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 full-time positions in Yellowknife. And then we have an increase of one position in Fort Providence detachment. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from from YK North. Sorry, Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the -- so I've spoken about that I think that this is a worthwhile investment, and I think it speaks to a broader issue of inter -- of cross-border drug trafficking that's coming into the territories. As the question's been raised and someone answered, but does -- in the Premier's discussions with both -- with the RCMP and with his department, like, what is -- what trends are they seeing around drug trafficking and increased rates of criminality and, in particular, violence and homicide in the last -- since the pandemic? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, there were 318 drug violations. In 2022, there were 468. And so that's a significant increase. There are statistics that are released yearly about the police-reported crime. And those show that between 2021 and 2022, there was an 80 percent increase in robberies, which are often things associated with drugs. In the past year, there what's been over a hundred percent increase in the number of drug seizures for the amount of drugs seized. So there's a significant increase that we're seeing. But also a significant response to that increase that we hope is commensurate. And we are working with the RCMP to help get more information out, more stats out on things like this, because we want the public to be aware of what the situation is and what work is being done to address it. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is kind of more of an opinion-based question, but I think it's relevant. But, like, is the Premier of the opinion that, like the -- not the root -- the root cause is obviously public health issues, obviously drugs and addictions that we've been struggling with for some time. But we're seeing this additional level of organized crime who are bringing more drugs into the communities, who are exploiting things like public housing, right, by capturing public housing clients and using their public housing units to deal drugs in small communities. So how would he tackle that problem without increasing policing resources? Like, what are the other options to deal with organized crime? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
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. We can have all the government programs we want, if someone doesn't want to seek them out, someone doesn't want to take advantage of them, then it doesn't really matter. Every time I've seen communities overcome some of these significant issues, these drug crime issues, it's always been community driven. And so what we need is champions. We need champions in the community. We need people to be role models. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And for the record, that was not a trick question. I was sincerely trying to -- because I can't see another solution to this that's not -- that won't take a significant amount of time, and we need some short to medium-term solutions to the organized crime element of this problem while we continue to invest in those long-term foundational changes in resources that our most vulnerable citizens need.
When it comes to the provision of those integrated services, how are the police going to be used -- or policing services going to be used to complement that, specifically around the models that have been successfully used in metro areas where they embed social workers with community policing units, things like that. Is that something we're contemplating with our contracted -- or policing agreement and the integrated case management model? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. So the Member stated that, you know, we need some short-term solutions to deal with the situation we're facing now. And so the focus -- my focus has been on supporting the RCMP, getting more resources to the territory in terms of RCMP and legislative tools for the RCMP, and working with them in any way we can to ensure that they can kick down doors when they need to, and they did deter criminals from coming up here, and then they can just disrupt the life of drug dealers. And so that has been the focus. As I've said, going forward we do need to look at the long term -- the long term. It's not sustainable to just keep adding more and more RCMP. We're not -- we don't want to suggest let drugs and gangs take over and increase the RCMP as that happens. So we really need to look at situations like the Member's mentioned, about having the RCMP work with other departments, like social workers. The RCMP are open to that. The conversations I've had, they know they can't kick down every door and, you know, jail every drug dealer in the territory. And they're frustrated with some of the roadblocks that have been put in front of them. And they recognize that the solution many times is those other supports, to stop people from getting addicted to drugs, to lower the demand for drugs. And when they're interacting with people in those situations, to ensure that they have the -- can provide those people with the proper supports. And so I don't believe there's been discussions with the RCMP about integrated service delivery.
In terms of what is happening over in EIA as of yet, we are still trying to create that model, ensure it is robust as we bring partners in. But that is certainly the future, I believe, in the territory. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you. Thank you for the response from the Premier as well. Is there any correlated data between the strength of the economy and the increased rates of crime? And by that, I mean we've seen a dip in economic activity since the pandemic and also an increase in crime. So is there a correlation between kind of a softening economy and the increased rates of crime, addictions, and cross-border drug trafficking? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
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. The next Member I have is Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm actually very appreciative that we're having this conversation that's sort of a more nuanced acknowledgement of the fact that, you know, we can't necessarily solve crime with more police. And I think people know that, but it's easy especially when drug crime and violence associated with it is devastating so many of our communities. We want to find something we can do now, and more police seems like the way to solve it. And I don't think it's the complete solution, especially, you know, recently our standing committee was up in Inuvik and speaking to the RCMP there and certainly drug trafficking and crime is a huge problem in Inuvik and the Beaufort Delta, and yet the RCMP officer was telling us how frustrating it is that, you know, they'll spend weeks or months and then finally make an arrest or catch a drug dealer, and the very next day someone else will pop up and take their place. And so there seems to be an endless supply coming from somewhere of more and more and more people who will continue this trade. And so I can appreciate the frustration from the RCMP's point of view, and really the whole community's point of view that, you know, we could probably spend endless amounts of resources chasing after drug dealers and not really solve the problem, which is scary and frustrating so I think, you know, inevitably we do have to look at different ways to approach this and trying to, as much as we can, prevent the demand for the drugs in our communities and tackle those mental health and addictions issues.
I did want to ask, you know, we're significantly increasing our levels of police. Has the Minister considered whether we also need to increase resources for court services, legal aid services? Because if we're going to be arresting lots more people, won't we need more resources in those other parts of the system? Has that been contemplated?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. So if someone qualifies for legal aid, then the Legal Aid Commission, if they don't have staff lawyers, can contract outside lawyers. So we haven't been looking at increases in legal aid. And as well, many of these individuals who are coming up from the south don't access -- who are arrested for these drug crimes don't access our legal aid. They have high-priced lawyers in major centres. Thank you.
Thank you. Go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. And what about court services, will that budget need to increase too?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. In the past few years, we have had some increases in our court officers. Because it is -- they have been stretched prior to this happening. I'll tell you a tough area to get support in a budget is for administrative positions and, you know, court services are no different. So people want frontline staff. They want money for health care. They don't necessarily want people who work in offices with paper despite the fact that they can -- you know, some of the work they do is invaluable. So we try to balance where we put our resources, and we try to do the best that we can with what we have. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll just conclude by saying, you know, it's up to the Minister and Cabinet to really figure out what we need and make that argument to us, even if new positions or aspects aren't popular. I think that's part of the job, and those need to be explained both to the public and to Members why it's needed. So if that's needed, let's hear about it. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there any further questions? I'm going to go to Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to confirm the -- before I ask the question, make sure I'm on the right page, we're still discussing the area that covers ATIPP?
Apologies. My apologies, I'm one page in advance. I shall wait my turn. Thank you.
Okay. Is there any further questions? Seeing none, I'm going to continue on. No further questions. Please turn to page 320.
Justice, policing services, operations expenditures summary, 2024-2025 Main Estimates $61,067,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to services to government on page 321, with information items on page 323 and 324. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I won't steal the Member from YK Centre's questions at all. It's about something different under this section.
So I want to thank the department and the Minister for flagging in their risk and mitigation activities of the business plan on page 211 that the department must regularly adjust legislation, programs, and services with the associated cost implications to ensure that alignment with federal initiatives, etcetera, etcetera.
I guess my question would be around the legislation division. So, you know, let alone the number of LPs in just simply the Department of Justice, the function of the legislation division acts as a drafter for the entire government. So what metrics does Justice have in place for quality but expedient work on the drafting of legislation noting that Members are eager to see legislation and there's quite a large body of legislation anticipated in this Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. I don't think we have any metrics on that. I'm not sure if the Member's looking for -- if I can get some explanation of what's meant by metrics. Is it pages per drafter or pages produced per year or things like that? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Great Slave to clarify.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'm sorry if I was not clear. I guess I'm trying to say is do we have any way of measuring the expected workload vis-a-vis the amount of drafters that we have and allocating work appropriately? I'm concerned that while the line item for the legislation division has increased since the 2022-2023 actuals, it hasn't increased since last year. And so I'm just wondering -- yeah, on that idea, like are we -- do we have enough drafters, Mr. Chair.
Yes, thank you for that clarification. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you. Yes, we do run into issues with -- I would say the biggest bottleneck is with the French translation. We are required to translate all of our legislation into French. And to be a French legal drafter, you need to be fluent in French, obviously, and also a trained lawyer and also one of the very few trained lawyers who is interested in drafting legislation. And so it's a very narrow subset of lawyers who are available for that, and they are in high demand. And so when there's slow -- issues with the drafting, that is usually where we find them. There are also other issues with, you know, legislation division, they can only draft when departments provide them with the proper information and sometimes during the drafting process, there will -- the drafters will discover that there's a policy issue that needs to be dealt with and that can slow the process down because it has to go back to the department, they have to look at that policy situation and make a decision. So there's a number of different factors, but. I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Minister for that. I just -- yeah, the reason I'm highlighting this is because I'm not sure it ever has been highlighted before, and I know I have always been very keen and interested in how quickly the mechanisms of legislation churn out of each Assembly, and I think that there is quite a lot of interest in this side of the House to get things going as soon as possible. So I guess more of a comment than a question, Mr. Chair, is to let the Minister and the department know that we would be super keen to have more French language drafters if that's what it takes. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister, want to respond?
Thank you. I'm not sure if we're fully staffed in that area. I think we're often down a drafter and so more positions wouldn't necessarily solve the issue. We just need the people, I think. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave. No further questions I could see, I'm going to continue on. Please turn to page 322. Justice, services to government, operations expenditures summary, 2024-2025 Main Estimates, $14,336,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to services to the public on page 325, with information items on page 327. Are there any questions? Seeing none. Sorry. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry, one quick second. I have it on a screen. There's a lot of things going on on my desk right now.
So with regards to the line item the rental office, so, Mr. Chair, can the Minister please explain as to why the concerns raised in the chief rental officer's annual reports merit a review of the Residential Tenancies Act as discussed in the business plan? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
