of effort was spent on negotiating that new agreement and I am sure that along with these additional expenses there are some improvements in services provided. I don’t know if the Minister has those at hand, but it would be good to know, and I know the public would like to know what additional benefits we are getting, or whether this is just the cost of doing business to maintain the status quo. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, we have also seen more collaboration on capital expenditures, as well, as I mentioned earlier, migration of maintenance back to the Government of the Northwest Territories through Public Works and Services, so we have seen some of that, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Continuing on to 9-21, committee, Justice, activity summary, policing services, operations expenditure summary, $44.906 million. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have just one quick question I want to ask. I know we have some Members here that are concerned that we have some communities that don’t have any RCMP staff in those positions and I do understand that we do have a 1-800 emergency line. For some of the communities there might be some concerns with the health and safety of the residents, should something happen, or with domestic violence or something where we’re sending some of our inmates, who might have been in on serious crimes, back into their small communities, that might cause concern for family members or other victims. How are we able to support some of these residents in communities that don’t have RCMP in line, or don’t have any RCMP in the community, and what’s the timeline should RCMP need to get to some of our smaller communities when a phone call is probably sent here to Yellowknife headquarters, and do we have the resources that are available to send an RCMP officer into a community should they need to follow up on a case, or need to go in there and possibly arrest somebody that is committing the crime? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To answer the Member’s question, yes, if there is an emergency in any one of the communities across the Northwest Territories, the RCMP will be ready to act and get into that community as quickly as possible. Thank you.
Just following up on that, maybe a concerned citizen might call into the 1-800 line to address an issue they see in the community. It could be domestic violence. That might be a case we can refer with. What does the department do to follow up on a case where a concerned resident is putting in a case and calling the 1-800 line or calling the Yellowknife RCMP detachment? What is the plan of action to follow that up and follow up with the case?
I know that in a small community, if a concerned resident heard some domestic violence going on in a house or an apartment and they call the RCMP, they be there right away to adjust the situation, but if someone is in a community and the resources aren’t there, how is that dealt with? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Yes, the RCMP would respond, and there are other departments, there’s ourselves and Health and Social Services that would have programs and services available to people as they need it. It depends on the community; it depends on the situation. I guess every situation would be different, but yes, if need be, the RCMP would look to involve us. We would be ready and able to provide some information to people that would require some services. Thank you.
Maybe I can ask the Minister if there’s a protocol for each of our communities that requires assistance, because in some cases if it’s something really serious, you know, you wouldn’t want to put any other residents in the community at risk to intervene, so we’re missing that part of the initial intervening of an issue that might be happening. In that case, that’s some of our more critical times to respond. So, I guess if you could identify which of our communities have the longest response time, or maybe provide response times to Members that have communities that they represent, so they understand and can pass that on to their constituents. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There are protocols in place, and as far as service time to various communities across the Northwest Territories, I would be more than happy to get that level of detail for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Justice, activity summary, policing services, operations expenditure summary, $44.906 million. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a few questions. Mr. Minister, do you know if communities like Colville Lake and other communities without RCMP members in there full time, have the communities talked with the department as to what type of preventive measures or, as Mr. Moses talked about, a situation sometimes from Fort Good Hope, it is about a 45-minute flight, if it is good weather, or it is a three-hour drive by truck. Sometimes situations happen in real time that requires community action.
Is there any type of discussion on community enforcement or what could happen when the members are called and they need to come into a small community?
It is the goodness of some people’s hearts that they do the best they can in a community and sometimes it gets pretty scary. Some communities are pretty scary when there is drinking involved, when there is drugs involved, maybe some mental disturbance. Some of these small communities have to sort of fend on their own.
I know the previous Minister was talking about some things when we had meetings in Colville Lake. We don’t have an RCMP member, and there are some things the community can do and some of the solutions we’re thinking about is to help out the community.
Is that type of discussion still continuing on, or are we going to raise this again next year in this type of forum? Just to get some security or safety or assurance in to our communities without RCMP members. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Ramsay.
Thank you, Madam Chair. In developing community policing plans, the RCMP do work with communities around the Northwest Territories and community leaders. As I mentioned to MLA Moses, there are protocols in place, when it comes to emergency events in a community, on how things will happen. I am going to be providing him with some further detail on that – response times – and we can share that with the rest of committee as well.
We also need to continue to dialogue with the RCMP and also with the community members. Crime Stoppers is certainly a good avenue for community members who want to report crime in an anonymous way, to phone the 1-800 numbers and report the activity that is taking place in the community that they want to report, and when the RCMP do come into the community and do patrols, that’s what they can focus their efforts on.
I would encourage Members again to utilize the services of Crime Stoppers, and certainly the RCMP will be watching that, as well, and being able to react to those calls as well. Thank you.
Madam Chair, I wasn’t in the House when Mr. Ramsay talked about some of my concerns and I apologize. I just want to know how many communities are without full-time RCMP members stationed in their community.
Madam Chair, currently 12 communities are without a detachment. Gameti and Wrigley do not have detachments but they have dedicated members for their community, and I believe Tsiigehtchic is in that same situation, as well, where they have RCMP officers in McPherson that are dedicated to the community of Tsiigehtchic.
Of those other communities, all have fewer than 150 residents.
I appreciate that. I believe those numbers went up, Mr. Ramsay, when we first got in as MLAs, but I’m not too sure if the numbers stayed the same or went down for communities without RCMP members. I would like to see a plan of action from this government to start putting in full-time members into the communities. There are 12 without RCMP members and there are nine communities without nurses and we don’t seem to be putting much emphasis on the basics of putting some essential services in our communities. We are dealing with them through community patrols once a month. If the weather is good, we can get in there faster, but sometimes the weather is bad and sometimes we can’t get into a small community. So, we’re kind of leaving it up to the community to protect themselves.
I’m making a comment in there. I guess I’m also making a statement to challenge that we have to start looking at these communities and start focusing on putting in these essential services such as the RCMP.
I know there were a number of discussions with the last government and the government before that, and we don’t seem to be moving on this measuring stick here to get RCMP members into our small communities.
I will leave it at that. It’s not going to help too much on it. The Minister knows where I stand and the department also knows where I stand. It’s something that I would like to see from the leadership of this Minister, to put together some discussion plans to say, yes, this is what we plan to do; this is what we could do. I will be happy when that comes out.
Madam Chair, I mentioned 12 communities. If you take away three that are on the road and close to another city like Yellowknife and Hay River, so you could take off Detah, Tsiigehtchic and Hay River Reserve, then you’re down to nine. As I mentioned earlier, the cost of putting a detachment into a community is anywhere between $10 million and $12 million capital costs and that would include housing for the members.
Also, on an ongoing basis you’re looking at about $2 million on an annual basis for a small detachment. I mean, you could be somewhere around $100 million in a capital expenditure if you were to put a detachment in all nine of those communities. On an ongoing basis, you’d be looking somewhere around $40 million.
Also, taking into consideration on whether a community does get a detachment are things like population, crime rates, the workload of members, remoteness, historic calls for service, types of calls for service, access to the community via all-weather roads, winter roads, or weather variability and, again, funding. That’s a big part of this, is the funding. At $10 million to $12 million for a new detachment, that’s money that we just don’t have today. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Minister has stated some pretty serious dollars for the community, and I understand that, it’s a given. I know what it will cost to put in an RCMP detachment, plus you have nine communities, and there are nine communities without health nurses in their communities, and I got it, Madam Chair. I’m asking again for some type of plan from the federal government.
What’s the cost of a life in our small communities without RCMP? If they have to go in, and it depends on if the weather is good, if there is an airplane, what kind of price tag do you put on a life if in one of those communities that don’t have RCMP and something terrible happens and you don’t have an RCMP member respond in time?
What do we go back to when we go back to these numbers? It is a price that I think this government can do. If we can find a business plan for a business case for a $700 million project on hydro, we certainly can do a business plan of putting RCMP and nurses in our communities. If we spend over $200 million on a bridge, we can certainly find money for RCMP and nurses. People’s lives are worth it.
I cannot sit here and accept this. I will just ask the Minister if he will work with the federal government. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I appreciate the Member’s concern and his questions. I guess the main thing is providing a service to communities across the Northwest Territories. If you look at a community like Tsiigehtchic, the RCMP have been working closely with the community leadership in Tsiigehtchic. We have plans now to overnight officers in the community, I believe it’s eight days out of the month.
I mentioned in response to some of Mr. Menicoche’s opening comments that that might be a model we want to look at in Wrigley, for example, or perhaps in Gameti. Those are discussions I made a commitment to earlier, to going back to the department and to the RCMP to see even if we don’t have a dedicated detachment in a community, can we get officers into a community and overnight in the community as a step forward. That’s something I think the RCMP in Tsiigehtchic have been amenable to. If the discussions start with communities like Wrigley and Gameti, maybe we can get some progress there as well.
So, we need to continue to work with communities. I think by working with communities, we can provide the best service that we possibly can to the residents around the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. Page 9-21.
Agreed.
Justice, activity summary, policing services, operations expenditure summary, $44.906 million.
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 9-23, Justice, activity summary, legal aid services, operations expenditure summary, $6.224 million. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Under legal aid services, I know the department has done a lot of really good work in bringing down the wait times for regional centres and here in Yellowknife when people are wanting to access legal aid. However, in the small communities, what we’re hearing is it’s a little longer than 60 days. As a result, I would like to read a motion.
Thank you. Go ahead, please, Mr. Moses.
I move that this committee recommends that a new territory-wide target of 45 days be established for average wait times for legal aid services; and further, to support this target, in the 2014-15 fiscal year an additional $200,000 be allocated to hiring an additional lawyer for the Legal Aid Services Board. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. I will give a few moments for the motion to be distributed.
To the motion. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The committee that’s been bringing these motions forward, once again, is in support of the work that government is doing. Some other dialogue and statistics that we get when we do have questions for the department, a lot of these motions we do bring forward are in response to some of the questions and answers that we hear within our dialogue during the business planning session. We’re working with our organizations throughout the Northwest Territories, so committee just wants to acknowledge that we’re listening, we’re hearing what people are saying and I just want to acknowledge that through a motion.
I think you’re going to hear some questions from committee with regard to this particular page within the budget. I just wanted to acknowledge that.
Once again, I want to acknowledge the standing committee and also thank Members for listening to the motions that are being brought forward from committee. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I appreciate Member Moses for bringing this forward. Committee had a long and heartening look at this particular motion for a number of different reasons. First and foremost, I think we have to thank the Department of Justice for listening to the Members last year, recognizing that the average wait time to seek legal aid was rather high in a lot of our communities. Some of those wait times were somewhere in the 90 to 120 days in some cases, which in Members’ views was a bit of a long period of time, especially to get access to legal advice. It’s probably imminent that they need to get things looked at.
The premise behind this motion is really to set a target rather than a dollar figure. We want the department to come up with what is a reasonable investment, so that target is really the focus of the motion. Bringing that average wait time to about 45 days for seeking legal aid, we think this is a very doable target with a very little amount of investment, yet this will definitely help greatly the Northwest Territories residents seeking that much needed advice. So the $200,000 is imbedded within the motion, but quite frankly, we suggest and encourage the department to use the 45 days as more the governance in doing so. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.
I request a recorded vote, Madam Chair.
Thank you. The Member is requesting a recorded vote. Any further comments to the motion?
