Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on January 30th the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police signed a three-year public safety cooperation protocol that will benefit communities throughout the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.

This protocol was created to establish a trusting relationship between the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and the RCMP to support public safety initiatives in our communities.

Mr. Speaker, community policing is a demanding job. It takes special skill to work in remote Arctic communities. The Beaufort Delta has some of highest rates of family violence and suicide in the country. The future of children, youth, women, men, and elders requires safe, secure, and stable communities.

Mr. Speaker, this protocol was established to prevent situations and community crises and resolve problems at the earliest possible opportunity. It will help identify community liaison people to share information and suggestions to avoid or resolve conflict and crisis in Inuvialuit communities.

Mr. Speaker, detachment commanders will develop community plans, and officers will learn about the cultural values and sensitivities of people they work with. A joint training program will help both parties acquire knowledge and skills to apply lessons learned from past incidents to manage crises and prevent harm more effectively.

Mr. Speaker, respect for Indigenous people is essential to this protocol. It recognizes alternative justice processes that in some cases may be more meaningful to help people involved in an incident than the conventional criminal justice system.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the Inuvialuit and the RCMP have taken this important step in improving public safety in our communities. We hope it will serve as an example for other Indigenous governments and enhance future work between the parties. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Members' statements. Member for Hay River North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, recently Yellowknife Tourism announced that they were giving away 150 trips to the Northwest Territories. Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, I misspoke. NWT Tourism announced that it was giving away 150 trips to Yellowknife; well, 93 per cent of them to Yellowknife, anyways.

In a way, it is almost hard to blame them. If I wanted to fly return from Hay River to Edmonton next week, it would cost around $1,400. It would cost half that if I was to fly out of Yellowknife. If I book a couple weeks in advance, a return flight to Edmonton from Yellowknife is a third the cost of one from Hay River. That’s the norm for southern destinations. To put it another way, in the next two weeks, there are days that it is actually cheaper to fly return from Yellowknife to Beijing than Hay River to Edmonton. Although Hay River is the rail, road, and river hub of the territory, Yellowknife is the air hub, so I understand that flights out of the capital would be cheaper, but it should not cost two to three times as much to fly out of the territories' second-biggest community.

These costs do not just apply to flights to the South. If I wanted to fly return from Yellowknife to Hay River in the next couple of weeks, it would cost me around a thousand dollars. That’s almost 10 times more than it costs to drive. I can understand why the proposed airport improvement fees are of concern to Yellowknifers. They have become accustomed to reasonably priced flights. For those of us from Hay River, that is about a 2 per cent increase. That is not our concern. Our concern is the $1,000 for a 25-minute flight.

Mr. Speaker, not only does the cost of airline tickets make it prohibitive for almost everyone in Hay River to fly anywhere, it virtually guarantees that none of the 30,000 tourists who fly into Yellowknife every year will make the trip to Hay River.

The only entity that appears to be able to afford to fly elsewhere in the Territory is the GNWT. Now, I believe that a fair and free market should determine prices, but preferential policies and agreements for government and medical travel are distorting the market, and those of us outside Yellowknife are the ones who bear the brunt of the negative effects of these policies.

Mr. Speaker, this has been a problem for far too long. This is one of those issues that is too big for a two-and-a-half-minute Member's statement. We are just scratching the surface, so consider this part one of many on this topic and stay tuned for much more. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Members' statements. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Range Lake.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to formally recognize Ms. Sharon Firth in the visitors' gallery today. Ms. Firth, a four-time Olympian and Order of Canada recipient, was recently named a Canada 150 Ambassador by the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the Honourable Melanie Joly. Canada 150 Ambassadors are being asked to connect with Canadians all across the country and contribute to creating positive legacies for years to come and make 2017, the year of the 150th anniversary of confederation, a defining year for all Canadians. Thank you, Sharon. We look forward to your contributions to this important project and to the exciting Canada 150 celebration events that will take place across the NWT and Canada. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to recognize Sharon Firth, Ian Legaree and Don Moses. I think the Minister of MACA brought him here, besides recognizing Sharon, to stop me from asking questions today, so I will recognize him and I will be nice to her, as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize Cindy Jarvis, a resident of Yellowknife. It is her first time in the House today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Nunakput.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to welcome my friend Sharon Firth to the gallery. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. If we are missing anyone in the public in the gallery, welcome to our proceedings. It's always great to have an audience. Masi. Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Justice. As I just mentioned, the rate of sexual assault complaints that are dismissed by police as unfounded is almost twice the rate in the NWT as it is nationally. The Yukon Government has mounted a robust response to the rates of unfounded sexual assault complaints, including training police and court workers in updated interview techniques, recruiting more women officers, funding specialized police work and victim services, and ensuring JP's are regularly retrained on emergency protection orders. What kind of response can we expect from the Minister? Thank you.

Masi. Minister of Justice.

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I had the opportunity to read the excellent story in The Globe and Mail several weeks ago. The Globe gathered its analysis from 870 police jurisdictions and found there was a very large number of claims that were dismissed as unfounded across the country. It was between the various numbers, but generally it was between one and five, or 20 per cent of claims had been dismissed as unfounded. It has been found also, and I read this in the story, that looking at independent research from around the world only 2 to 8 per cent of these claims are actually false.

It was also surprising to see the wide variation in the number of claims that had been dismissed from as low as 2 per cent in the City of Winnipeg to a high of 36 per cent in Yellowknife. Even more surprising was that sometimes adjoining police forces had very different statistics. While there may be some issues as to how the information was gathered, the statistics are clearly very disturbing.

As a result of this study, the various police forces across the country, including the RCMP, have re-evaluated procedures. I can advise that I have met with the commanding officer here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate that the Minister read the article, but he did not respond to my question. So I'm going to ask again what he is going to do as Minister to bring these unfounded sexual assault complaints down. There are a number of very specific practical actions that are being taken by his counterpart in the Yukon, where the police are also on contract to address this problem directly beyond just having a meeting. What is his response?

I simply wanted to give some background before I entered into a discussion with the Member opposite about what the RCMP here are doing. I'm pleased to advise that, in my meeting with the commanding officer, he advised me that all sexual assault files from the period 2010 to 2014 were being reviewed. As I mentioned, it was found in the Globe and Mail study approximately 36 per cent of the cases were dismissed or found to be unfounded.

Now, this is at the investigatory stage, not at the court stage. A closer examination of the figures, that figure of 36 per cent, the RCMP found that 21 per cent were actually found to be unfounded. The other 15 per cent was found that it was insufficient evidence to proceed to court. So they did a careful examination of the many files over the last five years.

I appreciate all the homework the Minister has done on this topic, but I'm not hearing a robust response to these findings beyond what the RCMP has already committed to do itself, which is to review all of those unfounded cases. I'm not hearing he is going to take proactive response to what is clearly a crisis in sexual assault complaints here in the NWT as it is across the country.

In addition to what I've already mentioned with the police reviewing all of these cases, it has been decided that new policies are required so that if a file is found to be unfounded by the investigator all of those files will now be reviewed by a senior officer. So the police are doing something. In addition, they are increasing their training in this area to further sensitize investigators to this issue.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and, Mr. Speaker, that's excellent news. I think the other side of this is to make sure that police officers have better training to deal with complaints as they come in. I'm wondering if the Minister can tell us what changes might be made in training police officers to respond to sexual assault complaints. Mahsi.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can advise that there will be additional training provided to investigators. As recently as January there was some additional training provided. So the police are very aware of this issue. Additional training will be provided, and hopefully the rather shocking figure that has been mentioned by the Member opposite will decrease. I can advise the police are treating this matter very seriously.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.