R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wish to table the following two documents: Northwest Territories Law Foundation 39th Annual Report for the Period Ending June 30, 2021; and, Territorial Police Service Agreement RCMP Annual Report 20212022. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I won't be the Minister to introduce legislation for paid sick leave but as I stated when the Member asked these questions back in February and then before that in December, we are looking the department is looking into amendments to the Employment Standards Act. They've completed a crossjurisdictional scan across Canada and discovered there's a number of areas where we need to improve our legislation to modernize it. As part of that work, we are going to go out and engage with employers, with employees, and ask these types of questions. You know, do you provide sick...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I could provide direction but no one would listen to me. The decision of whether or not to remand someone, to detain someone when they've been charged, lies with the courts, and so it's the prosecution, the defence, and the courts who make that decision and the courts are independent of course. Here we are in the Legislative Assembly which is one branch, the government is another branch, and the courts are the third branch. And I have no authority over that branch. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a big question. I'll do my best to keep my answers short.

So the most recent information we have is from the 2021 calendar year, and that shows us actually a decrease in crime during that time. The total crime rate went down by 3 percent in the Northwest Territories driven by a reduction in robbery, a 21 percent decrease in drug offences, as well as a 7 percent decrease in sexual assault offences. On the other side, we saw an increase in assaults and breaking and entering. But that's 2021, and I know the Member there's issues going on right now in his community...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The next steps would be ensuring that the information provided through the public engagement is analyzed. That will then be used to develop a legislative proposal and then the process that follows is that legislative proposal goes to standing committee, comes to Cabinet, the bill is drafted, and hopefully introduced in the winter sitting. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And that's correct, between June 16th and July 25th of this year, the Department of Justice held public engagement. So the engagement consisted of an unanimous online survey that asked residents a number of questions related to missing persons legislation. The department also sent letters directly to Indigenous governments, mayors, the RCMP, and various other partners and stakeholders to invite them to participate in the survey. We received 81 responses. Most questions or most had a strong consensus. While many residents agreed that law enforcement should be able to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the Department of Justice attends a number of different federal, territorial, and provincial meetings at various levels. So I've recently attended a meeting with the ministers for public safety and ministers of justice across Canada, and these are the types of issues that we discussed, and I will say what the issues that are being raised here are also being raised across Canada. So this is not a territory issue alone.

There is work in different jurisdictions to look at policing and how police services could be improved. There's been recent talk about Alberta moving...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and this speaks to the Member's last question as well. Most of the people who are in the correctional system in the Northwest Territories are there on remand, meaning they have not yet been sentenced.

In the 2010s, there were a number of Supreme Court of Canada cases that spoke to bail and, you know, what was needed in order to detain someone versus to release them. The Government of Canada, in 2019, codified some of that language or those decisions. And now the release of accused persons is the cardinal rule and detention is an exception. So the Criminal Code of Canada...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the feedback that was submitted online was unanimous, so it was possible that these organizations did submit feedback. And I will say that despite the engagement period being closed and the drafting of the What We Heard report being near completion, we're always open to feedback. If we receive a letter now from an Indigenous government or the Native Women's Association, that will definitely be taken into consideration. Thank you.

Thank you. Perhaps for some detail on that, I can hand it to Mr. Shannon.