Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Chair, the TEP program, the Teacher Education Program that we delivered in the past and we continue to deliver as well going into the South Slave, definitely, those students are involved with taking the program, whether it be the Aboriginal Teacher Education Program, the ALCIP program. There’s a great opportunity for them to pursue even more with the TEP program, Mr. Chair. That’s an area that we need to explore further, how we can attract those individuals to taking on these particular programming. Mr. Chair, I believe this is an opportunity for them to pursue these with this program...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The money that was being referenced in the letter was the one-time money that was available in the current budget, the 2010-2011 budget. Certainly that funding does sunset on March 31st of 2011.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mahsi. We’ll provide that information. We don’t have it here with us.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’m honoured to speak to the recent commemoration of a police patrol that has been known as The Lost Patrol.

On the 21st day of December 2010, in memory of the 100th anniversary of this historic event, the community of Fort McPherson joined members of the RCMP and numerous leaders and officials to honour the members of The Lost Patrol. The day-long event included a memorial service, a wreath laying ceremony and a community feast.

As history informs us, from 1904 to 1921 there was an annual Royal Northwest Mounted Police tradition to make a trip from Dawson City, Yukon, to...

I would be more than willing to do that, too, with the Members. Mahsi.

The information that we have is that through ASA, as well that we gave money to schools for attendance projects and absenteeism is definitely before us. But we did provide additional funding to deal with absenteeism. Again, it’s part of the ASA as we move forward. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, we do have three officers that are in training right now that have started the training at the depot. It is a Community Constable Program. Those are the areas that we explore with the RCMP ‘G’ Division and at the federal level. They finally listened. We are unique in the North so they gave us three positions. They will be graduating.

Mr. Speaker, this is an area of interest for us as well. We want to increase those numbers. We will do what we can, as the Department of Justice, to provide more information on this and possibly creating more similarities. The Member referred to the...

This is an area that we need to explore with the committee and the small and remote committee, a community committee. With the current funding that we have and also the review that’s being undertaken, phase I, phase II, that’s an opportunity for us to make some changes.

We clearly hear from Member Beaulieu that this is a concern for his constituents and others in the small communities. So, Mr. Chair, I’ll commit to looking at this with my department during the review process. Mahsi.

Yes, this would also cover that area as well.