Madam Chair, the department has followed up on the program. There are some challenges. Just as a note, it is very similar to the Aboriginal Community Constable Program. There are some differences here in the Northwest Territories. We don’t have a policing act,
so having stand-alone police-type professionals in a community that weren’t under the employment or under the designation of the RCMP would be complicated because of the lack of a policing act. The program had some positive aspects, but there would also be some challenges given our radically different models of policing in Canada compared to the United States.
We are right now working with Aurora College and some Aboriginal governments and some other groups on looking at a program that we might be able to deliver through Aurora College that would give people some, not policing skills, but some justice training that they might be able to parlay into different areas, be it courts, be it corrections, or if they’re interested in going in the RCMP it would give them some skills and some knowledge that would help them in their application process. We’re looking at that as an option to help train people.
For now, the one that we know works is the Aboriginal Community Policing Program. We continue to encourage the RCMP federally to consider creating more seats there for us. We have two right now, but we will continue to push because our success on that program is quite impressive.