R.J. Simpson

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the House that the honourable Member for Kam Lake, Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, will be absent from the House for the remainder of this week to attend federal/provincial/territorial committee on internal trade meeting in Toronto, Ontario. The Minister will also be away Monday and Tuesday next week to attend the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Conference in Toronto, Ontario.

Also, Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the House that the honourable Member for Hay River South, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, may be absent for a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And not me personally but our Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment has been engaging industry all across Canada. This was mentioned earlier by my colleague. But she has discussed this at the -- at PNWER, the Pacific Northwest Economic Region Conference, at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers Conference, at the Arctic Energy and Resources Symposium that's coming up in March; I believe she's the keynote Speaker there. And so she is out there engaging with industry, letting them know what the opportunities are in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to support the Member asserting the point of privilege. I think that when you make your decision, Mr. Speaker, I hope you consider the entire context of politics right now and social media. I was just down in Washington, DC, and I can tell you that, you know, when politicians say something inflammatory through social media, it puts a chill on speech, it puts a chill on people's ability to do their jobs. I spoke with lawmakers. I was there in the environment, and you could really feel that happening. That is the state of politics right now. And in this House...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And there has been engagement between the GNWT and the significant discovery license holders, or the SDL holders, in the Beaufort Delta and specifically to discuss LNG related opportunities and considerations. These discussions included perspectives on next steps and the importance of broader collaboration. ITI has met with the main SDL holders in the Beaufort Delta on numerous occasions over the last few years. They are -- have been made aware of the Mackenzie Delta LNG project concept. They've all expressed interest in learning more about what we know from the pre...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So one of the things that I do as Minister of Justice is I set policing priorities for the RCMP G-division, and one of those four priorities is to build and strengthen relationships with Indigenous communities to understand and establish community-driven policing priorities and services. So the RCMP themselves in the communities are, on at least a month basis, supposed to be meeting with leadership, is my understanding, and they share information, they hear back from leadership, and they develop their own community policing plans using that information. So there's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Member's comments. I speak about this topic quite often, but it's good to get the information out there. Because there is a lot going on. I want residents to be aware that we are doing what we can to deal with these issues.

So the SCAN legislation, which is a legislation that would make it easier to close or shut down buildings that are causing public harm, like a drug house, is going to go out for public consultation this spring. We hope to have a legislative proposal drafted by the summer. That would then go through the normal process where it is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I believe that would be sort of a difficult task. The RCMP records some statistics about search and rescue. They provide incident command services during search and rescues, but there is no central body beyond that that records this data. So the cost that a community or individuals might spend on a search and rescue, that's not covered. You know, there might be individuals out there supporting efforts that don't let anyone know that they're supporting efforts, and so we can't necessarily record that information either. So because this involves so many different...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We already have an office in Ottawa. There's actually a desk and a chair there already so there may be an increased cost with pens, staples, things like that, but there's not going to be a significant cost implementations for this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So just to be clear, I had spoke with Indigenous governments after the decision was made to let them know what was going on, and I spoke with my Cabinet colleagues because, you know, when we make changes in that hallway where we all work, I want to ensure that Cabinet feels supported as all the staff down that hallway support all of Cabinet in one way or another. So that being said, this was a decision that I made in my office based on the experiences that I had over the past year. So I'm happy to consult with the standing committee on policies, on programs, on...

With me today I have Victoria Carmichael, legislative counsel with the Department of Justice. Thank you.