R.J. Simpson

Member Hay River North

Premier
Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs

R.J. Simpson was elected to the 20th Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly, representing the constituency of Hay River North. On December 7th, 2023, Mr. Simpson was elected Premier of the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Simpson was formerly acclaimed to the 19th Legislative Assembly and first elected into the 18th Assembly in 2015.

Mr. Simpson was Deputy Speaker of the 18th Assembly, Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations, and the Chair of the Special Committee on Transition Matters. Mr. Simpson was also a member of the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning and the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment.

Mr. Simpson is a lifelong resident of Hay River After graduating from Diamond Jenness Secondary School in 1998 Mr. Simpson went on to obtain a Bachelor of Arts from MacEwan University and a law degree from the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law.

Mr. Simpson has previously worked with the Government of Canada, Northern Transportation Company Ltd, Métis Nation Local 51, and Maskwa Engineering.

While at law school, Mr. Simpson was the President of the Aboriginal Law Students’ Association. He has also served on the board of the Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre in Hay River and volunteered with the Canada-Ghana Education Project.

Hay River North Electoral District

Committees

R.J. Simpson
Hay River North
Member's Office

Yellowknife NT X1A 2L9
Canada

P.O. Box
1320
Email
Extension
11120
Constituency Office

62, promenade Woodland, bureau 104
Hay River Nord NT X0E 1G1
Canada

Phone
Minister
Email
Premier of the Northwest Territories, Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs, Minister of Justice, Government House Leader

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 17)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to sit down with the Member, maybe have a conversation, maybe get a written question, just so I know I'm clear on what we're discussing. I'd like to I wish I could just say, you know what, we got some we do have things in mind. It's a matter of resourcing and all of that in order to get into fruition, but I'm happy to have a further discussion with the Member. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 17)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, the idea that women in Yellowknife, and generally people in the NWT, are overpoliced, there could be some validity to that given that we have more RCMP per capita than anywhere else in Canada, twice as many as the Canadian average. So there definitely is a lot of policing. The RCMP also receive many, many, many calls from the shelters. If one of their clients is violating one of their policies, they will often call the RCMP to come and deal with that. So the RCMP do get those types of calls. They have turned into sort of the catchall for every issue that...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 17)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't want to get into hypotheticals as it's not in line with the rules of the Assembly. But I look forward to seeing what comes of the after-action review, and we'll make our decision then. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 17)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So this is a it's a long story. So going back to February, of course, we sat in this House and there was a request for a public inquiry. That came after the decision was made to hold this extensive after-action review where the department would go out or hire a contractor to go out, look at everything that happened in terms of the 2023 fire season response, hold public meetings, speak with staff, and then generate a report with recommendations. Because there was a desire to ensure that this was not influenced by government, the idea it actually came after a meeting I...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 17)

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...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 17)

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.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 16)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When somebody needs some information and they want to go forward and get it, in some cases it probably is reasonable that that person pays. It's a user pay system otherwise everybody else pays for that person's access. And so that is something that we need to take into consideration. I understand what the Member is saying. It's some of these small irritants that, you know, impact people the most because they have to engage with those, you know, time and time again. But all the nickels and dimes add up, Mr. Speaker. We're trying to deliver serious services for people. We...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 16)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And so I am familiar with that accessing some of the registries, like the corporate registries and land titles do involve a fee. I've never tried to access my own. I was actually just trying to do that, but I didn't get it in time for the question. But I would assume I would have to pay for my own information just the same way as anyone else. So I am aware. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 16)

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...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 16)

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...