Mr. Speaker, I struggle with the member's tone because I actually know the facts. I live in the north and I see the reality. I have been to communities where band constables have been laid off. I have spoken to leaders who, at the last minute, at the eleventh hour, have been trying to get the federal government to the table to support their band constable program.
I will share a little anecdote. I used to teach for the University College of the North. It used to offer a policing program for band constables. As a result of a lack of government funding, funding that was cut off by the Conservative government, the program was eliminated. People who wanted to be band constables could no longer get the training to provide that service. People could not get the kind of expertise and could not be recognized as band constables as a result.
What ended up happening is that in communities like Lac Brochet, the RCMP had to shut down the trailer that was used as a holding cell because there was no band constable trained in the community to provide safety to the person in the holding cell, but more importantly to the people in the community. What ended up happening was an isolated community had to wait for a plane, if the weather was good, to come and pick up someone who had been accused of a crime, however long that might take, which put the community into a very vulnerable position.
I would welcome the member, and certainly ministers of the Crown, and members of the government to spend some time in our north and in isolated communities that depend on an RCMP service and need that support, first nations that depend on support for the band constable program. That support is clearly not there from the federal government.
If the government truly believed in building safer communities, it would invest in policing in the north the way it should be.