Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Premier who also is the Minister of Justice.
Mr. Speaker, the last budget, we had a rollout, I believe, of nine policing officers under the Indigenous policing initiative. I'm curious as to what the actual rollout looks like, where they are -- where did they go to and where they didn't go to with respect to the nine that the territorial government was getting. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Justice.
So there were not nine positions rolled out in -- oh, I guess the Member was talking about last fiscal year, so that would have been 2023-2024. We're still in the 2024-2025 fiscal year.
So in the 2023-2024-fiscal year, the Member is correct, there were nine positions. Those were allocated to Aklavik, Dettah and N'dilo based in Yellowknife, Fort Good Hope, Fort McPherson, Fort Simpson, two to Fort Smith, one to the K'atlodeeche First Nation stationed in Hay River. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the kindness of that moment where the Premier could have made a bigger dealer than it was; I misread my note. That said, has the department applied for any more policing officers under that initiative? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have that information on hand. What I will say is that we do have a significant number of RCMP officers. The RCMP budget has increased faster than really most other budgets in the government, and that's because we put a lot of emphasis on it. And so at some point we do have to, you know, stop the expansion and look at other priorities. That being said, there's always conversations going on. And when opportunities arise where we -- it looks like we can get a good deal from the federal government, we like to explore those and so there could be some of those talks happening, but I'm happy to get back to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the challenges I see as the downtown MLA, that we see a lot of -- we'll call it social problems. And, unfortunately, police officers are being used as social workers to deal with them. But the reality is they are being called on more and more and taken away from the primary job for general public safety and general duty stuff.
Mr. Speaker, would the Premier be willing to look at some type of way of increasing the police presence in the downtown of Yellowknife? I know he doesn't instruct the chief superintendent, but he does have sway with respect to influence of policing. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the way that the Minister of Justice influences policing in the Northwest Territories is through resourcing and through the policing priorities that are issued to the RCMP, and so it's probably a bit beyond my ability to increase the police presence in a particular community and a particular part of that community. And that being said, I've had conversations with the RCMP about Yellowknife and about downtown Yellowknife, and so I know they're well aware of the situation. And when the RCMP wants to bring forward requests for new resources, there's a process through which they do that. And when they identify Yellowknife as the place where they want to see those resources, they will bring forward that request to us. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
