R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm happy to I don't want to say that we're going to develop some working group to look into these things, but what the Member is talking about is the way, I think, that we need to go forward. This government is integrating services. We have our homelessness strategy, which is really looking at how we can better support people who are experiencing homelessness, what sort of wraparound supports we can provide, how to better provide those supports. So that's the type of work that we are doing moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have the list of communities at my fingertips, but the engagement will be robust. I'm happy to get back to the Member with that information. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One thing I knew coming into this Assembly is that I wanted to work in collaboration with the relevant partners. The other thing I knew coming into this is that collaboration takes a long time. And so if we would have just gone ahead and issued the RFP as government and managed the contract that way, we would have been a couple months ahead but as it is, once the contract is awarded, there will be six months until the final product is to be delivered. So we are looking at a final report in December. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, me and my spouse are from the territory and sometimes we'll run into someone who went down that path, and we can see that impact where, you know, our paths diverged and someone has gotten into that life and it is it's tough. It's tough on us to see. And so I know that when it's in your family, when it's someone close to you, when you see it every day in your community, it is difficult. So this is a serious issue that we are all feeling the effects of one way or another. And so there's a number of things that we're working on to try and address this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So in the communities without RCMP present all the time, they have there are RCMP who are dedicated to travel to those communities at regular intervals. And with everything that has gone in the past few years, I guess four years now, the intervals might not have been as regular as we would have hoped. But at the Behchoko detachment, there are two officers who are dedicated to going into Gameti.

In addition, the RCMP had taken new approaches to combatting the drug trade. We've seen the increase in drugs over the last four or five years and because of that, the RCMP have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And when I was answering the Member's questions earlier, I spoke about some of the initiatives that this government wants to undertake and provide additional tools to the RCMP. But ultimately, this starts in the community. You know, when I've heard of communities really getting past their drug issues, it's been at the grassroots level that has driven it. And so, you know, public safety is in our mandate. Dealing with this issue is in our mandate. So I look forward to working with the Indigenous governments, many of whom have a very strong interest in this area as well...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to sit down with the Member, maybe have a conversation, maybe get a written question, just so I know I'm clear on what we're discussing. I'd like to I wish I could just say, you know what, we got some we do have things in mind. It's a matter of resourcing and all of that in order to get into fruition, but I'm happy to have a further discussion with the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, the idea that women in Yellowknife, and generally people in the NWT, are overpoliced, there could be some validity to that given that we have more RCMP per capita than anywhere else in Canada, twice as many as the Canadian average. So there definitely is a lot of policing. The RCMP also receive many, many, many calls from the shelters. If one of their clients is violating one of their policies, they will often call the RCMP to come and deal with that. So the RCMP do get those types of calls. They have turned into sort of the catchall for every issue that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't want to get into hypotheticals as it's not in line with the rules of the Assembly. But I look forward to seeing what comes of the after-action review, and we'll make our decision then. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So this is a it's a long story. So going back to February, of course, we sat in this House and there was a request for a public inquiry. That came after the decision was made to hold this extensive after-action review where the department would go out or hire a contractor to go out, look at everything that happened in terms of the 2023 fire season response, hold public meetings, speak with staff, and then generate a report with recommendations. Because there was a desire to ensure that this was not influenced by government, the idea it actually came after a meeting I...