Debates of October 20, 2020 (day 40)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to return to questions I was asking the Minister of Justice yesterday. I'd ask the Minister if he can tell me: for every $1 spent in dealing with addictions, how much is spent on drug and alcohol enforcement in the NWT? If he doesn't have the information, I'll give him time to get it at some point. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Minister of Justice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have the NWT-specific numbers, but I know that in Canada in 2014 is the most recent information I have. That's from a report prepared by the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. For every $32 million spent on healthcare, there's about $10 million for healthcare for substance abuse, there's a corresponding $10 million spent on enforcement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'd ask the Minister: what is the average time for drug trafficking production, importing, exporting, to move through the justice system?

In adult criminal court according to Stats Canada, the average number of days it takes to get other drug offence is the technical term through the court system, and those would be things like drug trafficking, production, and importing and exporting, in the NWT in 2017-2018, it was 277 days, and the Canadian average -- sorry. That's the Canadian average, and in the NWT, it's 295 days. In 2018-2019, the Canadian average was 273 days, but in the NWT, the average was 413 days. That is because we are a small jurisdiction. If you have one large, complex case, that can skew the statistics, and there's ups and downs.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police proposed diverting people dealing with substance abuse or addiction issues away from the criminal justice system towards social services and healthcare. Can the Minister confirm that this is an approach the department agrees with, and if so, has it been put into practice?

It's an odd notion to treat addiction as a criminal matter, and so, I'm fully in support of diversion where we can and providing supports where we can. The GNWT has been providing alternatives to the traditional justice system for a number of years. Every year, we contribute $1.8 million to community justice programming which includes formal diversions. We have an annual priority established through a contract with the RCMP to prioritize diversions. A number of the sanctions from the community justice committees include things like counselling, cultural connection, and treatment.

The RCMP, as well, and they're committed to diversion, as well, they are very supportive of their local community partners. Here, in Yellowknife, there's the Yellowknife sobering centre, and in Behchoko, there's the warming centre. In Yellowknife, through those kinds of partnerships, they've seen a 73 percent decrease in the number of prisoners in cells from 2014 to 2018. In 2014, it was 6,500 individuals in cells, and we're down to about 1,700 now. There is a diversion away from that criminal system.

We also have integrated case management within the GNWT. In the South Slave, SMCC is transitioning to a therapeutic community model. It's still in the justice system, but it's trying to direct people out of it and then giving them the tools they need to overcome addictions and stay out of the system. We also have the Wellness Court, as well, which looks at the circumstances of the offender and tries to deal with those as opposed to looking at an offence and punishing someone for an offence.

We are trying different things. It's always tough. I understand now why my predecessor would always say this. We're dealing with people at the end of a lot of trauma and a lot of decisions that led them down this path. It's tough to change that course, but we are trying. We are committed to it.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The RCMP and police, in general, have been receiving bad press lately. This is disturbing when we consider the good work they do which never gets reported. Mr. Speaker, not only are our RCMP officers paid less than provincial counterparts, a past Auditor General report confirms that RCMP are understaffed and, because of it, receive adequate training. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm what the department is doing to ensure our complement of officers in the NWT meet our needs in the North and that they are adequately trained? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the Member for highlighting the positive contributions of the RCMP. I've stated before in the House that they don't do the kind of self-promotion that, perhaps, they could to get those accolades.

The NWT does have the highest concentration of RCMP officers in Canada. We have 416 per 100,000 people. The next highest is Nunavut with 354 per 100,000. We are staffed quite well with RCMP. In terms of the training, there's a significant amount of mandatory training that RCMP have, and in order to support that and support increased training because there's always new training every year, every time something happens, there's training in response to it, the department increased funding to the RCMP in 2019-2020 by $200,000 annually just for training, and that's the 70 percent contribution that the GNWT makes. In total, there was almost a third of a million dollars increase in training budget a couple of years ago.

I want to say, the Member mentions, the RCMP have been getting some bad press, but in my five years in this Assembly, no one has ever said they want less RCMP. Every community, every Member says they want more RCMP in the community and that they appreciate their efforts. The Member made a statement earlier in regards to a bear attack in Hay River, and it was the RCMP who responded to that and who dispatched the bear. They do a lot of good that isn't recognized, so I appreciate the Member's questions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.