Thank you. Ms. Schofield.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The process is that if there’s a concern or a complaint in the community, that they deal with the community detachment commander in its first instance to try and resolve it. If they can’t resolve or reach a resolution in the communities, there is a very formal complaint process through the RCMP Complaints Commission. So a formal complaint can be filed and it gets registered and then the process of reviewing those files and complaints sets in place. Thank you.
I appreciate the response. From a Member’s perspective, being able to measure effectiveness or efficiency of any organization is vital. With this complaint process, the Members here on this side are at a bit of a disadvantage. We don’t have any measurable reporting on complaints. Would the Minister commit to looking at that as part of the future process? As we go through the business planning process, that that could be provided in terms of providing a better wholesome view of the RCMP services that we receive.
As a result of this new contract that we have with the RCMP, it does change the relationship a little bit between us and them. One of the good items of that is the fact that there is more of a reporting relationship, more of a data relationship where they have to provide us with some of this type of information that Mr. Dolynny is talking about.
What I will do is I will commit to working with the department and the RCMP to figure out a way to get that information into our process, so that it’s at least there as an information so that people can see it. I can’t tell you what it’s going to look like today. It’s going to take a bit of work to figure it out, but we will try to get it in there for the next one. If not, we’ll at least be able to have something as, sort of, an attachment or whatnot until such time as we can find a way to build it in as an information item.
I appreciate the Minister’s commitment to that. One of the things that the Minister heard today here is there is obviously concern in the smaller communities that don’t have a regular detachment but there’s potentially regular patrols to those communities without detachments. With this budget, and again I didn’t hear it in that breakdown that we heard earlier, is there a greater focus with this new contract now to look at implementing more patrol days in those communities that do not have detachments?
It does give us more of a planning cooperation relationship with the RCMP. One of the things that we’ve been doing is the RCMP has been going in to actually set up individualized policing plans for every community, and we’ve been working with the individual communities. For instance, when we went to Tsiigehtchic and Colville, we actually sat down with the leadership, the commanding officer and I, and then the commanding officer continued after I left. We had conversations about exactly how we can provide, or how they can provide coverage that meets their needs. Even after having some of those discussions, I heard the chief in Tsiigehtchic say we don’t necessarily want a full-time RCMP officer but we want to make sure that we have coverage that we’re comfortable with, and they started working out the details and this is what we need to do. We need to go into each of the communities and work out individual solutions, community-driven solutions.
We need to work with the communities, and the RCMP and the commanding officer are committed to doing so, and we will continue to work with them to create the opportunities to start developing these relationships and find community-based solutions with the RCMP and the Government of the Northwest Territories.
What I heard from that is we’ll be looking at community-based solutions and opportunities. I think my question was: Will we be seeing more patrol days in those communities that do not have detachments? I would like less of a soliloquy but more response to the number. Thank you.
I could do that but it would be different for every community. In some communities that may be true. Other communities it may not be true. Depends what we negotiate in cooperation with the communities and the RCMP. It’s hard to say.
Again, not that I want to be tongue-in-cheek here, but the question is obviously very, very important to a lot of the communities that do not have regular patrol days or very few patrol days. What we’re hearing from communities is the fact that they’re looking for more police presence, more patrol days, and I’m hoping that this budget for this fiscal year will be addressing that. It sounds like you’ve got a new contract in place, which is congratulations to the department for doing that, but I think from this side of the House we need to see that translating into more presence, more effective presence and more visualization of our RCMP in those communities that are needing it most.
I’ll leave it at that. I think that the Minister, when time permits, could really relay that type of information to all Members of the House, in terms of are we going to be seeing an increase in patrol days over the next fiscal year as a result of this new agreement. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. I’ll take that as a comment. Question asked and answered, if the Minister wishes to respond. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just sort of building upon the last response, as part of their planning with these community policing strategies they do set targets in cooperation with the communities, targets that are measurable and that they will try to attain. They do that with the communities. The Member is right. I mean, we want to see more RCMP in as much as possible, but it may be not necessarily more days. It might be more appropriate days or better timing or working with the communities on which times they feel that they truly need coverage as opposed to more. It may be more. That was the point I was trying to make, is it’s really hard to say per community that it’s going to result in exactly more. It may be more efficient and better use of that time and a better choice of time. We need to have the flexibility. The RCMP need to have the flexibility. The communities need to have the flexibility.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Next on my list, Mr. Bromley.
Madam Chair, my first question has to do with the RCMP family violence coordinator, a couple of questions there. Where do you envision this being based? Do you envision this as an RCMP officer or a social programs expert that would be working with the RCMP to enhance their understanding? Thank you.
Madam Chair, it is an RCMP officer located in headquarters providing services to the entire Northwest Territories reporting to the commanding officer or very close to it. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Again, would we expect that there would be specialized training in the area of family violence from the social program side as opposed to the important side that provides that liaison, or what is our concept here? Thank you.
That is exactly what the position is about. It is not about a street on-the-ground enforcement officer. It is about the types of things Mr. Bromley is talking about.
That’s great. It’s good to hear. Will the department play a role in making knowledge about this available throughout our communities? Will there be a helpline for NGOs? How does that work? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Ms. Watters.
Madam Chair, the primary role of this position will be to work with the detachment members to ensure that they are meeting their obligations under the Family Violence Prevention Act. They will be liaising with our department, with Health and Social Services, so they will be trained. They will be providing services primarily to the members, and the reason for this position is to ensure we do get better response from all RCMP.
That I think helps me understand this position. My second question I have is with respect to the law enforcement programs. I believe $128,000 has been identified for work related to the Mackenzie Gas Project. Obviously, that project has been shelved in the immediate future. I am wondering how we are reallocating those dollars in this fiscal year.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
Madam Chair, the position is currently vacant, from what I understand. From my understanding, the RCMP is hoping to utilize that position to help them with other industrial initiative-type things that are happening, like the play in the Sahtu. There is going to be a significant amount of challenges in the Sahtu with all the additional work coming in there. The position is going to be utilized to help address some of the social impacts on the RCMP of major developments.
I just have a question with the process. Is that normally a decision that would be brought to committee for some input, or is that sort of a contract obligation and here is the money, you can do what you want with it to the RCMP? Thank you.
Yes, it is a contract obligation. It is an RCMP position. We fund 70 percent of all RCMP positions.
Madam Chair, I guess I am reaching a bit here. Had it been the Minister’s responsibility, I would be bringing accountability into the equation. Now I am asking the Minister to bring accountability with a third party. How many years have we funded this position? How many years has it been empty? How many other positions are there that are empty that they are choosing to use the money as they would see fit rather than asking us how we would like to see it directed? I am presuming that it is our money, our taxpayers’ money that we are providing them here. This is just a general attempt to understand this and bring some accountability. Thank you.
It is a strategic initiative-type position. It is new this year. It is brand new. It hadn’t been utilized in previous years.
Madam Chair, I guess that’s good to hear. Maybe we could indicate that this is a Sahtu commitment or something like that rather than an MGP commitment, that would clarify. That’s just an administrative suggestion there. Thank you. That’s all the questions I have on this page.
It’s a resource development position. I’m happy to have that conversation with the RCMP to see where is the appropriate place for that position to be located. I couldn’t tell you right now. I’ll have to have that conversation.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. To questions, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I was going to ask some of those questions. I will follow up to some of those questions Mr. Bromley was asking the Minister regarding the resource development RCMP, I guess you can call it.
There is family violence RCMP and now we have resource development RCMP. I hope this position can somehow make its way into where the Sahtu is having some oil and gas activity that increases a whole bunch of other things that RCMP only can deal with.
One of them is that the Norman Wells liquor store restriction has been lifted since February 1st. We have been getting a lot of calls from communities. The Minister and I did a tour and the Minister heard also the impacts of the lifting of the liquor sales in Norman Wells and the impacts on the communities, the families and the need for more RCMP presence. Actually, we heard some horror stories in Colville Lake, where bootlegging has gotten quite profitable. It is hitting our younger population. That is very sad. I’m hoping the Minister would have a good discussion with the future plans on how to look at those situations. Colville Lake, God bless their heart, have come up with very strong how they want to tackle in their community, and that is community leadership. They have come forward with saying this is what we want to do. They have taken the Minister to task and said this is what we want to do, can you help us out here. They come with some very strong positions.
The law enforcement, again, we need to look it up, beef it up. I would ask if the Minister sometime in this Assembly, this House here, if he would just provide again a list of communities without RCMP detachments. I don’t know if we did it every year. I just want to see if it increases to the better.
It’s more of a comment that we are looking for enforcement in our communities without RCMP. Sometimes the weather plays a role in the response to communities without members. It happened in Colville Lake because the weather was bad. They couldn’t drive. It was just a bad time. It was real bad timing. However, crime doesn’t know any time. It just does it, especially in small communities. The people are wondering what can they do, especially in very serious incidents. Sometimes the RCMP can’t get there for a day or two or three days. They are sort of held ransom. It is just through leadership that they could hold the community together and we get the phone call.
I just want to again remind the Minister about RCMP that are not in our communities. We are starting to think that’s the norm, which it isn’t. The communities that do have RCMP sort of take that for granted, the appreciation of members being there. I want to remind the Minister that we will do our part. Hopefully, the Department of Justice will do theirs. It’s more of a comment to the Minister. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Abernethy.
Madam Chair, I’ve had a lot of conversations with the Member, especially when we are travelling through the Sahtu, and we know the challenges that they’re facing with alcohol in the small communities and we are looking to work with the communities.
Once again, I go back to the community policing strategies or the community policing plans that are done between the RCMP and the community. It’s a great opportunity for the communities to make sure that their voice is being heard with respect to policing. It’s going to continue to happen and we look forward to the partnerships. The Member is right; Colville Lake is a great example of a community who is standing up and saying no to alcohol use in their community, and if we can get those kind of relationships going with other communities, we can really start to see some change.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to make one quick comment before I get into my question, that we’re very fortunate in Inuvik that we do have a pretty good police force and they are actually proactive doing a lot of patrols and they do our road checks and they’re very proactive. It’s really great.
The Minister mentioned the RCMP Complaints Commission. Does he have stats on how many complaints they receive for a year? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Not with me, but I will talk to the detachment and see if we can get some statistics for the Member.
When he gets the stats, I was wondering if he could give us a breakdown of the types of complaints that he does receive, the regions that the complaints come from and, even more specifically, which communities those complaints come from. It allows us to offer a little bit more insight on policing in the communities as we move forward. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I believe we can provide it by community, but we have to be careful that the statistics are not so small that they’re self-identifying. So as they get smaller, we may not be able to provide them by community, we may have to provide them by region. But we will provide you everything that we can legally provide you.
Thank you. No one further on my list. We are on page 9-17, activity summary, Justice, law enforcement, operations expenditure summary, $39.469 million.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Thank you, committee. Could I have some order please? Thank you, committee. Page 9-19, activity summary, Justice, legal aid services, operations expenditure summary, $5.905 million. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I may not be on the right area, but I wanted to ask the Minister is there any work being done with the legal interpreters, translators that sometimes need to be used in the court services.
Thanks, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It may touch in this area, but it would also touch in courts. We do utilize interpreters. We have a list of interpreters that we can go to to provide services when we need them. We provide translation when asked, for sure. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, I appreciate the Minister’s flexibility on taking this question, because sometimes it gets into the courts and to legal services. So I just wanted to know if there is some legal aid training for the interpreters or translators. Sometimes we just pick them off the streets in our communities and we tell them to translate, and sometimes they’re hearing some pretty detailed, sensitive descriptions of some of the crimes, and sometimes they’re traumatized or sometimes they internalize some of the stuff. Sometimes they just don’t have that proper training to interpret properly what the lawyer or the judge is saying. So it gets very complicated and sometimes they make mistakes. So I just want to give support to those translators and interpreters who we do ask. Sometimes we pull them off the streets in our communities and say, well, you’re probably the best of the translators/interpreters, can you do this for us?
Is there any type of program in the future with the funding that you have, Mr. Minister, to look at some type of interpreters’ court training for the region? We have some pretty good interpreters that could be trained in the region that can go with the circuit. We have a couple in the Sahtu that would be just awesome, because they didn’t train before the government. So I’m looking for that type of initiative from this Minister. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Member has certainly hit an area that we know there are some weaknesses, without question. We don’t provide medical terminology training to the interpreters. It’s an area that we need to find a way to find some improvements on. It’s going to take money, money we don’t happen to have, which is one of our biggest challenges.
As far as how interpreters travel with us, we tend to pick interpreters up at site at the location we’re going to, rather than necessarily having them travel with us. We try to find people who have had experience over time, coming back, coming back, coming back, coming back, but those individuals are becoming harder to find. So the Member is right; we need to do something, but it’s going to cost money and that’s one of our challenges.
The Minister is correct on this issue. I’m just glad the Minister is well aware of the issue. He knows it’s out there, he knows it’s going to cost some money to get this issue here. However, I’d like to ask the Minister that when you look at this, you are serving Aboriginal people. We have rights, we have everything in there that needs to be honoured and be respected, and if our people can’t have that type of service by this government, then somewhere we’re failing to uphold those rights and to strengthen and protect those rights. So we are actually not living up to our obligations as a government and that is not right.
If the Minister continues to look at where we can find money, possibly down the road there might be more money coming out of this government to pay for things that the Aboriginal people are one day going to say that’s enough, that’s enough, let’s do the court challenge and let’s take the government to task on this, just like the French people. So I’m saying this to the Minister and this government that pretty soon enough is going to be enough. So I just wanted to let the Minister know and he’s well aware of it and he has to convince his Cabinet colleagues that we’d better pay attention, otherwise we’re going to face a lawsuit. So I appreciate the Minister giving me his previous response and I’ll take that to heart. Mahsi, Madam Chair.
The Member is right; we need to do more work, we need to do better work, we need to make sure that the service is there and I will absolutely work with my colleague, Minister Lafferty, on this language issue to see if we can find a solution in the best interest of the people of the Northwest Territories.
Thank you. Next on my list is Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. By just the name justice, the name itself implies the need for assistance, the need for intervention and my questions obviously are going to be revolving around the legal aid accessibility to our clients and to our residents.
With applications rising as high as they have in the last number of years, and we went in our business planning preparation phase to address this with the Minister and his team, and I know that I’m very pleased to hear that the Minister will be bringing forward a supp and I appreciate that. But even by doing that, by virtue of adding that one extra position, I have a hard time, and I think a lot of Members here have a hard time believing will that deal with backlog, will that deal with accessibility within a reasonable amount of time. And by reasonable, is four months reasonable? Is three months reasonable? Is 30 days reasonable? Can the Minister clarify have they done the studies as to what that one extra person will do in legal aid to mitigate the backlog so that maybe we can get some timelines in terms of what efficiencies we’re going to see with just maybe one more position? Or maybe we should be looking at two, maybe three. So I will start with that question first, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.
