Mr. Chair, we all agree that we owe a great debt to the RCMP who lost their lives. We also owe a great to the RCMP officers who still serve and we have an obligation to them to give them the tools and resources to work.
My riding is served by the Northeast Nova drug section. My riding is also a rural area, something like Mayerthorpe. It experiences the same risks and challenges. Recently, there were rumours that the Northeast Nova drug section was going to be disbanded. The community came together and fought against that, and at least the decision has been delayed. I would hope that the minister tonight would confirm that this decision will be reversed.
In the exploration to find out what the problem was, we discovered that the RCMP in Nova Scotia has a shortage of officers. The problem is budget; it does not have the budget. It does not have enough money to hire enough RCMP officers to do the minimum level of law enforcement in Nova Scotia.
The minister will know this because I have brought this to her attention several times. She has acknowledged that, but we need a commitment from the minister, both on the Northeast Nova drug section and also for the whole province of Nova Scotia. The RCMP must be given the absolute minimum level of RCMP officers to provide at least the minimum level of law enforcement.
Again, we owe a debt not only to those fallen officers, but we owe a debt to the RCMP officers who are there now. We must provide them with the tools, the resources, and the people to work with. If the minister could provide that assurance to Nova Scotia, we would be very grateful.