Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Justice. The Finance Minister announced $300,000 to establish a historical case unit within the RCMP in the budget that he presented last week. He said that two of our RCMP and one civil servant will "work to protect the integrity of the evidence in these historical files and to make further advances in solving these cases." Can the Minister of Justice tell us what this means?
Masi. Minister for Justice.
The Member opposite is quite correct. There are $304,000 of funding approved for the establishment of a historical case unit within the RCMP. As the Member alluded to in her question, there are two RCMP members and a civilian involved in this. What they are doing is they are looking through historical cases that fall into several categories. They are going back to 1985, 33 years ago. They are looking at homicides; suspicious deaths; missing persons where foul play is suspected; any missing person where the body has not been located; or when unidentified human remains have been found. That is what they are going to be looking at going back to 1985.
Thank you to the Minister of Justice for that answer. How does the mandate for this unit differ from the day-to-day work of the RCMP in solving crime? What is new?
The main difference will be that this small unit within the RCMP will be looking specifically at these historical cases that remain unresolved.
Can the Minister advise us: of the 63 open cases in the NWT, how many of them have been resolved in the last five years?
I understand that there are 63 open investigations, which I took to mean that those were ones that had not yet been resolved.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi. I appreciate that clarification from the Minister of Justice. Of course, those cases are ones that need to be resolved. I wonder about the rate at which historical cases have been resolved in the last five years and, related to that, how success will be measured in this historical case unit. Mahsi.
As I mentioned earlier, this unit will be dedicated to looking at these historical cases and presumably will be providing me with updates that I could also provide to this House. Thank you.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
