WHEREAS alcohol abuse is a prevalent problem in NWT communities and is evident on Yellowknife streets and in the downtown core;
AND WHEREAS in 2011 Yellowknife ranked third out of 238 Canadian cities with a population of over 10,000 people for the severity of its crime;
AND WHEREAS alcohol abuse is one of the biggest challenges to policing in communities across the Northwest Territories;
AND WHEREAS the enforcement of liquor laws can help to curb instances of open liquor, public drunkenness, underage drinking, the use of alcohol while operating a motor vehicle, and infractions under the Liquor Act by licenced establishments;
AND WHEREAS the enhanced enforcement of liquor laws helps to ensure increased public safety;
AND WHEREAS municipal enforcement officers currently have the authority to inspect licensed premises and to make liquor-related traffic stops, but do not have the authority to enforce liquor laws regarding public drunkenness, open liquor and underage drinking;
AND WHEREAS strengthening the ability of municipal enforcement officers to enforce liquor infractions would, in NWT communities that have a municipal enforcement presence, address a perceived shortfall in policing;
AND WHEREAS giving municipal enforcement officers the authority to fully enforce NWT liquor laws would enable a municipality to take on this enhanced responsibility only if the municipality chooses to do so;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that this Legislative Assembly recommends that the Minister of Finance undertake discussion and amendments to the Liquor Act or other legislation, as required, to provide municipal enforcement officers with the authority to enforce liquor infractions;
AND FURTHER, that the Government of the Northwest Territories provide a comprehensive response to this motion within 120 days.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. I’d first like to thank the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Alfred Moses, for seconding this motion allowing this debate to occur.
Mr. Speaker, this motion today is a culmination of some hands-on exposure, the first of which stems from my experience in accompanying local RCMP and municipal enforcement division officers during a number of summer ride-alongs. It was evident early on that the opportunity of expanding the scope of practice for municipal enforcement officers in the area of alcohol-related infraction clearly would have been beneficial in enhancing the public safety in our downtown core.
My second exposure was also echoed during the recent Yellowknife town hall meeting on public safety. It was evident then that residents wanted tangible solutions to address the safety concerns of our walking trails and our downtown corridor.
These experiences allowed me to do the proper research and put pen to paper in seeking out these tangible solutions within our legislation.
As legislators, we have the duty to assist our local police forces to do their job as efficiently and effectively as possible. This motion today speaks to how we can do this by helping create the right legislative environment that promotes ease of enforcement to the issues that matter most to NWT residents.
We see the impacts of alcohol abuse on Yellowknife streets and in many of our communities, where public drunkenness and open liquor are, unfortunately, all too common.
It is also a well-known fact that alcohol is a factor in a vast majority of crimes committed in the capital city and we have the sobering statistics to confirm this. According to Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index, in 2011 Yellowknife ranked third out of 238 Canadian cities with a population over 10,000 people for the severity of its crime.
To add fuel to this statistic, this summer, while speaking with Northern News Services, Inspector Frank Gallagher, detachment commander for the Yellowknife RCMP, said alcohol abuse is the biggest challenge to policing in Yellowknife. Given these facts, it was indeed a surprise to learn that, unlike the RCMP, municipal enforcement are limited in their ability to enforce NWT liquor laws. They have the authority under the Motor Vehicles Act to make traffic stops if they suspect impaired driving on municipal streets and they have authority to inspect and deal with liquor infractions taking place in licenced premises, but they do not have the authority to deal with public drunkenness, open liquor or underage drinking. This means that our municipal enforcement officers are powerless to deal with public drunkenness even when we know abuse of alcohol is the single biggest factor contributing to crime on our streets.
Mr. Speaker, this is why we have the motion before us today. Our current legal framework does not make any sense to me. Peace officers, whether they are RCMP or municipal enforcement officers, have a duty to protect public safety and should be given the tools and authorities they need to deal with all liquor infractions.
Members of the public are scared in their own city and expect action. Enhancing the authority of municipal enforcement officers to effectively deal with all alcohol infractions can only serve to reduce the frequency of alcohol-related problems which, in turn, can help reduce alarming incidents of crime plaguing our community.
We owe a debt of gratitude to members of our police forces across the NWT for the hard work they do and the sacrifices they make to keep our families safe from harm. This motion today spans a security blanket we hold dear, and speaks to the future discussion and possible amendments to the Liquor Act or other legislation allowing this expanded scope of practice to municipal enforcement officers to adequately deal with liquor infractions.
Of course, we fully realize that strengthening the ability of municipal enforcement officers will require proper training and liability to enable a municipality to take on this enhanced responsibility. This is a given.
However, this motion seeks only that the Minister of Finance undertake discussion and look at possible amendments to the Liquor Act and other legislation and nothing more. In the end, we know we have much consultation ahead of us to work with all NWT municipalities with municipal enforcement officers and the NWTAC, and we must, as always, make sure we have the right legislation in place so when a municipality is ready to act, they have a choice before them and are not waiting for legislative changes.
Again, I want to thank the House for allowing me to raise this motion today and I look forward to everyone’ s comments and support. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. I will allow the seconder of the motion to speak, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seconded the motion on the hard work of Mr. Dolynny and all the research he’s done into this and taking the initiative to do the ride-alongs in the city of Yellowknife. We do have a growing concern in my community of Inuvik as well. It started out with the Town of Inuvik making this public, the town council actually, and going to the paper to discuss some of the issues around open alcohol in the downtown core of Inuvik on Mackenzie Road.
On my last trip home, I had a talk with the RCMP and how they’ve changed their policies so they won’t have to deal with anybody who has open alcohol or under the influence in terms of not taking them into the jail cells and taking them to the hospital which, in turn, reflects more visits going to the emergency room. So, obviously, this is not only affecting the public, but it’s affecting how people do their jobs. It’s one of the biggest concerns for the RCMP, and it really exhausts the resources the RCMP has when they can be working and doing other work, such as drug enforcement or other crimes, that they could put their time and effort to.
I have stood in this House talking about mental health and addictions. This falls right into the same category. The motion itself is a study. I would like to see it taken one step further and have a policy in place or amendments to the act. All it’s doing is providing us with another set of eyes on the road. Obviously, bylaw sometimes do spot checks. They will be driving around the communities. If they see any infractions, they would be able to address them, but also looking at the protocols and regulations as we move forward on such an important issue, obviously under the proper training that will be required. It provides us with safer roads in our communities. It provides us with safer communities.
One suggestion that was brought to our attention from our staff sergeant in Inuvik, but also our CEO at the hospital, is maybe we bring up the Minister of Health and Social Services and the Minister of Justice and do a ride-along, such as Mr. Dolynny did here in Yellowknife, and we could see the real issues, not only on the streets of Inuvik but what’s happening in the emergency rooms, and talk to the people dealing with these issues that are happening right now.
So I thank Mr. Dolynny for bringing the motion forward and I encourage all colleagues to support the motion and speak to it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the mover and the seconder of the motion for bringing it forward. This is a motion which I can fully support. I’ve spoken to the issue of alcohol in my own community and in all NWT communities many times. It’s an issue which, unfortunately, is going to take very many years before it will ever go away. I suspect it won’t ever go away fully.
It’s been spoken to I think by a couple of the Members already, but alcohol is involved in, obviously, the majority of incidents that the RCMP and/or the municipal enforcement officers deal with. It takes up a huge amount of police time, and whether it just be somebody who is drunk on the streets or whether it be somebody who is drunk and then commits a crime, it’s a requirement of the police that they have to deal with it, and much of the time they’re dealing with what could be considered nuisance incidences.
This motion asks for the authority for municipal enforcement officers to be able to enforce liquor laws. Anything that is going to assist the RCMP and allow them to get away from having to handle nuisance calls, for instance, it will allow them to deal with the bigger crimes, which certainly happen all too frequently, unfortunately.
The motion asks that the authority be provided for municipal enforcement officers to be able to enforce liquor laws. It does not require that all communities will have to take part on that. It simply will give authority and it will be there for those communities who wish to take part, those that have municipal enforcement officers and that they wish to expand that scope of practice of those officers.
I recognize that there are legislative requirements that would be required, and that again goes to what the motion is asking. The motion is asking for this to be looked into, to determine what kind of legislative amendments need to be made, to determine all the parameters around making this change and we can then determine whether or not it’s something that we should go forward with. The fact that this is asking for a discussion of the issue is something that I fully support. It’s not demanding that we do this, but it’s asking us to look at it. Hopefully, it will turn out for the positive and then a community like mine, who has municipal enforcement officers, will be able to take advantage of that extra authority and improve the like, so to speak, in my community. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We appreciate this motion being brought forward. It supports the work that has been underway for some time with Justice and Finance on looking at this issue, looking at whether we need to change our legislation or whether in fact it can be done through community municipal bylaws. The City of Yellowknife expressed some time ago, as well, an interest in having this matter explored so that collectively we’ll get to where we have to go. As this is direction to Cabinet, we will be abstaining. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Close debate. I’m just going to remind Members to put your hands up a little bit quicker so we can see it because I closed debate already, but I’m going to allow Mr. Yakeleya and Mr. Hawkins to go. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate this. I just want to say I’m going to support this motion because it talks about a discussion in looking at some of the possibilities of amending the Liquor Act or any other type of legislation with the issue that Mr. Dolynny talked about with municipal law enforcement and, of course, the authority to help with the issue here in Yellowknife and possibly other communities if they so choose.
So, I’m going to support the motion based on it entering discussions, not do anything but entering in discussion. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Undoubtedly, I have no issue whatsoever in supporting this particular motion.
We must seize upon every single opportunity to help solve this problem. This is not the panacea for this issue, but yet it is moving the file forward. Enforcement of liquor laws is a necessity. We cannot miss any opportunity to do this. We must not get distracted by the fact that, yes, this is a new adventure that we must be heading into, but we must see it as truly an opportunity to do something for this particular problem.
Abuse of alcohol certainly has been well stated, well written and will continue to be well argued about in this Chamber for many years to come, but by doing nothing works to solve this problem by ignoring this opportunity. So I would say that if we can find ways to further help inspections, to help decrease some of the problems, to help work in partnership with our RCMP partners, this is the right way to go.
It’s been mentioned many times over the years, as well, and I’ve witnessed it myself when I used to work at the correctional centre many years ago, three-quarters of the people that were incarcerated all were there for some reason connected to some type of substance abuse. Although we’re not here to debate addiction problems, what it does is further emphasize that people who are trapped in these terrible cycles of addiction, such as things like alcohol, need to be addressed. This doesn’t necessarily address, again, the addictions issue, but continues to underscore about these problems being allowed to get out of hand.
What the innovation of this motion really speaks to is opening the doors to help solve the problem. This would be a missed opportunity if the government doesn’t seize the message in this motion. As such, again, I will be supporting it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Very briefly, the public drunkenness, open liquor and underage drinking that has been mentioned as the focus of this effort is something that does need to be addressed and represents, really, a huge part, a huge bolus of the instances that our RCMP are forced to deal with, despite many other competing priorities. There typically are other resources that could be put to work to help in this regard.
I’d like to thank my colleague Mr. Dolynny, Mr. Mover, for bringing this forward and I will be supporting it. I also appreciate the recognition of the possible need for some training and that could be part of the analysis to avoid safety compromises, of course, and also some liabilities due to lack of training, or, of course, gross negligence in the delivery of program activity that could happen without training.
I also note, importantly, that I think the ability of municipalities to opt in or not is an important feature and should be carried forward. This really is about public safety and it’s a good move. I will be supporting it, as I mentioned, and I thank my colleagues again for their support. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. I’ll allow the mover of the motion to have closing remarks. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. I know it’s been a long day and a long couple of weeks, so I appreciate everyone allowing good debate on this. I want to thank the seconder, Mr. Moses, for allowing this debate to occur today and I want to thank all the Members here who took the time to speak towards this motion and provided some good ideas and some great thoughts. Of course, I want to thank Minister Miltenberger for again addressing it and I’m encouraged by his words today. I’d also like to thank the many residents who e-mailed and called in support of this motion in the last couple of days and, of course, the elected City of Yellowknife officials who took the time to write in some letters of support, which I’ve tabled earlier today. Finally, Mr. Speaker, I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank our legislative research staff and our in-house legal support. Without them, I can guarantee you that this motion would not have seen the light of day here in the House. So with that, I’ll conclude and I will be seeking a recorded vote. Thank you.
