Through the Board of Governors and also the senior staff that we have, the president, the VPs, the councillors, the student support, all those mechanisms are in place and they do have e-mail addresses. The Board of Governors are there as well.

I work very closely with the Board of Governors, and I shared this very concern with them as well. They are developing a plan of action to deal with those matters. But the president of Aurora College and the VPs are always available. If there are concerns from the students, concerns from the general public or from the community, the regional perspective, they are there to represent that as well. Whenever there are issues or concerns brought to my attention, I immediately deal with it through the college venue, through the chair or the president in that matter. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, we continue to waste the public’s time on this by the defence of the status quo by this particular Minister. Section 7.(2)(a) of the Aurora College Act says, “The Minister shall determine the policy respecting the operations, programs and priorities of Aurora College”.

Mr. Speaker, stop sharing the darn concern; direct it – you have the authority, you have the power – and do it in front of everyone here today. That’s it. You could do it today. It is time he actually showed some leadership and just tell the college, you have an e-mail and you are going to be accessible to the students, because I can tell you every darn hamlet council, city council, school board trustee, I mean, the list goes on, MLAs, even senators, for goodness sakes, in Ottawa are accessible by e-mail addresses and certainly phone numbers. There is zero of that on the Aurora College website. Today is the day to be accountable and certainly useful.

I did share all that information with the Board of Governors. Mahsi.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Now, followed by my favorite phrase: Who is in charge? According to the Aurora College Act, the Minister may give direction to the board. I am not going through it again. The Minister knows this because I told him repeatedly over the years; I have even told him a couple of times today.

---Interjection

Well, if you want the question, then answer it.

Will you today have the courage to call the Aurora College president and direct an e-mail be publically provided for every single one of those board of governors so they are truly accessible, not hidden in the fray and out of touch?

We are in a position of power in this House when it comes to Cabinet Ministers, and at the same time, I am not in a position to dictate to the various organizations. We are here to work with them, work with those organizations so they can best meet the needs of the communities and best meet the needs of the students as well. I am also committed in this House that I would share that information with the Board of Governors, and they are developing a plan of action towards that to deal with those matters. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of Justice, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Operations and Communications Centre is located here in Yellowknife. It provides services to every community across the Northwest Territories. The centre currently has 21 employees, which includes four operators and one supervisor per 12-hour shift.

The OCC is able to make direct contact with at least one officer from each detachment across the Northwest Territories at all times. We have an operation that is centrally located. It’s the most cost-effective and efficient way to operate a very specialized 24/7 policing operation. Calls from communities are taken, as I mentioned, 24/7 by OCC and dispatched on a priority basis. If there is an urgent call, an RCMP officer will be dispatched. Non-urgent calls will be taken, recorded and dispatched when the next member becomes available. Urgent and priority calls are dealt with in a triage manner. There are specific OCC operators who are assigned to each area, north, south and in Yellowknife.

Establishing an OCC in other communities would be cost prohibitive due to factors such as the cost of specialized equipment, salaries, expansion of infrastructure, housing for employees and yearly operating costs. Recruitment and retention of these specialized positions is often difficult in Yellowknife and major centres across the country. Staffing these positions in smaller communities would be much more difficult as the positions are very stressful, require specialized training and high security clearances. Having administrative support in all detachments 24/7 to answer all categories of complaints would come at a very significant cost to the government. Thank you.

With that thorough answer, some of my questions are going to be almost answered. I will try to rework some of them here.

Clearly, having some form of auxiliary dispatch in communities, if not regions, I believe could better deal with language and urgency. We have just heard from the Minister that cost seems to be a prohibitive issue, but can the Minister indicate why has the department not explored this or alternative solutions for an improvement in RCMP response and wait times?

As I mentioned in my previous response, it is very difficult to recruit staff here in Yellowknife for those OCC positions because of the type of work, the specific skills required and the level of security clearance that’s required. Again, recruiting staff in smaller communities and regional centres is going to be even more difficult.

Recruitment of community members for auxiliary dispatch program could face similar or greater obstacles due to the lack of capacity in most communities, and the lack of willingness to volunteer, and high stress, high demand and occupations for no pay.

In the past, RCMP “G” Division has advertised and held career presentations in order to recruit and hire NWT residents as regular members and OCC operators with NWT official language skills. To date, the interest on this from the public has been low.

Establishing an OCC in other communities or regions would range from $1 million to $2 million, depending on the site selected and whether the centre is constructed new or whether it’s retrofitted. In addition, annual staffing and maintenance expenses would be estimated to cost well over $1 million. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, what we haven’t heard is a common theme, and that theme is language, and this has been a concern in communities where they feel that the delays in wait time are the barrier of language.

Can the Minister indicate to the House, what has improved with communication in our nine official community languages with respect to breaking down such barriers? Thank you.

To accommodate the translation needs, the department has arranged for the RCMP “G” Division members to have access to language line services, or CanTalk. It’s a 24-hour translation service for most languages, including many Aboriginal languages. In addition, OCC maintains a list of the languages spoken by “G” Division members and employees.

The RCMP “G” Division has on staff an Aboriginal person who is a recruiter specifically for the Northwest Territories. The role of the recruiter is to travel to communities and make RCMP career presentations to interested individuals. While there, there are many roles in the RCMP that are explained. The recruiter’s focus in the NWT is on regular member officers and OCC operators.

I should mention that since April of 2014 there have been 17 recruiting sessions held across the Northwest Territories in a number of communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT Native Women’s Association has challenged this Minister, has challenged his department with this call for action. Clearly, there is still concern regarding unusually long wait times with respect to RCMP calls to various communities. We have heard a very detailed forensic reply to a lot of the questions here today, but of course, there is still some concern.

What, if any, are the future steps of this government, and what is the Minister prepared to do to ensure that we can improve our response times for the public and safety of our community residents? Thank you.

The Government of the Northwest Territories is currently working with key stakeholders and industry to identify viable options for implementation of a territory-wide 911 system. This work will inform future decisions concerning 911 implementation in the Northwest Territories, and a draft implementation plan, I believe, is coming forward to this House before December of this year.

Of course, this topic is nothing new to Members. It was studied by the City of Yellowknife in 2008. The intent is to build upon that examination and to consider how we can implement such a system on a territory-wide basis. The examination will take into consideration all options involving the necessary infrastructure, resources, equipment, governance, funding, start-up and maintenance of a 911 system. A 911 response system would be part of a broader system. It is very important that we continue our efforts to strengthen civil emergency preparedness, fire protection, ground ambulance and highway rescue here in the Northwest Territories.

I may also recommend to the Regular Members, if they’re interested in a tour of the OCC and the operations facility, that we have at “G” Division here in Yellowknife. I would be more than happy to help arrange a tour of that facility for any Member that wants to take part in that tour and see the good work that the OCC puts in, in protecting our communities and our people.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

In my Member’s statement I talked about the water, and I want to ask the Minister about the water usage. The oil and gas sector has over 100 applications for water permits. We know Canada has tried to cut back on the monitoring.

Do we have the capacity to take over these positions and who are our front-line monitors? ENR has the responsibility. I wanted to ask the Minister in regard to these two questions.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have the responsibility and the capacity. Coming out of the Water Strategy that took four years to do, there were two major issues. One was get the transboundary agreements done with Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and the Yukon, and the other one was to come up with some good water monitoring, community-based water monitoring so we could do the work at the community level, work with the communities, which we’ve done, incorporated traditional knowledge, which we have done, to set up a community-based water monitoring system that would allow us to take the best equipment we can have with local folks that have been trained to gather that data so that we can start assessing and doing that water monitoring at the community level.

Specifically, I point out that there are four sites at Norman Wells, two on the Mackenzie River upstream in Norman Wells and downstream in Norman Wells by Radar Island, and two additional sites on Bosworth Creek. In addition, there are two sites at Fort Good Hope, the Mackenzie River up the Ramparts, the Rabbit Skin River. There is also one site at the Sans Sault Rapids on the Mackenzie River, one site on the Carcajou River, near the mouth, five sites at and near Tulita, the Mackenzie River at Tulita, the Great Bear River at Tulita, McKay Creek near to the mouth, Slater River at the mouth, and Bog Creek at the mouth. There is other ongoing monitoring that is associated with the enforcement of water licences and the investigation of spill activities and incidents.

That’s an impressive list of monitoring for water quality in the Sahtu. The Minister rapidly fired off 13 sites in and around the communities that are looking forward to it.

I want to ask the Minister, in our land claims under Chapter 20 is the water rights and management of the Sahtu Land Claim Agreement. Section 21.8, I believe, talks about the quality and the quantity of altering our water in the settlement area.

I want to ask the Minister, are there increases to ongoing funding to know that this provision of the chapter will be honoured and respected and enforced if need be.

There has been about $4 million spent in the Sahtu since 2013 tied to baseline information, a lot of it tied to water in different areas, which is the information I’d be happy to share with the Member. We’ve taken over

the Taiga lab from the federal government as part of devolution. That’s a $600,000 operation, and they provide a lot of critical scientific support. We have all the work done by Dr. Erin Kelly and her water staff in terms of spearheading and maintaining this community-based water monitoring. There has been an increase from the territorial government in work we’re doing not only in the Sahtu, but specifically to the Member’s question, in the Sahtu, to make sure that we can provide assurances to all the constituents and all the people that live in the Sahtu that they have some of the best water in the world coming down the river and flowing into the Mackenzie. It is a big issue. It is a big issue and we’re putting a lot of attention to this.