R.J. Simpson

Thank you. So the situation in the Northwest Territories is different from the rest of Canada, and the way that the First Nation and Inuit Policing Program works up here is essentially integrated in many ways into the regular force, and so they report to the same commanding officers. And our contract policing services, they actually operate in a sort of community policing model, which is what the First Nation and Inuit Policing Program is intended to do. And so it's actually -- the report is not necessarily speaking about the situation in the Northwest Territories. It's more about the other...

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. I believe the review was happening regardless. We have our regular reviews. Thank you.

Thank you. With me, I have Charlene Doolittle, deputy minister of the Department of Justice. And James Bancroft, director of corporate services. Thank you.

Thank you. So I leave OROGO alone unless it's been a while and it's time to look at their budget. And so I'm happy to look at the budget again, and committee is free to defer this activity as well if that is the wish. Thank you

Thank you. There is a senior management position in Yellowknife that is being cut. So it should make the -- might make the Member happy but it's an assistant director position at headquarters. Thank you.

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's no hard feelings if Members don't want to provide questions in advance or give Ministers a heads up about what they might be speaking about. Since my very first day as an MLA, I've been very strong on the topic of MLA independence. As a Regular Member or as an MLA representing my constituents, I don't allow anyone to tell me what to do except my constituents. And I'm not telling the Regular Members what to do, and if I tried I wouldn't expect them to listen to me. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. The Member's referring to the previous section that we voted on, court services. And the reason that the positions are distributed that way is that's where -- the courts are in Yellowknife. The head main court is in Yellowknife. There are court services that operate out of the Hay River courthouse, and there is a court worker in Inuvik as well. And so that would explain the distribution in the previous activity. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, that's hard to predict but we -- even if we have more, it's highly unlikely that it would be enough to put us close to that full capacity of our facilities. Thank you.