Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just before lunch today I received a call from a lady, and she called to thank me for being very vocal on a number of important issues. She, like many others, felt very disappointed that the justice system has personally let her down by their recent demonstration of their lack of leadership in a system that would rather keep people in the dark than by doing their job by informing the public when an inmate is at large.

She told me, knowing that a prisoner was at large in Yellowknife for seven days made her feel, as a woman, very vulnerable and questioned who was worrying about her. I couldn’t answer that question. She wondered, like many others were wondering: was the inmate’s privacy way more important than hers? I couldn’t answer that question either.

I wish I could say this was the only conversation I’ve had on this topic, but the fact is it isn’t. The Minister keeping the public in the dark to avoid embarrassment is all the public saw, and that’s what I believe took place. People want to know: when does the public interest start to matter over an escaped inmate’s interest?

So, while the Minister is doing who knows what, citizens are asking me and telling me that they’re very uneasy about this situation. But it’s easy to keep the public in the dark, pretend it never happened, point fingers at the RCMP and say it’s not our job, it’s theirs to tell the public. What’s even more disturbing is it’s treated as if it’s not serious.

What type of offender are we talking about? Well, let’s highlight some of this stuff off the public record: impaired operation of a motor vehicle, dangerous operation of a vehicle. What about uttering threats to an RCMP constable? Failure to stop at the scene of an accident. There are more uttering threats to another individual. There are assault charges. There is unlawfully being in a dwelling. Oh my goodness, there’s another wilful obstruction of the RCMP and even conveying more threats to more RCMP constables. Oh, and I should make sure I mention, apparently being at large wasn’t his first time; he’s also had another charge at being at large unlawfully. So there is a bit of a history here.

When does it matter to inform the public? I’m standing with the public because I believe the public’s interest has certainly been denied. Offenders’ rights seem to matter more to this government, not the public. Keeping the public in the dark was a choice; it was definitely a choice. In the end were we just protecting the public’s interest? I don’t think so. We were protecting the Minister and the offender’s interest.

All I’m going to say is that I’d rather see that the inmate’s privacy rights were waived in this regard and the public shown that they matter more, because I stand with them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.