Caroline Wawzonek

The capital planning for the project was, as I understand, $350 million, and that is indeed in the end the capital cost for construction. Now, the contract is now valued at an additional $751 million over the course of time. Every five years, there can be some adjustments made, but those adjustments are made with the partners and with all partners involved. Again, not with any surprises. I believe a very detailed and lengthy public process was offered for a technical briefing to the committee. The public was invited. That was put onto Facebook; it was made very open and accessible to the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Recruiting local people to perform local services is, I believe, something that everyone wants to see. With respect to, though, the specific recruitment efforts of the RCMP, I am hesitant to make any commitments on their behalf, but I agree with the Member. I certainly already do meet with our "G" Division commanding officer, the partners that we have in the delivery of the policing services. I will continue to do so, and I will raise with them recruitment targets. The last time we met, I recall very specifically that they took some pride in the number of recruitments...

Mr. Chair, again, I can't force the federal government to apply the GNWT's P1 status designation. What I can do is continue to meet with the "G" Division commander here to encourage him to use what efforts he can when doing the hiring for the RCMP to do so in a way that is as respectful of our communities in the North as possible and, as well, encourage as many new recruits from the North so that they have more and more individuals available to them from the depot who are from our communities and who can come back to our communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're just confirming. My recollection is that I should have that back this month. Ah, April 2020. I was a little bit ambitious. By end of April 2020 we'll have that back. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, philosophically, I would say that I am fully in favour of improving reintegration of individuals to their community and reducing recidivism for all individuals who come into conflict with the law, whatever nature it might be. How we do that is much more complicated. That is the real nugget of the whole matter, Mr. Chair. I fully expect that I will continue to get questions and should get questions about how we are reintegrating, how we are reducing the rates of recidivism, how we are reducing the rates of contact with the justice system in the first place. I did make a very large...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this point, again, given that this is a program from the Department of Lands, I'll have to work with the Department of Lands and the Minister of the Department of Lands to ensure that, in fact, that program is being adequately supported and not under-resourced so that we are, again, being proactive and not simply responsive after the fact. I will commit to having that conversation. I will commit to giving it that analysis, and I am confident that we can all work forward over the next couple of weeks to determine if this is the right expenditure of resources. Thank you...

I apologize. I am not sure I know what numbers this Member is referencing, so I am at a bit of a disadvantage on this particular point. Grants in lieu, there is a very careful policy, a detailed policy, that the government uses to establish what is owed to municipalities under the grants in lieu. It is a process that uses independent assessors to identify the proper amounts. It's something that is paid to all communities. It's paid to all communities, and it's budgeted for, and so there really should not be long-term surprises in the course of grants in lieu. It's an important aspect of...

Mr. Chair, I believe that the Northwest Territories is full of incredibly qualified people across all of our communities, who can contribute tremendous things to the GNWT and to their communities in a variety of capacities.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The RCMP is responsible for their own hiring processes. What I can do, Mr. Chair, is continue to meet regularly, quarterly, as I do, with the commanding officer here locally to continue to encourage them within their processes to do recruitment. As I mentioned earlier, there is, I believe, a dedicated individual here in the Northwest Territories who does do recruitment processes, goes into the communities and engages with individuals. As they are doing that, obviously, the more individuals are being recruited here from the Northwest Territories, the more they are in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sorry, Mr. Chair; I will get that right before the next two hours. Mr. Chair, the evaluation is now complete, and I can at least so far confirm for the Member that it is in my hands, and it's a question now of turning that around through the right processes so that it can be shared properly; I would think, I'm hesitant to say that it will be before the end of the current sitting of the Assembly, but that's at least my target date. Thank you, Mr. Chair.