‘Not a lot of evidence’ that NWT Scan legislation will work, MLA says

Most Northwest Territories MLAs think the government’s newly introduced Scan legislation to combat drug dealers is a good move – or at least worth exploring.

Frame Lake MLA Julian Morse is an outlier in that respect. He was the lone MLA to vote against the Scan bill at second reading last week.

A bill goes through three readings before becoming law. Clearing second reading means the bill goes to a committee for more thorough examination.

Several MLAs who expressed reservations about Scan – which stands for Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods – nevertheless voted to advance the bill through second reading, saying study by a committee would be helpful.

Morse voted no. All 16 other MLAs voting that day voted yes.

In explaining his position, Morse told the legislature Scan is not the same as the NWT’s new Trespass Act and Civil Forfeiture Act, even though the three pieces of legislation have been presented as a package by cabinet.

Trespass and civil forfeiture legislation are common elsewhere in Canada, he said, whereas Scan is not. Even where Scan has been adopted, Morse added, the results are “mixed.”

The aim of Scan is to give the GNWT civil powers to evict people from rental properties where residents think drug dealing is happening.

A new GNWT office would be set up to take complaints, investigate them and present them to the Rental Office, which is a civil court, seeking the eviction of those deemed responsible.

The idea is that a civil court – which has a lighter burden of proof than a criminal court – will allow the GNWT to pursue action far more quickly than leaving it to RCMP and Crown prosecutors to chase cases through the criminal system.

Justice minister Jay Macdonald said the NWT’s Scan legislation is based on best practices from jurisdictions like the Yukon and Saskatchewan, where Scan already exists.

But Morse said the feedback he had seen from those jurisdictions raised red flags.

Shifting harms

He said he could find no “strong or consistent public evidence that Scan regimes have reduced drug-related crime or improved long-term community safety” elsewhere in Canada.

Residents of the NWT who used to live in jurisdictions with Scan had told Morse it had done “more harm than good,” the MLA said.

Meanwhile, he noted the GNWT’s own efforts to hear from residents had reported “strong polarization” over whether or not Scan should be adopted.

“Social service organizations and housing advocates strongly opposed Scan, while some Indigenous governments and business groups expressed strong support. Survey respondents were evenly split on whether Scan would be effective, even though most agreed that problem properties are a serious concern,” Morse told the legislature last week.

“The responses also repeatedly raised concerns that these measures may shift harms onto tenants and other vulnerable populations particularly where housing insecurity, addiction, or civil liberties concerns are already significant.”

Morse noted parts of the Yukon’s Scan legislation were ultimately ruled to be unconstitutional, with concerns raised about procedural fairness, psychological harm and the risk of homelessness.

“I have met with residents of the encampment that exists in my riding. I would note that in some cases the situations that we are talking about here with Scan are exactly what led people to be homeless,” he said.

“I think it’s important to think about that, the impacts that evicting people can have. People do end up having to go somewhere. Often it’s in things like encampments.”

‘About taking streets back’

The NWT government has previously tried and failed to enact Scan legislation.

Scan was proposed nearly 20 years ago but died at the committee stage. Regular MLAs at the time voiced a worry that it could be abused to settle scores.

“There is no safeguard in place to protect innocent people from vexatious and frivolous accusations,” Sandy Lee, then the MLA for Range Lake, said in 2007.

That’s likely to be a factor this time, too. Scan is once again billed by cabinet as offering residents the ability to confidentially report “problem residences” and then see action taken to evict the people responsible.

Despite the concern that confidential reporting could be open to abuse, MLAs who spoke about Scan last week were mostly on board.

“No one is suggesting that this is a perfect tool,” said Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins after Morse had spoken. Hawkins said he trusted a committee of regular MLAs inspecting the bill to “make it as perfect or reasonable as possible.”

George Nerysoo, the Mackenzie Delta MLA, described communities in which “everybody knows where” drug dealers live.

“Even sitting here in Yellowknife,” he said, “I get calls saying, ‘They’re at this place’ and ‘I know where they’re at.’ So we have to give the authorities more tools to deal with that … I haven’t seen it this bad before.”

Monfwi MLA Jane Weyallon Armstrong described vulnerable people in private homes being “scared for their life,” expressing hope that the bill will address that.

Morse was not alone, though, in expressing skepticism about what Scan can achieve.

“Although I hear my colleagues on this side of the House loud and clear that they want this to proceed,” said Great Slave MLA Kate Reid, “I am not certain at this point whether this legislation can live up to their expectations and how they’re looking at it to solve problems that they see.”

Before voting to advance the bill to committee, Reid added: “I think that investigation by committee can help look into those questions and reservations that I have.”