R.J. Simpson

Member Hay River North

Premier
Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs
Minister of Justice
Government House Leader

R.J. Simpson was elected to the 20th Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly, representing the constituency of Hay River North. On December 7th, 2023, Mr. Simpson was elected Premier of the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Simpson was formerly acclaimed to the 19th Legislative Assembly and first elected into the 18th Assembly in 2015.

Mr. Simpson was Deputy Speaker of the 18th Assembly, Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations, and the Chair of the Special Committee on Transition Matters. Mr. Simpson was also a member of the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning and the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment.

Mr. Simpson is a lifelong resident of Hay River After graduating from Diamond Jenness Secondary School in 1998 Mr. Simpson went on to obtain a Bachelor of Arts from MacEwan University and a law degree from the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law.

Mr. Simpson has previously worked with the Government of Canada, Northern Transportation Company Ltd, Métis Nation Local 51, and Maskwa Engineering.

While at law school, Mr. Simpson was the President of the Aboriginal Law Students’ Association. He has also served on the board of the Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre in Hay River and volunteered with the Canada-Ghana Education Project.

Hay River North Electoral District

Committees

Hay River North
Member's Office

Yellowknife NT X1A 2L9
Canada

P.O. Box
1320
Email
Extension
11120
Constituency Office

62, promenade Woodland, bureau 104
Hay River Nord NT X0E 1G1
Canada

Phone
Minister
Email
Premier of the Northwest Territories, Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs, Minister of Justice, Government House Leader

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 114)

In favour.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 114)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And as I said earlier, we're not going to have a school in place for this upcoming school year.

I can say that, you know, there are some roadblocks with the Education Act with the way all the districts are drawn, and so I know the Member has stated that hamlet doesn't want to work with or to have the Hay River involved but I think the Hay River DEA does need to be involved at this point. That's probably the easiest way to get things done. I've had meetings with representatives from Enterprise and the DEA, and there was discussions about perhaps starting small, having a...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 114)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, we can't have a I can't commit to having a school in place by September. Schools need to be constructed or space would need to be renovated. There would need to be amendments to likely the Education Act. There's too much work to be done to have a school in place by September.

That being said, I have met with representatives from Enterprise, and I'm happy to continue to meet with them and have discussions as well as with the Hay River DEA, who are also involved in those discussions. Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 113)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And if the Member doesn't like the "Mackenzie River," he can use any of the other six official names. The Mackenzie River, in 2015, wasn't renamed per se but there were names added to it. So a single geographical feature can have multiple names, and they are all official, each one as official as the next. And so the Mackenzie River does have a number of official names. Can be used in official documents. So that work has already happened. Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 113)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We can do what we want with government owned infrastructure when it comes to naming. We don't have to ask anyone's permission. We pay the bills, we can name buildings what we want to name them.

Any change in name would be tied to some sort of a retrofit of the building, some other changes. There are plans to look at how we can perhaps fund the museum differently. We're working on a revenue study. We expect some renovations, which are required for the building and so any changes would be part and parcel of that. But I foresee that in the not too distant future we'll...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 113)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know in Nunavut they started wearing body cameras maybe a year ago, a couple years ago, and they have been testing them out in cold weather to see how they work. It's my understanding that at some point, body cameras will likely roll out for RCMP across the country. And so at that point, you know, then it wouldn't be mandatory.

There are a number of things we have to work out the technical issues, the storage, as in the data storage, and so there's some things that need to be put in place, very expensive things, before we can start doing that. But I expect that at...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 113)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the RCMP are encouraged to complete the Living Well Together training. They are also required to take training called so there's a number of different training opportunities, or rather requirements. One is a Trauma Informed Approach. Another is Cultural Awareness and Humility. Another is United Against Racism. And another is Bias Awareness. And I will say that over the last number of years, the amount of training, particularly related to this subject, has increased. And it's increased to the point where we've added new RCMP officers in the territory because we have...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 113)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And we have the Mackenzie Mountains. There's Mackenzie Islands, Mackenzie Island, another Mackenzie Island. And they're all named after different people. So we have quite a few different features in the territory. We are 1.3 million square kilometres after all, and we can't do everything at once. So we are not in the process of actively pursuing community support for changing names because that has to come from the community. If that came from the community, we would be happy to do that as per the policy.

And I will point out there are over 400 Indigenous names that the...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 113)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I want to commend the Member for the strong antislavery stance he took in his Member's statement.

The GNWT isn't the one who puts forward name changes for a geographical place. We have a geographical name policy, and it states that those changes come from the community. So we actually have received a request from the community to change the name of the Great Slave Lake.

We work with the Geographic Names Board of Canada on that, and there is a process. It involves community consultation, consultation with Indigenous governments, and we are undertaking that now. So the...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 113)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Without a heads up, no, I can't detail the type of deescalation training that RCMP officers receive but the Commissioner of the RCMP did receive a new mandate letter today from the Minister of Public Safety and in there, there was comments about reviewing that type of deescalation training, to make sure that it is actually appropriate and doing what it is supposed to be doing. But I will provide the Member with a written followup regarding deescalation training. Thank you.