Glen Abernethy

I’ve outlined previously some of the issues or some of the ideas that the RCMP are bringing forward, but for me what I’d really like to do is actually get into the community and listen to the community as to what kind of ideas they would like to see or what ideas they’d like to bring forward, what solutions they would like to see, and I’m open to anything at this point. It depends on whether it will work or not, but really I want to talk to the community and get a sense of what they think some of their own solutions would be. Thank you.

As I indicated before, the Member and I have been having some conversations and I’ll be going to Colville Lake, hopefully in February, with the Member to talk to the residents of Colville and the residents of the Sahtu about their issues with respect to the Department of Justice, policing being obviously one of them. At that time hopefully we’ll have an opportunity to talk about how the community sees us helping them to solve some of these problems and we’ll be there with open ears. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was in Ottawa meeting the Minister of Justice, not the Minister responsible for the RCMP. I didn’t have that discussion with the Minister of Justice. I was talking more about Bill C-10.

We recognize that community safety and enforcement is a priority, and the Member and I have had a number of conversations and I think we’re of like minds. We want to find some way to help the small communities.

There are 10 communities that do not have policing. Of those, two have money for policing but we don’t have any infrastructure in the communities so we’re not able to permanently...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to update the House on discussions I had with the federal Minister of Justice, the Honourable Rob Nicholson, yesterday. The purpose of this meeting was to bring the concerns of my colleagues regarding Bill C-10 to the Minister and to discuss how best to mitigate the impacts of the bill on the Northwest Territories.

The Parliament of Canada has the right and responsibility to pass national legislation in respect to criminal justice that can significantly affect all the provinces and territories. The motion passed just last Friday by this Assembly details some...

I’ll certainly be talking to my colleagues about community safety and enforcement. It is a priority and I’ll continue to have those discussions with my colleagues. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have that information at hand, but I’m happy to pull it together and provide it to the Member. Thank you.

As I indicated earlier, community safety and enforcement is a priority. It’s something that we’re certainly interested in. I, as the Minister of Justice, will absolutely be working with my colleagues to see if we can come up with some alternative solutions to these problems so that the people in the communities can feel a sense of security and whatnot. I look forward, once again, to meeting with the Member in the Sahtu.

I assure the Member that all issues in all the communities are taken seriously. I don’t know of any specific protocol, but I’ll certainly talk to my department and if there is a specific protocol, I will be sharing that with the Member.

I would say that when issues occur in the communities, it’s critical that the people in the communities contact the detachments. If they don’t have one in their community, there’s usually one associated with them. For instance, in Colville Lake it’s Fort Good Hope. If issues do occur, we need to have people call that detachment so that we can begin the process...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize my wife, Carolyn Smith, in the gallery today.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m not aware of whether or not the department has had many consultations with the Department of Health or any other buildings on how we can achieve economies of scale in our construction. We do know that we have specialized buildings, just like Health has very specialized buildings. As far as utilities, there may be options to do something like that and that might be a better question for Public Works and Services.

With respect to the building in Fort Smith, we are trying to achieve some economies of scale by tying into some of the heating and utilities systems that...