Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to talk about SCAN, that’s Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act. Mr. Speaker, a couple of years ago I raised this issue as a way and a means to deal with drug dealers in our communities. Mr. Speaker, I felt very strongly at the time that it is a way that our government can help support our government officials to help push back on the drug community.
Mr. Speaker, this is legislation that’s found in other places across Canada. It’s found in Alberta, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, even the Yukon, Mr. Speaker. It works in the Yukon by showing that the community can help stand up for itself. As many people know, the criminal process is quite a lengthy process that requires a lot of steps and it takes a lot of time. So when a person calls their MLA or calls the RCMP, they have to follow along in a lengthy process in order to show the drug dealers they’re not welcome there.
Mr. Speaker, the SCAN process is through a civil process and it allows steps for our officials to go in and put pressure on those drug dealers to get out of the neighbourhood. Mr. Speaker, it really is an empowerment of the community; you say that these types of people, these types of industries are not welcome in their community.
Mr. Speaker, the government showed its support by trying to move forward on this initiative, but it never made it quite all the way to the goal line and it eventually died on the Order Paper of the last government.
Mr. Speaker, this government needs to show some vision going forward that we need to ensure that our staff, our officials and even the RCMP have the appropriate tools for the appropriate process and certainly the appropriate crime.
Mr. Speaker, I think it’s unfair that we watch these types of things grow in our community without tools that we can react in a timely way, because, like I say, when a constituent calls and complains about these types of things, sometimes they take months and even years to solve through the typical criminal process, but the SCAN legislation through a civil system would move much faster. Mr. Speaker, I think this Legislature could show its support by moving forward on this imitative.
Back in November I talked about the great work that the RCMP have been doing putting their finger right down on crime and making sure they catch them, such as those drug dealers and bootleggers. Mr. Speaker, I think it’s time that we continue to fill that toolbox full of appropriate tools to do that work that they could use in the system, again, to crack down on those bootleggers and drug dealers that really poison our community. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Robert McLeod.
