R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have the NWT-specific numbers, but I know that in Canada in 2014 is the most recent information I have. That's from a report prepared by the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. For every $32 million spent on healthcare, there's about $10 million for healthcare for substance abuse, there's a corresponding $10 million spent on enforcement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For that level of detail, I would like to ask Ms. Bolstad to respond.

Yes. I do, Madam Chair.

Since the first report in 2010, the department has taken a number of steps to make good on the Education Act's requirement to provide equitable access. I just want to comment on something the Member said earlier, that the department is "passing the buck" to the education authorities in terms of the failure of small communities in terms of education. I've been here five years, and I've never heard any Minister pass the buck. The previous Minister before me, I heard her state that we are failing students in small communities. The day I became Minister, that became my failure, so I'm not passing...

I want to thank the Member for highlighting the positive contributions of the RCMP. I've stated before in the House that they don't do the kind of self-promotion that, perhaps, they could to get those accolades.

The NWT does have the highest concentration of RCMP officers in Canada. We have 416 per 100,000 people. The next highest is Nunavut with 354 per 100,000. We are staffed quite well with RCMP. In terms of the training, there's a significant amount of mandatory training that RCMP have, and in order to support that and support increased training because there's always new training every...

In adult criminal court according to Stats Canada, the average number of days it takes to get other drug offence is the technical term through the court system, and those would be things like drug trafficking, production, and importing and exporting, in the NWT in 2017-2018, it was 277 days, and the Canadian average -- sorry. That's the Canadian average, and in the NWT, it's 295 days. In 2018-2019, the Canadian average was 273 days, but in the NWT, the average was 413 days. That is because we are a small jurisdiction. If you have one large, complex case, that can skew the statistics, and there...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Today, with me, I have Mandi Bolstad, director of corporate services, and Charlene Doolittle, deputy minister.

We have done an evaluation on the program. It shows positive benefits, and those are reflected in the numbers. The students who are participating in these academic courses would otherwise have to take them through distance learning, traditional distance learning where you get, well, back in my day, you got a pack of CDs and some workbooks in the mail, and you had to fill those out. The success rates on those types of programs is very, very low; everywhere, not just in the territory. The credit acquisition rate in the territory for Northern Distance Learning has been significantly higher...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are significant benefits to early childhood education, and I think everyone would agree to that. The fact that we have junior kindergarten, anecdotally, means that there have been some benefits to children across the territory. To the specific question about the data that we've collected, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment has been collecting the early development instrument, the EDI tool, have been using data from that since 2013, and that includes the years since junior kindergarten has been in place from 2017. There needs to be a certain number...

It's an odd notion to treat addiction as a criminal matter, and so, I'm fully in support of diversion where we can and providing supports where we can. The GNWT has been providing alternatives to the traditional justice system for a number of years. Every year, we contribute $1.8 million to community justice programming which includes formal diversions. We have an annual priority established through a contract with the RCMP to prioritize diversions. A number of the sanctions from the community justice committees include things like counselling, cultural connection, and treatment.

The RCMP, as...