Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
WHEREAS the rate of violent crime is on the rise in the Northwest Territories;
AND WHEREAS the RCMP have publicly acknowledged the link between drugs and unprecedented homicides in the Northwest Territories;
AND WHEREAS the RCMP have publicly stated they appear to be the only resource to deal with mental health emergencies;
AND WHEREAS the RCMP responding to a mental health crisis is time consuming and uses significant valuable RCMP resources that could be managed by a worker trained to respond to mental health crises;
AND WHEREAS support for Northwest Territories-trained social workers through Aurora College, mental health and addictions education programming that emphasizes on skills that help those deal with mental health crises and challenges, can be an opportunity to help Northerners helping Northerners;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the Member for Range Lake, that the Government of the Northwest Territories work in collaboration with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to implement a crisis intervention team through a partnership that supports the response to mental health emergencies at an appropriately staffed level in order to maintain 24/7 support;
AND FURTHERMORE, the purpose of the crisis intervention workers is to enhance the response and reduce police contact in mental health-related emergencies and allow the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to focus their efforts on disrupting the drug trade in the Northwest Territories;
AND FURTHERMORE, that the Government of the Northwest Territories provide a response to this motion within 120 days.
Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. To the motion. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to my colleagues for having this motion and on certainly supporting it to get it at least to this phase of the process. That said, Mr. Speaker, I've spoken at length about how important our RCMP are, and that's absolutely true, and I'll never change that, Mr. Speaker. At the same time, I'll also say that the RCMP, as they've acknowledged in this motion, and they've said themselves, you know, they're not social workers, and sometimes when the call comes in and they're the only one answering the phone, they cannot unanswer that phone. They can't let it ring and ring and hope somebody else will take it. It's unfortunate, but the situation is that. They are the last person to call and they can't turn around and say, call somebody else. So they end up showing up at many calls that aren't typically orientated on the type of service they are. I mean, there's a saying, as they say, if you're a hammer all you see is nails. Well, police officers are police officers to fight crime. I don't classify most of these mental health challenges as true crime. I think people are -- some people are in distress. Some of these situations are dynamic and fluid. They don't require a police officer. But unfortunately, if you call the police, you're going to get a police response.
The nature of this motion really is saying things like we want different type of people to talk to people, and we want people to talk to people. We want social workers, as an example, to work with somebody who is in some type of distress. I mean, showing up with cuffs and a truck and all of the other tools and utilities is the wrong impression when someone is having a difficult time. There is a time and place for those types of responses, absolutely. The stat given, I even highlighted it today in a different type of process in my Member's statement, where I pointed out 2,268 calls to shelters over a two-year window only resulted in 3 percent in actual charges. Again, that reaffirms or underscores the fact that the police really aren't there to respond to police-related emergencies. Again, they're probably called because of different challenges, shelters, and different types of situations where it's difficult to manage and they have no one else to call for help hence they call the RCMP.
My heart goes out to the job and sometimes the thankless jobs that they do. But, you know, if they're called because someone's not allowed in because a shelter's reached its capacity, it's after hours and they can't let them in, I mean, when the police are called, that's not a crime. I mean, it's a crime they can't get in and stay warm. It's truly a crime that they have nowhere to go. That's the real crime. But, I mean, when we call the police officer to show up, they have to put it on the books that they have a call. All they do is -- all the public sees is the police officers picking up someone who probably just needs somewhere to go. And I'm actually feeling frustrated saying this stuff, Mr. Speaker. I mean, you know, this is awful. You know, they don't like to wear these statistics. You know, as a matter of fact, you know, I get the feeling, you know, they feel very uncomfortable that they have to respond to these types of calls. But when they pick someone up in a condition that can't enter the shelter and, you know, we know addictions consumes a lot of people and a lot of families in terrible ways. But when they have to pick someone up, the resources are tied up with that individual because they just can't drop them off at the hospital. The hospital won't take them if they're in a very difficult state. In other words, the conditions of the addictions are managing their current situation. They can't drop them off down the street and say hey, we'll just drop you off in this area and be good, right? No, they can't. They have to take full carriage of that individual until they're able to manage themselves or their safety is no longer at risk or the public's safety is no longer at risk.
So ultimately, Mr. Speaker, it frustrates me seeing this happen. It frustrates me knowing sometimes we just have nowhere for them to go. And, again, maybe that's the crisis here, you know. It's a multifaceted issue, and I have every belief that the government can help rise to this challenge. We're never going to solve all the problems, but we certainly have to chip away at them and that's what I always say when I'm here being relentless. Like, I'm relentless. I don't care how many times you say no, I'll keep coming back because I'm fighting for that one yes. And that one yes builds to two, and two yeses build to three and, all of a sudden, we're changing the nature of our community.
So, Mr. Speaker, I get a really burning feeling inside and frustration and upset every time I think about that this is the way society currently thinks is best to manage people. I think it's probably almost the worst way to manage people. And I even mentioned it in committee one day, like, I would throw myself in front of the police door and not allow someone to say, well, we don't know where to put them, let's put them in an open-door cell. Like, that is the worst place to put people in crisis in trouble. They need somewhere to go. So not only this speaks to we have to find better ways to work with people, we have to find better ways to help people. And that's really what it's saying in different ways.
And I know the government knows this, and I know the Minister knows this, and I know the Minister cares about these things, and there's no comment here that the government doesn't care, and there's certainly no comment here that, you know, they ignore this issue. It's just we now have to find a new way of doing business. And on that note, Mr. Speaker, I'll leave what I've said so far is to open up discussion. I mean, I'm looking forward to hearing what my colleagues will say. But this truly is an issue throughout the territory, not just here. And unless I forget, I'll make sure I ask for a recorded vote now, so it's not forgotten. But I look forward to the opportunity, like I said, to hear my colleagues and their struggles and maybe even their solutions to this particular issue. And I'll close off debate at the appropriate time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. To the motion. Member for Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm pleased to rise in support of this motion and to second it. I think there's an interesting debate going on, as my colleague alluded to, in the Northwest Territories right now of how best to resolve the increasing rates of crime in our communities and addictions and substance abuse. And I think, unfortunately, this discussion turns into a binary of either you support more policing, or you support more addictions, and you can't do both at the same time. And I think you can -- I know because I certainly do, and speaking with our police services as well they certainly do, that you can address a public health crisis at the same time as you address an organized crime crisis, a drug trafficking crisis. But you need different resources to do that, and that's what this motion calls for. And specifically one thing we're missing is a community policing-based support.
I want to commend the GNWT for working on building something like this in Fort Liard with their community safety officer pilot program. I hope we can see more of those roll out across the Northwest Territories. And I think that would be an appropriate model for what this motion contemplates. We have to allow the police to do police work and create the kind of resources that can do this kind of work. The statistics are not good. I don't think anyone who is in -- who is unhoused or who is suffering from addictions and the issues that relate to that, I don't think they want to be dealing with the police. I think they'd much rather have a more supportive trained -- well-trained professional, who can get them into programs that can help support them. But when you're dealing with armed thugs, that's not a situation for a social worker either, and I don't think social workers want to be in that situation. So, you know, we need all the resources to bear to address this crisis, and I think this motion is a good way to give voice to what many people have been calling for, which is a different approach that isn't the heavy hammer of the police, so everyone can get back to doing what they do best and tackle the areas of this multifaceted problem that they're best equipped to deal with. So I support this motion. I encourage other Members of the House to do so as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. To the motion. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I appreciate the idea and the intent behind this motion. I am not sure how this would look in practice. In particular, I think this would look quite different in each different community in the Northwest Territories. And I actually think the solution needs to be a partnership that goes beyond just the GNWT and the RCMP. I think there's many other partners who are on the frontlines of trying to support and deal with mental health emergencies.
You know, the Member for Yellowknife Centre talked repeatedly about the fact that people need somewhere else to go as opposed to being, I guess, taken to jail. And the problem is that we still don't have somewhere else for them to go. And this motion doesn't actually take us in that direction, per se. And, you know, in Yellowknife, we have the Street Outreach van which live and work in the downtown area, but, you know, thank goodness for the Street Outreach van. It's an essential service. But the Street Outreach van has identified time and time again that a big problem is that they're a van but often they don't have anywhere to actually take people who need help. They can transport them somewhere but there is nowhere to take them if, you know, the shelters are full, if the sobering centre is full, if the day shelter is full. And so that remains a big problem. And so, you know, we have a review that's happening of the Street Outreach program that the city has led and I've been happy to see that GNWT staff have been able to participate in that review. I am anxious to see the report that comes out of that and the recommendations. I would urge this government to look at those recommendations seriously, to follow up, to commit resources, to work with the city of Yellowknife in ensuring that we have appropriate, you know, responses when people are going through mental health crises or, you know, struggling and they're on the street and someone needs to respond but I agree, it shouldn't be the police. And so we need a more comprehensive service. We also need a sort of more comprehensive net of supports that are going to be able to help people beyond just being the first person to intervene in that crisis. We need the follow-up supports and services that's going to allow them to move past that crisis.
So I will support the motion, but I would urge the government in its response to carefully consider the review and recommendations coming out of the report on the Street Outreach program and building on current initiatives that are underway. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. To the motion. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll just speak to the motion briefly, Mr. Speaker. I do support this motion. I think it's another tool. It's a step in the right direction. I think, you know, our goal is to disrupt the flow of drugs coming into our territory, at our borders, in our communities, and also to help those who are suffering from the consequences of those drugs, Mr. Speaker. So, I mean, I listen to the statements from my other colleagues, and I concur, and certainly there are -- you know, we need to keep moving forward to things like addiction treatment centres and aftercare programs. But I do think this is a tool starting in the right direction. I want RCMP to be RCMP, and I want them, you know, doing what RCMP do, which is catching the bad people that are in this territory doing the bad things, and we need to also focus on the people that are suffering, as I said, from the consequences of those bad things. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. To the motion. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I certainly won't need 20 minutes to speak on this one. I am supportive of the -- similar to kind of some previous speakers, I'm supportive of the general intent of this motion though I don't think the details, implications, and a full understanding of how it can be successfully implemented have been thought out at this time. However, I would note that there are several models already being implemented in neighboring jurisdictions so we can learn from and borrow from their experience.
Mr. Speaker, the Yukon has a program like this. There's programs in numerous cities across North America. So I would just encourage the government in responding to this motion to do research to ensure that any solutions brought forward are evidence-based, as I like to emphasize for virtually everything that we do, and just ensure that we are putting solutions in place which are right-sized for our territory, for our communities, and which we have seen through, you know, investigations into evidence that they will be effective and not have negative unintended consequences.
Mr. Speaker, I do want to kind of acknowledge that a large percentage of calls fielded by RCMP are noncriminal matters. And that's something that I heard a lot from the RCMP when I was on council. They would come and present to us often. And probably one of the most impactful meetings I had was with a previous head of the RCMP that came to council and actually asked us for a meeting in private to encourage us to invest in social services and invest in social solutions to so many of the problems that we see manifesting on the streets because his message to us is simply that we are not going to police our way out of this problem. And coming from the head of the RCMP, that was a really powerful message that I have kept in mind going forward in the work that I do in governance.
So I want to emphasize that a lot of the calls that RCMP are receiving are noncriminal matters, and they are better handled by our social services and health care providers. So this is not just limited to mental health crises. So I just want to note -- I'm not going to list everything, but let's be expansive in our considerations for implementation of a program like this, let's ensure that -- again, I just emphasize the need for evidence-based policy making and decision-making. So I'll leave my comments at that. I do support the general intent of the motion and for that reason, I'll stand in support of it today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. To the motion. Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I'll keep short and brief. I do agree with the intent of the motion, and I agree with much of what my colleagues have said here today, and I will be happy to support the motion. I think it's very important, as my colleague from Yellowknife North stated, that this will look different in every community. I think that this is currently framed in a sort of Yellowknife centric sort of way, so I hope that in the government's reply we have that fulsome breadth of a reply for what it might look like in some of our smaller communities as well.
I would also like to point out something that I heard from my colleague from Yellowknife North that, you know, there is a lack of places to go when the shelters are freed up but, you know, thankfully here in Yellowknife, we have a wellness and recovery centre on the books for the life of this Assembly, and I am thrilled that that is happening, Mr. Speaker, so I would love to see the response incorporate that. And that's about all I have right now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. To the motion. Member from the Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too think about and heard all the comments from the Members. I will support this motion but I would like the departments to look at how this will roll out in the small communities. It's good for us because we get another job; it would be a crisis intervention worker. And just to know how it's going to work in combination with health and social services, RCMP. That needs to be looked at. Otherwise, I will support the motion. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from the Deh Cho. To the motion. Member from Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too will be supporting this motion. Anything to do with facing the challenges and the problems. Just recently, in the last number of hours, I received a couple of calls that there's many drugs coming into the Sahtu as we speak. So it's a continued crisis, the problems that are being faced, seen in public, it's terrible. So it's a terrible situation, and we need all the tools in the toolbox to move ahead, and if it's going to be an added solution to the crisis that's out there, yes, I will support that. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. To the motion. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, support this motion. It's another toolbox that we need to deal with the issues in our small communities and throughout the Northwest Territories. And I respect my colleagues on their comments as well, and I hear -- you know, I'm hoping that within 120 days, this issue will be addressed. So, Mr. Speaker, I'll be supporting the motion. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. To the motion. Member from Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too will be supporting this motion because in my community of Fort McPherson, I've seen the resource people, specifically the RCMP, have been exhausted to where they're unable to come out to investigate any crimes because they're not trained or -- to go out and deal with family violence or any other family issues. So this motion will give direction to the government to help these resource people in a better manner. So just to let you know that I will be supporting this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Mackenzie Delta. To the motion. Member from Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Members may recall that I have already spoken on this topic, and I've stated that this is the direction that I would like to see things move. The RCMP, as has been stated, should be dealing with crimes, not with mental health issues, but they have become the default service provider in that area. And so while I know there might be hopes of 24/7 support in every community around the territory, I don't want anyone to get their hopes up that we're going to have around-the-clock services like that any time soon with, you know, three shifts in every community, 99 social workers working around the clock. But that being said, I've had discussions with the RCMP on this. I've communicated to my department that I want to see us move in this direction. And so regardless of this motion, work is beginning. Thank you.
Oh, and Mr. Speaker, microphone is still on, so I will say that as always, Cabinet would like to take our 120 days to respond to this motion. When something like this comes in, there's a lot of things to consider, and we want to make sure that we take that time and fully consider it and provide a response. So we will be abstaining. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Hay River North. To the motion. To conclude the motion, Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First off, I want to thank all the committee members on this side of the House for their very rich and important and thoughtful comments. Mr. Speaker, a couple of them I want to highlight.
First of all, I'll start with the Member on my left, for Range Lake. These are the types of issues on his agenda, constantly raising with committee, trying to support community members. You know, and I often hear him say he recognizes the Mackenzie Delta Member who's dealing with his challenges in his community. I hear the Member from the Sahtu talk about the community impacts that drugs and alcohol are having, and we have to find different ways of doing this. Mr. Speaker, we could talk about every Member, but I think the Member of Deh Cho said it's an important creation of resources in their community, and she'd like to see the roll out of this in smaller communities. And I couldn't support it more, any more than that. I do fully, fully agree.
Mr. Speaker, crime is changing, and we have to respond to it differently, and I hate thinking -- I hate the situation where we treat all crime the same because social issues aren't crime. And unhoused and addictions are not crime in my view. I mean -- and, you know, we can talk about that until the cows come home, but the truth is I really don't believe that unhoused and addictions in any way is a crime. It's a crime not doing anything. And I know it's tough to solve all solutions, I want to stress that. But by doing nothing I think is truly the crime.
So, Mr. Speaker, this, as many Members have recognized, it's a tool. I recognize MLA for Frame Lake has pointed out there are models and options out there. I'll be the first to say don't just go by the option I'm presenting today. I'll say if there's a workable option to find ways, take it. It's not about -- sometimes debate isn't about trying to win, Mr. Speaker. And I refer to win an argument. It's about trying to find the best solution. Sometimes people get caught up -- hypersensitive about raising our voice and getting engaged in issues. But, really, debate shouldn't be an argument, it should be about how do we get the best result. And that's what hopefully this is really about, getting the best result for all ridings by all means.
So, Mr. Speaker, I'll close with thanking everyone. And I also want to thank the Premier in his comments. It sounded like he fully supported the motion. And I'm sure that's what I heard, and I'll have to go back to Hansard to confirm that one way or the other, so I'll do that on my own time. But that said, I was really -- we were all moved by his wonderful statements in support of these types of ideas.
So, Mr. Speaker, I've already asked for a recorded vote, and I'll leave it at that. And, again, I thank everyone for hearing this out and sharing today. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. To the motion.
Question.
