Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to follow up from my Member’s statement in regard to policing in small communities, but more importantly, the community of Tsiigehtchic, which I represent.
The Minister was at a public meeting, along with Minister Lee, where issues came up about policing in Tsiigehtchic, or the lack of policing in the community, and what this government can do to try to find ways to remedy the situation. We know that it may be a while before we see a permanent police presence there.
I’d like to ask the Minister: has he been talking to the RCMP and come up with some ideas? I know there was talk about special constables. There was talk about increasing patrols. There was talk about overnight visits. Has he had an opportunity to talk to the RCMP or people in the Department of Justice to see if there are ways that we can find some mid-term solution to this problem? We’re not going to have police placed permanently at the present time, so has he come up with some ideas on how we can assist the community of Tsiigehtchic with its policing problem?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member’s follow-up question on the Tsiigehtchic matter. We did have a good visit in the community. We had a public forum. There were a lot of questions and concerns brought forward from the community leadership and also from the Member.
I did follow up with the Member in a letter format. I think it’s important to follow through with what we’ve committed to the community. I did that in a letter format. Just with the RCMP G Division there is ongoing discussion about how we can increase community visits on a schedule.
We’re also exploring other options. The members come from Fort MacPherson. Is there any way that we can increase capacity so they can focus more on the isolated communities that do not have detachments?
Those are the options we’re working with. We’ll keep the Members informed of our progress on this particular file. It’s important for the safety of the community that we focus on the communities that do not have an RCMP detachment, and Tsiigehtchic is one of them. We’ll continue to work as diligently with the members of G Division and also the Member from the riding. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, there were two other parts to the meeting. One was dealing with the Liquor Act. Under the Liquor Act we do have prohibition orders that can be sought in communities that are dry. Tsiigehtchic does have a prohibition order. Again the question comes down to having the legislation and having the tools to stop the flow of alcohol to communities by prohibiting it. There also has to be enforcement of that legislation to ensure we are able to stop people from doing that by making people aware that it is against the law.
I’d like to ask the Minister: has he also had an opportunity to see exactly how we can do a better job of enforcing the prohibition order?
That certainly was one of, I guess you could say, the hot topics in the community. There’s a lot of smuggling of alcohol and drugs to the community. Certainly, we’re in full support of somehow stopping that from happening. That has been a topic of discussion with G Division as well: how we can work with the ferries, ice roads and planes.
Those are the areas that are being explored as we speak, Mr. Speaker. We’re trying to come up with some options on how we can mitigate matters and deal with those issues. It’s not only the community of Tsiigehtchic but also other small, isolated communities. There’s a huge problem dealing with this issue. We recognize that in our Department of Justice and are working closely with the RCMP G Division. I did meet with the chief superintendent on this particular matter, and it is one of their priorities as well. We’ll continue to make our best effort to deal with this matter at hand.
One of the other outstanding issues is that poor communities don’t have police or a nurse. In order to respond to situations where we have to have a fast response…. There seem to be a lot of time delays, in some cases up to six hours.
One of the issues that came up was looking at working with the Department of Justice or working with the Department of Health to develop an emergency response program for Tsiigehtchic so that when the bylaw officer has to call somebody, he’s got somebody’s phone number and somebody has the keys to the health centre. Those types of things have to be accommodated, ensuring that we have a quick response to situations when the help is needed.
I’d like to ask the Minister: has he himself worked along with the Department of Health and Social Services, the RCMP and the community to figure out how soon we can have this emergency response plan in place?
Mr. Speaker, the issue of emergency response — the committee or the community — is one of the priorities of this government as well, because it does deal with the emergency factor. It does fall under Municipal and Community Affairs as well.
We continue to work with Justice and follow through with the issues brought forward from Tsiigehtchic. I myself, the Minister of Health and Social Services and the newly elected Minister of MACA — who is fully aware what has happened in the past and also takes on the lead role as the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs — are working together in a partnership to deal with this specific matter.
It is a territory-wide issue. It’s one area I think we need, as a government, to focus on as an emergency matter to deal with those incidents that happened in the past with those small communities. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it’s important for the departments of Justice, Health, MACA — whatever — to get back into the communities and assure them that these issues have been looked into and, more importantly, keep them involved.
I’d like to ask the Minister: does he have any plans or has he instructed any of his staff to go into Tsiigehtchic and give them an update on exactly where we’re at with these issues so they can feel comfortable that we are following up on these matters?
Mr. Speaker, I’m a firm believer in following up on the issues as well. We have initially discussed the potential of having a meeting between the three parties just to move forward on this particular item. Once we conduct that meeting, I’m more than willing to come back to the community and give an update. It will probably be me and other Ministers who are involved going to the community, to the region, and just giving a brief overview of what we plan to do as a territory-wide government initiative. Certainly, I can commit to the Member that we will follow through with what we’ve talked about earlier.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
