Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, crime occurs 24/7, 365 days a year. The North has significantly elevated levels of crime in all categories compared to the South, including break-and-enters, assaults and theft from vehicles, not to mention all of the drugs and related crimes.
We, as a community, cannot leave everything for the police to solve. We, as a community, must do our part to make our streets, homes and families safer. We can do just that through programs like COPS. This is the mantra on which the Yellowknife Coalition for Community Wellness stood on to start a program known as the COPS program.
Mr. Speaker, I have attended and observed the birth and growth of this program from the beginning over the last three years. This group is made up of people who just got tired of listening to stats that were read in the House, like the ones we are talking about, who just got tired of waiting for the government and someone else to take care of the program. This is a group made up of women who had to watch their 12-year-old daughters getting lured by drug dealers and get hooked on cocaine, who they lost every weekend because they had to go out and get hooked up into drugs. These mothers would nurse them into health, put them back to school, and they were back into drugs again because these drugs were so strong. One of these mothers is supporting her daughter down south, because she has to keep the daughter away from the drug dealers and the triggers that keeps bringing her back to that addiction.
Instead of sitting around and crying over these things, all these people got together and set up what is called COPS, and this is a patrolling service, Mr. Speaker. It started back in February 2004. Just between May and November, there were 84 patrols done. They travelled 6,000 kilometres, and they reported 51 incidents. They don't replace the RCMP. They work with the RCMP. They are trying to do something about it. They operate on their volunteer hours with two donated vehicles and $5,000 of fuel subsidy from the RCMP. They are doing all they can to make a difference. They have applied to this government for funding and they were turned down.