Mr. Chairman, the members that work in some communities get calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Whether or not these phone calls are serious, people expect them to answer all of them. It is quite difficult, and this is the kind of stress that nurses, for instance, in small communities live under. They cannot even go for a walk. When they do it seems to be those times when serious accidents happen, and the whole community is in an uproar, because no one answered the phone.

In regard to the R.C.M.P., we do not have enough money to place officers in each community. Even if we did, we still cannot get them to answer the phone 24 hours a day. The Member is suggesting that we look at something to offset getting a 24 hour answering service in Yellowknife, that is something that they are looking at already. There are a number of suggestions. We could even look at just getting what was discussed last week, which is to look at community members volunteering to take calls, and pass them on to members.

In those communities where there are R.C.M.P. officers present, whether there is one or two, we should encourage communities to have volunteer groups that would assist the R.C.M.P. to police the communities, to perhaps advise them on how to better police, and how to approach different incidents and complaints that they have to deal with, day to day. That is one of the ideas that I know they are dealing with. Thank you.