R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So one of the things that I do as Minister of Justice is I set policing priorities for the RCMP G-division, and one of those four priorities is to build and strengthen relationships with Indigenous communities to understand and establish community-driven policing priorities and services. So the RCMP themselves in the communities are, on at least a month basis, supposed to be meeting with leadership, is my understanding, and they share information, they hear back from leadership, and they develop their own community policing plans using that information. So there's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Member's comments. I speak about this topic quite often, but it's good to get the information out there. Because there is a lot going on. I want residents to be aware that we are doing what we can to deal with these issues.

So the SCAN legislation, which is a legislation that would make it easier to close or shut down buildings that are causing public harm, like a drug house, is going to go out for public consultation this spring. We hope to have a legislative proposal drafted by the summer. That would then go through the normal process where it is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I believe that would be sort of a difficult task. The RCMP records some statistics about search and rescue. They provide incident command services during search and rescues, but there is no central body beyond that that records this data. So the cost that a community or individuals might spend on a search and rescue, that's not covered. You know, there might be individuals out there supporting efforts that don't let anyone know that they're supporting efforts, and so we can't necessarily record that information either. So because this involves so many different...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, and it's actually the regional partnership that really put the focus on Yellowknife. And so, you know, we're already working with them, taking their advice and insight. Of course, when you work at an NGO and you are doing this work on a daily basis day in and day out you have a lot of expertise and insight and, of course, we want to leverage that and work with these organizations. So not every organization's priorities will align with each other’s, and so going forward there will be some -- you know, partners who are probably happier with what we are doing and some...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We already have an office in Ottawa. There's actually a desk and a chair there already so there may be an increased cost with pens, staples, things like that, but there's not going to be a significant cost implementations for this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So just to be clear, I had spoke with Indigenous governments after the decision was made to let them know what was going on, and I spoke with my Cabinet colleagues because, you know, when we make changes in that hallway where we all work, I want to ensure that Cabinet feels supported as all the staff down that hallway support all of Cabinet in one way or another. So that being said, this was a decision that I made in my office based on the experiences that I had over the past year. So I'm happy to consult with the standing committee on policies, on programs, on...

With me today I have Victoria Carmichael, legislative counsel with the Department of Justice. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm here today to present Bill 12, Business Day Statute Law Amendment Act. The purpose of Bill 12 is to fix an error that was made in 2017 when amendments to the Interpretation Act resulted in some government offices technically being required to be open on Sundays. This was not the intent of the changes in 2017.

Bill 12 will amend four pieces of legislation to deal with this problem and to ensure Sundays are not interpreted as business days, including

Subsection 150(5) of the Business Corporations Act;

Section 59 of the Consumer Protection Act;

Section 62 of the Judicature...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wouldn't say that the human resource allocations were part of the divisional drug strategy, but there have been increases to the RCMP numbers in the Member's riding. K'atlodeeche First Nation had two positions added, one this year, one last year. The detachment in Fort Providence has also had positions added. And that's in addition to the new crime reduction unit and the emergency response team that are getting staffed up that also work territorially. So there's more assets available in the communities, and there's more territorial assets available to respond to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And so, of course, Nutrition North is a federal program and it has its own criteria and it's related to accessibility, road access. That being said, we obviously have higher costs of living in the Northwest Territories, and that's an appropriate thing to bring forward to our discussions with the federal government and the ministerial special adviser, and I think it's important to also highlight Indigenous businesses and how we can better support them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.