Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the mover and the seconder of the motion for bringing it forward. This is a motion which I can fully support. I’ve spoken to the issue of alcohol in my own community and in all NWT communities many times. It’s an issue which, unfortunately, is going to take very many years before it will ever go away. I suspect it won’t ever go away fully.

It’s been spoken to I think by a couple of the Members already, but alcohol is involved in, obviously, the majority of incidents that the RCMP and/or the municipal enforcement officers deal with. It takes up a huge amount of police time, and whether it just be somebody who is drunk on the streets or whether it be somebody who is drunk and then commits a crime, it’s a requirement of the police that they have to deal with it, and much of the time they’re dealing with what could be considered nuisance incidences.

This motion asks for the authority for municipal enforcement officers to be able to enforce liquor laws. Anything that is going to assist the RCMP and allow them to get away from having to handle nuisance calls, for instance, it will allow them to deal with the bigger crimes, which certainly happen all too frequently, unfortunately.

The motion asks that the authority be provided for municipal enforcement officers to be able to enforce liquor laws. It does not require that all communities will have to take part on that. It simply will give authority and it will be there for those communities who wish to take part, those that have municipal

enforcement officers and that they wish to expand that scope of practice of those officers.

I recognize that there are legislative requirements that would be required, and that again goes to what the motion is asking. The motion is asking for this to be looked into, to determine what kind of legislative amendments need to be made, to determine all the parameters around making this change and we can then determine whether or not it’s something that we should go forward with. The fact that this is asking for a discussion of the issue is something that I fully support. It’s not demanding that we do this, but it’s asking us to look at it. Hopefully, it will turn out for the positive and then a community like mine, who has municipal enforcement officers, will be able to take advantage of that extra authority and improve the like, so to speak, in my community. Thank you.