Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There have been requests around liquor for the last two months to impose complete bans, complete restrictions, to open it up, to make it available for sale from taxi cabs. I have had no end of requests and varying requests across the board. I simply can't accommodate every request because they are at opposites, one with another. I acknowledge that not every Indigenous leader's request to impose a complete ban has been followed. Obviously, that's not what we've done. Some of the Indigenous leaders who we spoke to were saying, "Please, just keep it as a simple restriction...

At the risk of repeating it a bit, there is a liaison officer position at every institution. It is a major part of their role to provide exactly that: the liaison between the community and elders in particular, and to have elder visits coordinated and available for anyone at the facility. That includes not only, for instance, here in Yellowknife, elders who might be part of the local Indigenous community but also Inuit elders. We certainly have a number of individuals coming from across the territory from different Indigenous cultures. There is a conscious effort made to be inclusive as much...

I want to start by acknowledging that that is going to be ongoing work and that it has to be ongoing work, and there are still quite a number of the calls to action that, quite frankly, are still outstanding. Number one that comes to mind with me is the over-representation of Indigenous people in the correctional system. That continues to be a challenge, and it's one that I've certainly spoken about many times, both in my past life as well as in this House.

There is progress happening, though, Mr. Speaker. For instance, in terms of that particular call to action, number 30, of eliminating over...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The emergency wage subsidy provides a 75 percent subsidy to employers to encourage them to keep their employees on the payroll rather than laying them off during what might be more-than-lean times for those businesses, whereas the wage top-up program, Mr. Speaker, is one that is meant to support employees who are making under a certain level of wages, of earnings hourly. In that sense, the two aren't necessarily related. Rather, they are not related, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Yes. Again, I don't know that the Department of Justice has right now, on track, that specific information, and it may well be that it's held by the RCMP. However, again, what I can do is at least ensure that that question is transmitted to the RCMP directly and see that they can follow up.

As I mentioned, the RCMP does have regular updates they provide to communities, and it's a good opportunity to ensure that, when they are doing that, that they are providing updates to the extent that they have the information about Liquor Act violations, Liquor Act prohibitions, since that certainly has...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is always an ongoing dialogue between the Department of Justice and the RCMP, and this dialogue has been particularly keen in the last couple of months. There has been a lot of attention paid to the situation of bootlegging and illicit drug activity across borders. That dialogue continues. Mr. Speaker, I know that, later this session, I expect to be speaking to the police and priorities and would continue to encourage every community to develop their own community police priorities which can also then be a direct link into the activities of the RCMP in their...

I have already been in touch with my colleague from ECE. Obviously, this does, as the Member has already identified, fall within the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Speaker, my colleague was just on his feet, being asked if he was going to start a pilot for universal basic income. Some choices have to be made sometimes. We certainly can't have every single program that moves forward under COVID move forward forever. There will not be sufficient money to do that.

That said, Mr. Speaker, two things: the minimum wage committee is already underway for this year for this two...

Yes, I was able to marshal a bit of information here for the Member. As of May 26, that is, as of yesterday, there have been 31 business applications to the wage top-up. The application has to come through the employer in order to top up the employee. Twenty-eight have already been processed, but three, we requested additional information. In total, this will benefit 242 employees, at least for the month of April. We are processing them retroactively. For April, that would be $65,000 going out into the hands of employees in the Northwest Territories.

At this point, processing takes...

Mr. Speaker, I certainly am pleased to be able to say that the Tlicho region will be getting two further officers under the First Nations policing program, so, to the extent that there is a need for greater enforcement by the RCMP, with more manpower in the Tlicho region, that is at least one piece of good news I can give to the Member at this point.

Beyond that, Mr. Speaker, I can also say I have now had several hours of conversation with some of the Indigenous leaders, including some of the chiefs from the Tlicho region, and certainly intend to continue to do so as or when necessary...

We don't necessarily keep detailed track at the Department of Justice about all of the actions of the RCMP. I can certainly commit, for one, to just follow up with the RCMP and determine exactly what statistics they might maintain so that we can ensure that they are provided. Certainly, they do provide reports to every community on a regular basis, but on this specific discussion, we will follow up with them. I can indicate, Mr. Speaker, that between May 19th and 25th, Behchoko RCMP did make five seizures of alcohol within the prohibition boundaries.