Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I certainly won't need 20 minutes to speak on this one. I am supportive of the -- similar to kind of some previous speakers, I'm supportive of the general intent of this motion though I don't think the details, implications, and a full understanding of how it can be successfully implemented have been thought out at this time. However, I would note that there are several models already being implemented in neighboring jurisdictions so we can learn from and borrow from their experience.
Mr. Speaker, the Yukon has a program like this. There's programs in numerous cities across North America. So I would just encourage the government in responding to this motion to do research to ensure that any solutions brought forward are evidence-based, as I like to emphasize for virtually everything that we do, and just ensure that we are putting solutions in place which are right-sized for our territory, for our communities, and which we have seen through, you know, investigations into evidence that they will be effective and not have negative unintended consequences.
Mr. Speaker, I do want to kind of acknowledge that a large percentage of calls fielded by RCMP are noncriminal matters. And that's something that I heard a lot from the RCMP when I was on council. They would come and present to us often. And probably one of the most impactful meetings I had was with a previous head of the RCMP that came to council and actually asked us for a meeting in private to encourage us to invest in social services and invest in social solutions to so many of the problems that we see manifesting on the streets because his message to us is simply that we are not going to police our way out of this problem. And coming from the head of the RCMP, that was a really powerful message that I have kept in mind going forward in the work that I do in governance.
So I want to emphasize that a lot of the calls that RCMP are receiving are noncriminal matters, and they are better handled by our social services and health care providers. So this is not just limited to mental health crises. So I just want to note -- I'm not going to list everything, but let's be expansive in our considerations for implementation of a program like this, let's ensure that -- again, I just emphasize the need for evidence-based policy making and decision-making. So I'll leave my comments at that. I do support the general intent of the motion and for that reason, I'll stand in support of it today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.