Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Justice. As I just mentioned, the rate of sexual assault complaints that are dismissed by police as unfounded is almost twice the rate in the NWT as it is nationally. The Yukon Government has mounted a robust response to the rates of unfounded sexual assault complaints, including training police and court workers in updated interview techniques, recruiting more women officers, funding specialized police work and victim services, and ensuring JP's are regularly retrained on emergency protection orders. What kind of response can we expect from the Minister? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Justice.
Yes, Mr. Speaker. I had the opportunity to read the excellent story in The Globe and Mail several weeks ago. The Globe gathered its analysis from 870 police jurisdictions and found there was a very large number of claims that were dismissed as unfounded across the country. It was between the various numbers, but generally it was between one and five, or 20 per cent of claims had been dismissed as unfounded. It has been found also, and I read this in the story, that looking at independent research from around the world only 2 to 8 per cent of these claims are actually false.
It was also surprising to see the wide variation in the number of claims that had been dismissed from as low as 2 per cent in the City of Winnipeg to a high of 36 per cent in Yellowknife. Even more surprising was that sometimes adjoining police forces had very different statistics. While there may be some issues as to how the information was gathered, the statistics are clearly very disturbing.
As a result of this study, the various police forces across the country, including the RCMP, have re-evaluated procedures. I can advise that I have met with the commanding officer here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate that the Minister read the article, but he did not respond to my question. So I'm going to ask again what he is going to do as Minister to bring these unfounded sexual assault complaints down? There are a number of very specific practical actions that are being taken by his counterpart in the Yukon, where the police are also on contract to address this problem directly beyond just having a meeting. What is his response?
I simply wanted to give some background before I entered into a discussion with the Member opposite about what the RCMP here are doing. I'm pleased to advise that, in my meeting with the commanding officer, he advised me that all sexual assault files from the period 2010 to 2014 were being reviewed. As I mentioned, it was found in The Globe and Mail study approximately 36 per cent of the cases were dismissed or found to be unfounded.
Now, this is at the investigatory stage, not at the court stage. A closer examination of the figures, that figure of 36 per cent, the RCMP found that 21 per cent were actually found to be unfounded. The other 15 per cent was found that it was insufficient evidence to proceed to court. So they did a careful examination of the many files over the last five years.
I appreciate all the homework the Minister has done on this topic, but I'm not hearing a robust response to these findings beyond what the RCMP has already committed to do itself, which is to review all of those unfounded cases. I'm not hearing he is going to take proactive response to what is clearly a crisis in sexual assault complaints here in the NWT as it is across the country.
In addition to what I've already mentioned with the police reviewing all of these cases, it has been decided that new policies are required so that if a file is found to be unfounded by the investigator all of those files will now be reviewed by a senior officer. So the police are doing something. In addition, they are increasing their training in this area to further sensitize investigators to this issue.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and, Mr. Speaker, that's excellent news. I think the other side of this is to make sure that police officers have better training to deal with complaints as they come in. I'm wondering if the Minister can tell us what changes might be made in training police officers to respond to sexual assault complaints? Mahsi.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can advise that there will be additional training provided to investigators. As recently as January there was some additional training provided. So the police are very aware of this issue. Additional training will be provided, and hopefully the rather shocking figure that has been mentioned by the Member opposite will decrease. I can advise the police are treating this matter very seriously.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
