David Ramsay

Madam Chair, I mentioned 12 communities. If you take away three that are on the road and close to another city like Yellowknife and Hay River, so you could take off Detah, Tsiigehtchic and Hay River Reserve, then you’re down to nine. As I mentioned earlier, the cost of putting a detachment into a community is anywhere between $10 million and $12 million capital costs and that would include housing for the members.

Also, on an ongoing basis you’re looking at about $2 million on an annual basis for a small detachment. I mean, you could be somewhere around $100 million in a capital expenditure if...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate the Member bringing forward this motion. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, we have close to $800,000 earmarked for on-the-land programs in this year’s budget, $787,000 to be exact. I’ve also made a commitment earlier to provide the established safety protocols and the framework to Members, and we will get that to Members as soon as possible. Again, it was part of the RFP process. We also will continue to work diligently on finding a service provider for a wilderness camp here in the Northwest Territories, and again, we have to remain optimistic that...

I’ll go to Ms. Schofield for that response, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our role as a department is to, again, provide legal advice and support to departments. We do have some new enforcement responsibilities. Those will be carried out by other departments. Our role in this was to add five new positions at our legal division and they’re not just the ATIPP position the Member referenced, but we have beefed up our staff complement in the legal division by five positions in anticipation that they will be busier after April 1st. As we go forward, if we need further resources in that area, through the business planning process we could...

Thank you, Madam Chair. For that detail, we’ll go to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we will. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories today has the best trapping programs in the country. The reason why our programs are so successful is because we work out of our regional offices to help deliver the programs that we have, and in the area of trapping specifically we have a strong relationship with the local operations at the regional level through our department. As things change – I know the Member is talking about the potential economic development happening in the Sahtu – it’s even more important that we continue that close relationship with the hunters and trappers in that...

It’s being spent on compensation and benefits for the employees that we have at the Department of Justice. We operate 24 hour a day, seven day a week, 365 day a year operations at our facilities and those dollars are spent in the areas that the Members see in the main estimates.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In developing community policing plans, the RCMP do work with communities around the Northwest Territories and community leaders. As I mentioned to MLA Moses, there are protocols in place, when it comes to emergency events in a community, on how things will happen. I am going to be providing him with some further detail on that – response times – and we can share that with the rest of committee as well.

We also need to continue to dialogue with the RCMP and also with the community members. Crime Stoppers is certainly a good avenue for community members who want to report...

That work has been concluded. Thank you.