Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we know, there are some scams that go on across the Northwest Territories sometimes and we do have someone that’s located in the consumer office. Part of their duties would be to try and educate the public on recognizing potential scams and helping them to deal with it. As far as the consumer, the Better Business Bureau, we don’t have a Better Business Bureau in the Northwest Territories. It’s usually an organization that the businesses themselves pay into and we haven’t had that here in the Northwest Territories yet. As a rule, they do not accept any government money; they prefer to run it in-house. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to advise the Minister that he does have a person within MACA and that person is doing a fairly good job in terms of working on this specific piece of legislation. I want to ask the Minister of MACA, in terms of educating the public, is there any type of plans going forward of how we educate the people in the smaller communities on these types of activities that potentially could be happening in their communities, such as the scams, the fraudulent identity theft? Is there a campaign there to educate the small communities in terms of how to protect the rights of consumers? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as far as the scams go, the RCMP does issue sometimes a warning that there are potential scams out there. As far as the educational part of it goes, there is some information that’s available on the MACA website and then materials are being distributed to the regional offices. We’re consulting with the Department of Education to distribute some of these materials through the NWT school system. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister is correct that there is not a Better Business Bureau office here in the Northwest Territories. Most of the consumers who have to get this type of information have to go through the Edmonton bureau and it does take some effort from the residents to set up an office like this in the Northwest Territories. We now have only the municipal government to protect

us. I would ask the Minister if there is any type of workshops that he could do to really outline in a simple way that residents could use to file a complaint or register a complaint with the consumer, with the department. They need to understand. Can the Minister elaborate a little further on that?

Mr. Speaker, I’m sure we can, and as I said, we distribute some educational materials and I’m sure we can probably put something together to distribute to the communities where we make it a little easier to access and navigate and give them some numbers as to where they can contact if they have some issues on consumers and things that are out. I would commit to the Member that we could probably work out something where we get the information out there and make it a little simpler to navigate through. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, I would go so far as to ask the Minister if he would also consider using this type of application of educating material through the radio stations in terms of in the different languages so people could understand what the Minister is doing to protect the consumers.

Mr. Speaker, I will commit to the Member that we will look at how we can get the information out there and how we can get it into languages that people are most comfortable with. I will make that commitment, if we’re distributing materials we’ll try to make them easily available and accessible by everyone. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the fall of last year I raised the issue about banning individuals from communities that wished to do it in the smaller communities. I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice if he’s done any work on that and what’s the process to begin supporting community initiatives like that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was going through some documents here. Certainly that’s an area that has been brought to my attention by the Member of that

region. My department is working closely with the communities on what our area of responsibility is through band council resolutions and also individuals’ rights. We have to take all those into consideration and what kind of legislation we have in place within the Justice department area. We continue to work with the RCMP “G” Division as well on approaching, let’s say, an incident or issue at hand. Certainly there are various parties involved, it’s not just Justice, but we continue to work with the community on that matter. Mahsi.

Yes, it’s about looking at our legislation and I’m just asking the Minister how much work has he done looking at the legislation and how can our legislation support band council resolutions or motions from the smaller communities that do want to ban individuals. Secondary to that, Mr. Speaker, it’s also an issue of frequency of policing visits. This particular request comes from Trout Lake. Could the Minister also look at some kind of a public campaign for the RCMP to meet with the community to come up with a policing strategy that’s acceptable to them as well? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, certainly that is one of the areas of interest from our department, working with the RCMP “G” Division. I did meet with the commanding officer and also sergeants or the district officers dealing with RCMP presence, that we need to increase our presence in the communities that do not have RCMP detachments. Trout Lake, as an example, will be part of our ongoing discussions that we will be having and the strategizing on how we can increase our presence into the community. One of the goals is to have, of course, a detachment in all communities, but that’s a long-term goal. In the interim, we certainly need to improve our services that we do provide, protection services into the communities and the safety aspect. I’ll certainly do my part as the Justice Minister to work with RCMP “G” Division to increase our presence into the communities that do not have an RCMP detachment. Mahsi.

I believe that will be part of the solution. Once again, it’s just to begin that dialogue. Maybe there are some legislative proposal changes on how do you incorporate the needs of the community for the safety of their residents and safety of their elders. I would just like to ask the Minister again if there is any legislative proposal changes coming up in the next year or so that may address this concern. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, within the Justice department there is numerous legislation that...Every session we do propose different legislation within our Justice department. Of course, one of them pertaining to...I’ve indicated

in the House that there is consultation that needs to take place on the SCAN legislation, the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act, that could deal with this incident that the Member is alluding to, but that is just one piece of legislation. There is other legislation that is in place that we continue to work on. If there’s room for improvement, certainly, we look at that as well.

With the legislation and the regulations that we have in place, there are amendments coming also before the Assembly as well. Every now and then we do make amendments. Certainly we take that into consideration; the Member’s concerns and issues. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary. Mr. Menicoche.

Like I indicated, another strategy, of course, would be the frequency of policing visits. Is there a policy or guideline in place about how frequent community policing takes place in the smaller communities. Like, in my riding, I’ve got Nahanni Butte, Trout Lake, Jean Marie. Is there a minimum requirement of monthly visits or anything of that nature, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we do have a protocol agreement with the RCMP on providing services into communities such as those communities that do not have detachments. It is at the discretion of the RCMP and depending on the manpower. We do stress that we need at least monthly visits to the communities, overnights if it’s possible. Those are pressures that we continue to put on the RCMP “G” Division. We continue to work with them. It all depends on their scheduling, their manpower, the RCMP officers in the region. As you know, they are always on call. Those are the issues that we need to deal with and we continue to strive that. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, the goal of our government and our department is to set new energy standards with all our public buildings across the Northwest Territories. It’s a goal that we’d like to follow through on. We have new dollars in our budget that we just passed to do a lot of work in this area. We’re doing an assessment on many buildings and we will continue to do on many more over the years. It’s the same policy that we are following to do the energy upgrades and improve the efficiency of our buildings in the housing area. The answer to the Member’s question is yes, we intend to upgrade the facilities across the Territories. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Norman Wells school has been indicated as one of the schools that could be seriously looked at. I ask the Minister of Public Works if the school is one of the seriously considered facilities that need to be upgraded, would the Minister then forward his assessments to the appropriate departments to have it looked at to have that facility upgraded?