Mr. Speaker, in regard to the statement made earlier today by the Minister of Justice in regard to policing in Sachs Harbour, I’d like to applaud him on that. But more importantly, we still have, I believe, nine or ten communities out there that still don’t have policing.
I think it is an essential service for our communities, and also for our professionals to deliver programs and services in those communities. I’m talking about the community I represent, Tsiigehtchic, where they were having problems attracting nurses and also in ensuring public safety in their community.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice: exactly what is he doing to ensure the other nine communities will also have a similar opportunity where we can expand the policing into those other communities that don’t have that policing in place at the present date?
The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to thank the Member for asking that. It’s one of the important questions that I addressed today in my Minister’s statement.
We are focusing on the small communities that don’t have RCMP detachments, and Sachs Harbour is one of them that we have identified. There will be two more that are coming up: Gametì and Wrigley. We will continue to stress this with our federal government, to push them even further to establish more of a presence in the communities.
For the remaining communities without detachments, I’ll certainly make a commitment in this House to continue working with the federal Minister. We met already, last year, as part of the FPT meeting, and I did stress the importance of having police presence.
Mr. Speaker, I believe it’s an essential service, like I mentioned earlier. Again, it may be some time before we do get to all the nine communities, but I believe we do have to look for options and alternatives.
I’d like to ask the Minister: have you looked at the possibility of either increasing the number of RCMP visits to our communities, where they stay a couple of days or they drop in on a weekend? At least with their presence, a community does feel a lot safer; but also, building that relationship between the RCMP and the community is just as important as having an individual stationed there.
I’d like to ask the Minister: have they looked at options of ensuring that there will be more police presence in those communities that don’t have police?
Mr. Speaker, this is one area that our department is focusing on: those without detachments. We will certainly work on a schedule. We do have schedules in place for visits from the regional centres to communities without detachments.
Also, the Member talked about possibly options of overnighting. We need to work with the communities in finding suitable accommodation for officers to be in a safe environment in the communities. So we are continuing to work with the communities to identify those accommodations.
Also, the Member brought up a good point about building relationships. That is one of our strengths in the communities. We want to build on our strengths, having open communication and dialogue, and also building on our relationship with the RCMP, the communities, the leadership and the community as a whole.
Mr. Speaker, another option that I think the Minister should certainly consider looking at is, I believe, that under the policing agreement, it does talk about First Nations policing and also the possibility of looking at special constables.
I think that we have to look at every avenue that we have available to us, because I believe that without policing in our communities, it is affecting the government’s ability to deliver programs and services, especially around nursing, teachers and other professions in those communities.
I’d like to ask the Minister: have they also talked with the federal government, or even with the aboriginal governments in the Northwest Territories, about looking at the possibility of First Nations policing?
Mr. Speaker, the area of special constables in community policing has been addressed by my department. I met with the commissioner of the RCMP just last month. We just had an initial discussion of trying to find out where the status was with aboriginal policing in the communities. I was told, at that time, that news will be coming this summer — late summer or early fall — and that there will be an announcement from the federal government.
Currently they are looking at options of reintroducing community policing, whether it be the special constables…. They’re still working out the logistics on that, and there’ll certainly be good news for the communities. It will certainly benefit most of the communities that have the detachments. Certainly we’ll work with the communities that do not have detachments at this time.
Final short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, my issue is around the security of the community. We have had a lot of instances where we have communities with prohibition orders. They’ve passed them, and they look for the enforcement side of those prohibition orders. I think we're seeing that a lot of the people are wondering why they even voted in the first place.
Again, I’d like to ask the Minister if he can ask the RCMP, or whoever is in charge, if they can increase their presence — but, more importantly, allow the communities to work with them to ensure they do have a presence in our communities and also ensure that they are enforcing those prohibition orders, especially for those communities that have passed such an order.
Mr. Speaker, I’ll certainly make a commitment here to deal with the scheduled visits to the communities. I’ll work closely with the RCMP G Division. We do have schedules in place. We need to monitor those schedules. My department will certainly follow up with that, and I will certainly get back to the Member on this particular item.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
