EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
And also for the safety in E-1 on the Introduction, the Department of Justice for the RMCP to try and meet the needs to met the needs of their own safety, out on the land also.
I know that some RCMP goes out on the land to go caribou hunting at times when they stay long enough on the community.
Not only caribou hunting but they also go fishing too.
And sometimes even in the springtime, or in the summer, the weather can get bad very quickly.
The weather can change very quickly.
So, some of the RCMP needs training.
I’m wondering if the minister can do something about getting such training for the new comers to take for their safety out on the land?
We do work with the RCMP, but they are a stand alone and we’ve been trying to recruit Inuit so that there could be an increase in the Inuit among the ranks of the RCMP.
I can tell you what might happen.
The RCMP, after an incident, did a review and I stated that there should be two RCMP constables in each community and that has been implemented to date.
In my community there is a young fellow who just graduated not long ago.
He is working as a community constable.
I’m wondering if this young person can go out on training to get better training before they can, he can start arresting people about in the communities because if you have to think of their safety too.
If they just start with the department they have to know more.
I don’t know if this young person went to for a training to become an RCMP or Community Constable.
But, I’d like to see that they go out and get better training too.
That is what we are doing at this point, and it is very interesting to hear it from you.
The RCMP will be conducting training here in Iqaluit, which is good news.
We use to have to send out the individuals who wanted to become RCMP members down south, but we will be training them up here now.
I’d like to thank you too, Minister of Justice and also your staff for showing up here.
I want to begin by asking the minister of this government: what’s the government’s official position on the federal plans to move towards decriminalization of certain amounts of marijuana?
I responded to this question earlier.
What the law enforcement wants to do is to decriminalize it but the individual will have to pay a fine.
Nothing has changed with the drug dealers and they are also increasing the fines for those types of crimes.
I don’t fully understand that.
If somebody had drugs in their pocket and if it was of a small amount, for example, if the minister was a drug dealer or a pusher and I bought a small quantity and put it in my pocket, the RCMP wouldn’t be able to charge me, and if I was seen passing that to another individual, nothing would happen to me.
As the Government of Nunavut, I think we can make a statement to the federal government and let them know that we oppose this.
When a community is prohibited in alcohol, an individual, if found with liquor, is charged under that Act.
We are opposed to the selling of illicit drugs.
Maybe what we should do is to increase the number of police dogs in order to combat this problem.
I am sorry that our Premier responded as he did.
When I first became a Member of the Legislative Assembly, he supported me when I asked to have that police dog come visit our community.
I thank you very much.
My question is in what way does the department cooperate with the RCMP in fighting illegal drug use?
Thank you. (interpretation) I asked this question before, but I keep asking it, Mr. Chairman.
In regards to the sale of illicit drugs, we are opposed to it and we don’t want to see it in Nunavut anywhere.
Nobody benefits from it.
We would support the federal government if they wanted to increase the fines and the length of jail time.
When there was a request to increase the amount for the department, we supported it.
We have meetings, at times, with the RCMP to discuss how we can have a close working relationship, and the RCMP themselves are doing a review on how they can improve their policing system here in Nunavut.
My next question is, could you elaborate further on this training program.
Chairman: Minister Okalik.
In regards to the Constable Program, they are of a higher level than the by-law officers.
I don’t know exactly what type of training it will be but it will be an avenue for individuals to become real officers.
Mr. Netser (interpretation): That’s it for now.
Mr. Alagalak (interpretation): Just for further clarification.
First of all, I would like to recognize Thomas Suluk, who is in the Interpreter/Translator Program.
He is in the Legal Interpreting Program.
We’ve been having ongoing problems in Nunavut about the RCMP, or if there was a problem with families or with children, the communities prefer to go through the restorative system.
I’m not exactly sure how it works.
What was the limit if they have to be sent through the legal system or through the Justice Committees?
What types of offences fit into which criteria?
We’re on E-7.
I think the blizzard is not due until tomorrow so you’re not lost yet.
There are three levels of systems that are used in a community.
If a criminal action is taken, they would have to go through the RCMP and then the social services and then again, we have the Justice Committees established in the communities and then the law enforcement, themselves.
If it is necessary, all these entities are used and there is no agreement on which entity is responsible for what.
It seems like it’s an oral understanding.
Is there a policy on which responsibilities will be taken by the RCMP, the social services, the Justice Committees, and who would be responsible depending on the type of crime or service that is required.
Could you give me a better idea of how the system works?
Mr. Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Alagalak.
These are stated clearly on what authority they have within the agreement.
As to when these entities can intervene, there are agreements that are made with the Justice Committees.
If you want further clarification I can even provide you with the copy of the Agreement.
Mr. Chairman (interpretation): Mr. Alagalak
I am not requesting a copy but I believe when you said that there is a copy of the agreement but when the parents, especially the parents or grandparents, if their children did something wrong they have no understanding to what is happening to their children, if there going to be handled by court, where they have to get a lawyer from and the Social Services, Justice and RCMP.
A lot of times the parents or family get worried.
I believe that there should be something made available indicating, not just oral understanding, as to how far they can go.
Thank you Premier Okalik, and Mr. Chairman
Mr. Chairman (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Alagalak, I don’t think this was question but Mr. Okalik if you wish to respond.
The contents are different, the agreement with the Justice Committee on how they can be dealt with.
And if something arises outside the Agreement, the parents have to be notified if there under age.
So those some of the contents, it depends on the seriousness of the crime that was committed.
Mr. Chairman (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Minister.
The RCMP in V Division, if there was a request from another jurisdiction for their assistance, especially dealing with drugs, I don’t know if they grow drugs here, but if such a request, because we know the illegal drugs from down south, I wonder if the V Division members have the authority to go outside of Nunavut to another jurisdiction if there was to be an investigation.
Do they have that power?
Mr. Chairman (interpretation): I’m only a Chairman, Mr. Kattuk.
There is a general agreement, especially if there is an investigation from other jurisdictions like Quebec or Ontario and they have an ongoing communication if they suspect that there might be shipments from those Southern jurisdictions to Nunavut.
We are in the process of getting an agreement where there can be exchanges, where the members can actually travel down to make their jobs easier.
That is very interesting to hear.
If they require assistance, if the Justice Department is requesting any kind of assistance from the Legislative Assembly, I’m in full support of them because this is a very important department.
It’s really reassuring to hear those kinds of comment.
This is not question, just a comment.
Hon. Paul Okalik (interpretation): It’s just a comment, so I cannot really respond.
We’re on Law Enforcement.
We don’t have a quorum so we can’t really vote on this.
We’re on page E-7.
Total operations and maintenance. $20,052,000.
Chairman: Justice Branch Summary.
It goes onto E-9.
E-9.
Total Operations and Maintenance. $4,314,000.
Chairman (interpretation): Turn the page to E-10.
Justice Branch.
E-10.
Justice Branch Summary.
Total Operations and Maintenance, $2,351,000.
Chairman (interpretation): Turn to page E-11.
Total Operations and Maintenance, $6,958,000.
Chairman (interpretation): Turn to page E-12 and E-13.
Corrections and Community Services.
I would just like to ask the minister to give me an update on how many community corrections officers that he has planned to hire in the coming fiscal year?
We know that the community corrections officers.
As I understand, most communities should have a community corrections officer, but some communities have social workers who are performing community corrections officer duties, and I believe, I don’t have the information in front of me, but the minister indicated in his response to a Written Question that they were going to be hiring some more community corrections officers to help supervise people that are on probation when they come back to the communities from jail or remand centres.
Looking at the number of people who are on probation, the number is increasing because there are a lot of people that are on probation.
In Cambridge Bay, Mr. Minister, we have one community corrections officer, and I believe that she might have a workload as many as 80 to 85 people on probation.
That’s quite stressful for looking after that.
It might be more in some of the other communities in our region.
One of the problems we have in situations like that is when those people have to leave town the community corrections officer, for vacations or training.
We don’t have anyone there to supervise them, then the responsibility falls to a social worker, if there’s no social worker, then the responsibility falls to an RCMP officer.
So, you have that situation where the social worker eventually ends up supervising them.
I think a lot of people will agree with me, that’s not a very good situation where you have social workers and RCMP officers having to supervise people on probation because they are the ones that probably investigated the incidents and testified at their trials.
It would be better if you had a community corrections officer or a probation officer doing that.
Where you have larger caseloads, certainly in the case in Cambridge Bay, it would be good to have two to three persons doing that.
I am sure it’s the same in the other communities, Mr. Chairman.
So I am just trying to get an idea of how many additional community corrections officers you are planning to hire over and above what you currently have in the various communities in Nunavut.
To date, it has been based on the number of cases, and unfortunately for the member, his community is, for some reason, the busiest in terms of probation orders, and I guess too many criminals in his riding, unfortunately, but I don’t want to say that.
But it’s based on caseload, and we recognize that in Cambridge Bay they do need help.
We will be advertising soon for an additional probation officer.
It’s the highest next to Iqaluit, and we realize that there needs to be some help there, but in other communities, the caseload level is not very high, so it’s difficult to justify a probation officer that will not have much to do, in a lot of cases.
So, for now, we base it on case load but it is something that if we can find additional money that we can use but we’ve been lobbying the national government for additional funding but not just us but the other parts of our country have similar problems in this area.
Thank you, Mr. Minister for that response.
It is good to hear that you are planning to hire an additional person in Cambridge Bay.
I’m sure that there is probably a few more communities that have people that need supervision based on RCMP report I read last weekend, Mr. Netser commented on a couple of weeks ago.
One of the situations that we encountered in Cambridge Bay and again I’m sure it happens elsewhere is we have dangerous offenders, violent offenders who are returning to communities and of course the judges place them on probation.
They have to live by certain conditions.
Some of these fellows are very dangerous and very violent and they have community corrections officers who have to supervise them.
And I’m wondering if the Minister could comment on what kind of regulations his department makes or criteria they have in place for protective services to assist these community corrections officers when they supervise dangerous and violent offenders who return to our communities.
That has become an issue nationally. So, there was an agreement a legislation that was introduced and it became effective in December I believe, and we’ll be signing a formal agreement with the national government to make sure that we all know when there is dangerous offenders coming into the communities and that we take extra precautions in those instances.
So, we look forward to a formal agreement, hopefully in the next couple of weeks or months.
What type of extra precautions would the department take to protect their community corrections officers when they are supervising dangerous and violent offenders who are returning to the community?
Hon. Paul Okalik: For us, it is for territory only.
But we do have to work together with the national government and keep each other informed of any offenders that may pose a risk to the communities.
So that is something that we will work with.
Currently we have Parole Officers only here in Iqaluit, I believe.
So, for federal offenders is something that we’ll have to work on in the future.
I wanted to just say that I don’t have a question here.
I just want to comment on a corrections and I’m in support of on the land camp youth facilities.
I mentioned earlier on, that I had worked with the RCMP, as a guard, when I was working for the RCMP a couple of years ago.
Just to let you know, the young offenders were always happy to get out of the community.
As a guard I used to escort young offenders from my community to Yellowknife and then next day from Yellowknife to here.
And, they are always very happy.
Free trips, good meals, nothing to do in the facilities I guess.
Just when I got elected last year, Judge Brown had wanted to talk to me because there was quite a few young offenders from Kugluktuk and here in Young Offenders’ Facility.
And I had told her that there’s so many times I had to escort young offenders here, and they love those free trips.
So I told her that I think it might be best to try and have a young offender’s camp outside of the communities, because rather than having a free trip, get them a free ride down, out in the land and keep them out there and let them learn the Inuit way of living and hunting.
That’s one of the good things because if they don’t further educate themselves, what are they going to do?
Are they going to continue doing these things, so really we have to find something for them to do?
Let them learn how to trap and fish, and trying to prepare some meat food for the communities.
Those are the things that I had mentioned to Judge Brown.
I think these kind of things will really help the young offenders.
You had mentioned to me, Minister Okalik, you mentioned to me that you and I will be heading down to Kugluktuk for the opening of the Men’s Healing Facility, and by that time maybe after that, we can have a public meeting, and the public wanted to ask you some questions whether that facility was safe to the public or not.
I had mentioned to my constituents that, I don’t think these criminals will be staying in this place.
The Men’s Healing Facility.
Just maybe we can arrange a meeting with the hunters and trappers cause they’re the ones that are holding that little camp, they wanted to build a camp in one area but the hunters and trappers said not in this area because it is one of our good hunting areas.
So they had suggested another area again, others would be saying we don’t want young offenders camping near our cabin, hunting areas.
I guess we have to let them know that the young offenders won’t be wandering around by themselves, they’ll be looked after 24 hours, we had mentioned that.
I think if you and I get down to Kugluktuk, and also your Deputy, I’m sure that you’ll be giving them better information and I hope this building would go up in the summer or this spring.
Right now the material is still sitting in Kugluktuk, and not going anywhere because the hunters and trappers and also the people of Kugluktuk are saying that they don’t want to see a Young Offenders’ Facility near their camp.
But we had mentioned to them that there not going to be wondering around, all the snowmobiles, everything will be looked after, everything will be secured, there be supervisors, nobody’s going to be wondering around without supervisors, and we mentioned that already.
I just wanted to bring that up just before maybe by April, when we’re going to head there.
That’s what I wanted to bring up.
Mr. Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. Mr. Evyagotailak.
I think that was a comment.
Mr. Minister you have any comments to his comments.
Hon. Paul Okalik: I’m very excited that there’s a possibly a camp opening up in Kugluktuk.
I want to assure everyone that these outpost camps are very effective, and they do not pose a threat to any other camp.
The people operating have to get training through our offices, so these are success stories that we should encourage, it doesn’t matter where.
Right now we only have five, and it would be great to see more in all the communities.
And it’s providing income to the families as well that operate these camps so it’s a good news story for everyone all around.
We’re on Justice. Branch Summary. Corrections and Community Justice.
Total Operations and Maintenance, $17,050,000.
Chairman: Turning the page to E-14.
Human Right’s Tribunal.
I just want to support my colleague from Nanulik on his question about the Human Right’s Tribunal.
I just wondered have there been people hired for the Human Right’s Tribunal in Coral Harbour.
We dealt with this in November.
There is an individual that is here right now until the building is put up and shipped to Coral Harbour and built over there.
We have an individual who is working for the Human Right’s Tribunal but is stationed here in Iqaluit.
After everything is finished we will move him or her to Coral Harbour.
Okay, I will let Mr. Netser ask questions seeing that he is here.
Can you answer my questions, Mr. Minister?
Like I mentioned that we had to do the Human Right’s Tribunal in legislation in November.
It was completed and they have to have an office in Coral Harbour.
So what we did was to place that individual in Iqaluit until the shipment of the building materials have gone to Coral Harbour and the building is built. When the building is done, then that individual that is working here in Iqaluit will be moved there.
Okay, I’m wide awake.
Chairman (interpretation): We’re on page E-14.
I have a question on page E-18.
Can we ask questions from E-18?
Chairman (interpretation): When we get to that page, can you ask your questions because we only have a few pages left.
We’re on page E-14.
Aren’t they all the same pages from page E-18 onto the last page?
The minister and his staff did those so he can tell us if the pages relate to each other.
We’re on page E-14 and Mr. Mapsalak asking if E-14-19 are all related.
No they are not related.
E-14.
I am starting to get wide awake, so therefore I would like to ask a question.
The staff that will be in the Coral Harbour office once it’s up and running and the officer I’m sure will have to go to Coral Harbour.
Will that officer be able to train the students or teach the students.
Would this individual be able to train an individual to take over his or her position.
That’s exactly what we want to see and we want to plan on that.
The director is just there for the interim.
He doesn’t mind if he goes to that community and there are going to be three staff in that office.
Two will be full time employees and they will be training the residents on the process of that.
I’m very excited to hear that.
We’ll expect those people to come in.
We are on Department of Justice, Branch Summary.
Total operations and maintenance, $589 thousand.
Although they are information items.
Work on behalf of others.
Detail of work on behalf of performed on behalf third parties.
E-15, 16, 17, 18 and 19.
Those are information items.
Mr. Kattuk (interpretation): On E-18, under Inuit recruitment, there is a huge reduction in the line item.
I was wondering what the reason is, Mr. Chairman.
He asked a question on E-18, Minister Okalik.
The funding that we received from the federal government has been reduced, but the Government of Nunavut provides more assistance.
The additional support that you provide, where can we find it, on which line item.
They are under the Policing, although it doesn’t state how much the increase is, it’s in the $91 thousand under law enforcement and will provide operating funds.
It’s on E-18, I am not too sure.
In regards to my colleague, Mr. Barnabas, the issue he raised, some couples are given peace bonds when they don’t get along together, and the wife is sent away to a shelter outside of the community.
If they don’t send away the women to a shelter, they are given a peace bond, and then their parents take on their daughter.
This causes a problem and it’s not good to see it happen.
Many people have discussed this matter to me, especially from my constituency.
Our communities would like to see a safe shelter for the spouses because when they are given peace bonds, the couple are not supposed to see each other, and the parents are told they are not supposed to see each other because of the peace bond.
This creates a lot of problems and they just give all of these problems to the parents.
So that has been happening.
I was wondering if you have considered, although I raised it last year during the Session, perhaps the minister, if he ever considered having safe shelters in the communities.
Yes, we do want to look into this further, and this was being dealt with in Rankin Inlet.
This project has had assistance and benefits to the communities, but once we find out that it’s beneficial to the community, then we could start expanding it to the other communities.
So that’s why we want to review it again, and my colleague, Mr. Tapardjuk, will set aside some funds to utilize Inuit values and traditions in dealing with this.
So, I will be working with him along that line to deal with this issue and to follow-up on your remarks.
We want to utilize the values and traditions of Inuit.
I am very happy to hear that; we have been anticipating this for a long time, and we definitely need a safe shelter, and we definitely need safe shelters in all of the communities of Nunavut.
I am sure this government will realize that we definitely need safe shelters.
So we will go back to page E-4. (interpretation ends) Justice Department Summary.
Total Operations and Maintenance. $54,598,000.
Chairman: Are we agreed that the Department of Justice is concluded?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Okalik and your officials for appearing before the Committee.
Your points and comments are well taken, and we will be sensitive to your comments.
It’s evident that we are slowly moving towards the wishes of the people of Nunavut, but it’s rather slow.
Thank you, my colleagues and you, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Okalik, Ms. Sykes and your other officials.
Since you agreed, we will move onto the Department of Finance. (interpretation ends) I would now like to ask Minister Aglukkaq of Department of Finance to make her opening remarks.