R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the big issues now is that over the last number of years, you know, in the last 2010s, there were changes to the Criminal Code, there were decisions from the Supreme Court, all of which have resulted in people who are arrested not being remanded into custody but granted bail. And they're arrested, they're back out later that day. And some of these offenders, you know, they are innocent until proven guilty, but then they're arrested again the next day or the next week, and they continue this pattern. And so we are seeing that the deterrent of not being remanded is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't quite know what I can say here. I know the budget is before the Committee of the Whole, so I don't want to speak too much about it. But I look forward to that budget passing and us getting our crime reduction unit up and running. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Build that wall. I'm just joking, of course. The territorial border, it is a you know, it is a border but in Canada, there are mobility rights. We can't just stop people at the border and search their vehicles. There was a time when it was easier to do that. But unfortunately, we don't have that ability. So what we do is we work with or the RCMP, I suppose, undertakes investigations. They try their best to stop drugs before they come into the territory. And I always say, we need people to bring information forward. The RCMP need credible tips to act upon. So I'd...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm happy to I don't want to say that we're going to develop some working group to look into these things, but what the Member is talking about is the way, I think, that we need to go forward. This government is integrating services. We have our homelessness strategy, which is really looking at how we can better support people who are experiencing homelessness, what sort of wraparound supports we can provide, how to better provide those supports. So that's the type of work that we are doing moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have the list of communities at my fingertips, but the engagement will be robust. I'm happy to get back to the Member with that information. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One thing I knew coming into this Assembly is that I wanted to work in collaboration with the relevant partners. The other thing I knew coming into this is that collaboration takes a long time. And so if we would have just gone ahead and issued the RFP as government and managed the contract that way, we would have been a couple months ahead but as it is, once the contract is awarded, there will be six months until the final product is to be delivered. So we are looking at a final report in December. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you, everyone, for the comments; I do appreciate it. I know that this is a departure from previous mandates of this government and of other mandates that you would see in a system where there's a political party who can bring together their apparatus, come up with a plan, and lay that out on day one.

The reason that this mandate is sparse in terms of actual deliverables is because I've seen two mandates prior to this government. I've been involved with the Assembly for two previous terms, and each of those mandates had hundreds I think the first one had hundreds, the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If we are if it's costing us more to deliver it than the fees, I'm not sure we want to increase the fees to cover the full cost. If we did that for ATIPP, it would be, you know, thousands of dollars everyone would have to provide for requests. But when the Member talks about reducing red-tape and this initiative, this is a conversation that I'm really excited to have with the rest of the Ministers because this is something that is across government. We had initiatives last year, the Minister of Finance has a nice little award sitting on her desk, a pair of golden...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will look into whether or not we even have that information. I'm not sure whether that information is collected or not. But I can look into it and then, if possible, we can put that information together. But I'm not even sure it's possible. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: Northwest Territories Law Foundation 41st Annual Report for the Period Ending June 30, 2023. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.