Nunavut justice minister fields questions about RCMP response times

If you call the RCMP in Kugluktuk at the western end of Nunavut after regular working hours, you’ll be directed to a call centre in Iqaluit. (FILE PHOTO)

If you’re in trouble and call the RCMP for help after regular working hours or during the weekend in Nunavut, you won’t be connected to anyone at your local detachment.

Instead, you’ll talk to someone at a call centre in Iqaluit, even if you dial in from far-away Kugluktuk, at the other end of the territory.

After fielding criticism about the call centre’s shortcomings this past week, Nunavut Justice Minister Daniel Shewchuk promised MLAs March 7 that he will meet with the RCMP to try to improve how police can respond to after-hours calls.

People in Pond Inlet aren’t happy with the RCMP call centre service, Tununiq MLA Joe Enook said during March 7 committee of the whole discussions in the Nunavut legislature, asking Shewchuk whether it’s the “best service” for people in Nunavut.

The RCMP has a protocol in place to provide Inuktitut services for callers from communities during regular working hours “as much as they can,” Shewchuk told Enook.

And after-hours, calls to the Iqaluit telecom centre in Iqaluit are directed to three Inuktitut-speaking people, he said.

But Shewchuk acknowledged Enook had brought up “a good point.”

“When a unilingual caller calls in and there is nobody there that can respond back to them, it’s very, very difficult and it could be very, very important that somebody does respond back to them because there could be something very severe going on,” Shewchuk said.

And police have also had trouble with the system.

Callers need to state whether any weapons are involved, who’s at the scene, and if anyone there needs medical attention, a RCMP news release said after police in Iqaluit responded to what they thought was a routine call at 1:40 a.m. on March 1.

In that incident, officers were faced with an intoxicated man brandishing a firearm “who then discharged it,” the RCMP said March 1.

Providing this kind of information minimizes danger to police and members of the public, police said.

But Enook said he is also concerned about the length of time it takes police to respond to a call, because call centre staff take a lot of time to ask for background information before the call is forwarded and police respond.

“When people are getting questioned about who they are while they’re trying to find out all of this background information, something can happen very quickly,” Enook said.

“I don’t think there is a lot of people who just call the RCMP just to converse to say you can come by my house when you feel like it. It’s only during an emergency when we want an immediate response that we try and call the police. I believe, and a lot of people believe that this whole system has to be reviewed to ensure a speedier response.”

Akulliq MLA John Ningark, who agreed that lag time could put a big distance between residents and the detachment, also wondered what would happen if there was a communications break-down, such as the satellite fiasco that downed all telecomunications in Nunavut last October.

Shewchuk also promised to check into what the emergency protocol should be.

As the last resort in case of communications problems — the one the call centre was originally set up to avoid —“you can go and knock on their door and you can try to find them and get them for whatever situation you may need them for,” Shewchuk suggested.