Madam Chair, the crime stats with the alcohol in the Sahtu in the last year, I want to ask the Minister. I appreciate that Tulita is going to get an extra RCMP and they are going to get a victims crime service worker. I’ve talked to some of the RCMP members. They are pretty well worked. They certainly provide, from eye-witness accounts and speaking to them, there is a lot of business. It is pretty heavy. They are doing a good job with the resources they have. I want to ask the Minister, in his analysis, research, has the Minister seen an increase with the crimes associated with alcohol abuse or alcohol. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In the Sahtu, from 2011 to 2012 there was a noticeable increase in activity in the Sahtu. I don’t have the statistics in saying how many of them were alcohol related, but it’s interesting that the increase comes at a time of two things happening in the Sahtu. One, the increased activity, which can be significant, and the other being the changes in the rules around the Norman Wells liquor store. Those two things both happened roughly at the same time, so it’s hard to truly quantify what the increased rate in crime is. We feel that much of it is probably related to the activity and the money that’s available in the communities, which is one of the reasons that we have decided to put an additional officer in Tulita.

We need to work with communities. We’ve got community policing plans, which we think are fantastic, but people have to take some personal responsibility and work with the RCMP and help us identify when people are bringing alcohol or other substances into the communities. People have to be willing to talk to the RCMP so that they know when it’s coming in so that they can intercept. We have been having some pretty good luck this year. I’ve shared with the Member a significant amount of photos and reports on the amount of booze that’s been confiscated and kept off the streets in the

Sahtu region and I think some of that is as a result of community people taking some responsibility and involving themselves in the solution, and we need to see more of that.

I also have some information, as I indicated, that the increase of liquor sales from the Minister of Finance, or the liquor revenue commission report shows an increase of liquor sales in the Sahtu. Combine that with the activity that’s happening in the Sahtu, the amount of people coming in and the lifting of the liquor store rations are significant contributing factors to the crime associated with alcohol.

Any newspaper in the Northwest Territories, you look at it and you always say, the amount of crimes with liquor is high, 85 percent or higher, or drugs. So that tells me something. So I’m really happy the Minister is responding with extra RCMP. I can work on the other stuff later on, but I wanted to tell the Minister I’m happy. In talking to the Members, it’s good to have additional support. Even in Tulita it would be nice to have a steno working in the office. We’re talking to the members and they’re busy. They’ve got to answer the phone and they’ve got to be nice after 13- or 14-hour shifts and then they’ve got to write up their reports. So we need some administrative support for them because it’s going to get incredibly busy and the Minister knows. He’s travelled with me in the Sahtu and we certainly appreciate that, what he heard and how he communicated with the people, and this is only the beginning.

So I want to leave it at that, and I look forward to continuing to work with the Minister on different types of options that we can have for Colville Lake. It’s unacceptable in this day and age to have 11 or 12 communities without RCMP members. So I look forward to the federal government to come up with some funding because our communities do not have RCMP members, and I will continue with the Minister to work on these types of initiatives. Safety first, safety first, safety first. I think I can get that through to the government and we could make a significant amount of progress if we were to establish an RCMP in our communities that do not have an RCMP. So I’ll save the rest for my Member’s statement and I’ll continue consistently to put up my little sign and say more RCMP in the communities without RCMP. We should not be any different. We need equalization.

That’s what I’m going to say and I want to thank the Minister for taking his time out and travelling with me in the Sahtu. We appreciate that. We appreciate the government coming along with Minister Ramsay. Other Ministers have come, and I’m hoping the other ones are planning to come. People want to see you in the region. They want to see our Premier, they want to see other people in our region. That’s what it’s all about in this government.

So I’ll save the rest for my Member’s statement, Madam Chair. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Did you wish to comment, Minister?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Noted, and we look forward to working with the Member, with committee, with communities and with the RCMP to find solutions to these issues as we move forward.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Committee, we’re on page 9-21, Justice, activity summary, policing services, operations expenditure summary, $40.856 million.

Page 9-23, Justice, activity summary, legal aid services, operations expenditure summary, $6.141 million.

Thank you, committee. Page 9-24, Justice, information item, legal aid services, active positions. Questions?

Page 9-27, Justice, activity summary, court services, operations expenditure summary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to follow-up with the Minister a little bit on the wellness court, the mental health court. Obviously, the Minister remembers passing a motion in the House for a mental health court in the 16th Assembly and we were led, by the Minister of Justice at that time, to understand work was underway. Now again we’ve passed a similar motion in the House and work is underway again here. My understanding is that a feasibility study will be completed this 31st , March. I’d like to know is

this done in concert with Health and Social Services and will it provide direction should the conclusion be approved to put in place a court, will it provide direction on what’s required to put such a court in place? Mahsi.

Thanks, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The feasibility study is scheduled to be completed by March 31st . I’ve had discussions

about the early draft that’s out there that’s within the department being worked on by the committee, which includes Health and Social Services, Justice and Education, Culture and Employment are also participating. I’m really close to taking that to Cabinet. Once it’s gone through Cabinet we’ll be bringing it to committee for discussion and about how we move forward, and the exact things the Member is talking about is the discussion we’re going to have to have once we’ve got all the

information in front of people and how we’re going to move forward, which model we’re going to choose and how we’re going to do that over the ‘14-15 business planning so that we have something ready for the next time we’re sitting here.

Thank you. Obviously, the Minister has a different time frame in mind than I do, but I’m not going to go there. Has this work been done internally or is it through contract work, the feasibility study? Thank you.

It’s been done with the committee internally. It’s several different departments led by the Department of Justice. We have had an opportunity to look at models in different jurisdictions, learn about those models, get as much information as we can, look at what capacity may exist in the Northwest Territories, where we might have some complications, where we will need to do additional work to make this a reality in-house.

Thank you and that’s great. I like to hear that. So what jurisdictions have found these courts to be not very good and tossed them out? Thank you.

None that I am aware of. They’ve had challenges. They’ve all experienced some degree of growing pains as they’re making these things become a reality and we’re trying to learn what some of those challenges were for them so that we don’t have to live through the same types of pains should we choose to accept the model. I will point out that I would say there’s no two models that are the same out there and we, as a territory, I think we say it over and over again, we’re unique in many ways. So we want to make sure that the model that is applied here works for here. So we want to learn from the challenges that others have experienced.

That sounds like a wise course, they learned by doing it, and that’s what I want to see. So if the Minister had the resources, would he get going earlier? Sorry, I withdraw that, hypothetical. I’ll leave it at that, Madam Chair. Thank you.

We’re doing the work; we will come to committee. With committee, we will talk about how to move forward. We will get something done in the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Bromley has no further questions. Page 9-27, Justice, activity summary, court services, operations expenditure summary, $11.803 million.