Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It has been several years since Hay River has had a full-time resident judge and remand in its South Mackenzie Correctional Centre, SMCC. It was not too long ago that we had a full-time judge that lived in Hay River, that worked in Hay River and travelled around the South Slave doing work for Justice. Along with that judge came remand, inmates that were waiting on trial. Several years ago the Department of Justice, in their wisdom, decided to remove remand out of Hay River and centralize Yellowknife. We’re very concerned with this. There are a lot of extra costs for travel. We’re shipping inmates up to Yellowknife, waiting for their trials, holding them here in Yellowknife as opposed to closer to home and dealing with Justice in the territory, in the South Slave territory.

We have added pressure on our RCMP who have to travel with these inmates. We are concerned that the next step is to centralize everything back into Yellowknife with our justice system. We need to get back the justice system in the South Slave and in the Hay River area. I will have questions for the Minister of Justice on how we get back Hay River’s judge and the remand.