Rocky Simpson

Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I talked to persons addicted to drugs, or those that are dealing for that matter, I let them know that I'm willing to work with them to help them move away from that lifestyle. I also let them know that not changing their lifestyle or dealing with the addiction problem would result in one of three things happening, which is being murdered, overdosing, or being incarcerated.

Can the Minister tell me what emphasis is placed on education by law enforcement to convince people that selling drugs in the NWT is not a career path? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Martin.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of Justice confirm if there has been, throughout this pandemic, any measured rise in drug trade in the NWT and has it resulted in a corresponding increase in drug enforcement or staff? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Martin. Member.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess what it comes down to, like, you know, as we talk about housing, it just comes down to dollar and cents. There's just not enough money there to go around, and, you know, with what we have, we going to have to, you know, make better use of it. With the increase of, you know, materials and labour and that, like, it's just driving the cost up where, you know, a million and a half dollars just doesn't do anything anymore. You know, in Yellowknife here, it'd probably eat that up in no time and people would still be you know, there'd still be a lot of people looking...

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, this program I think is very important to probably more so to Yellowknife and the regional centres where there is market housing and, you know, private homes. And I think it's very important that we look that we look at trying to increase increase that amount and trying to put more out there.

When we look around the Northwest Territories and like again Yellowknife and Hay River, you know, Inuvik and Simpson and Smith, there's a lot of modular units; there's a lot of trailers out there, and they seem to you know, they seem to have a lot of problems, and you...

Thank you, Minister. Member. Ms. Nokleby? No? Ms. Semmler?