NWT RCMP want highway cameras, electronic monitoring for offenders

NWT RCMP have asked the territorial government to set up highway cameras, licence plate readers and electronic offender monitoring to help improve crime prevention.

At a public briefing on crime in the NWT last week, Chief Superintendent Dyson Smith told MLAs a territorial crime reduction strategy – which MLAs demanded in June – needs to be a “whole of government approach.”

“We must implement strategies that are not reliant on the RCMP,” said Smith. “What I mean by that is, if you could police your way out of this problem, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

Smith suggested highway cameras and licence plate readers are tools the GNWT should set up at the highway entrances into the territory. He said these devices could alert RCMP to stolen vehicles coming into the territory and would give police access to evidence to catch people “before they do bad things.”

Electronic monitoring equipment for offenders would help police who are already adopting “offender management” as a crime reduction strategy, he added.

Smith said RCMP officers are now assigned to prolific offenders to “monitor their whereabouts and do compliance checks,” but staffing and resource decisions mean it can be several days before an officer “notices that somebody’s not where they’re supposed to be.”

“There are certain individuals that if you can monitor them properly, it does have a significant impact on the crime rate and the communities,” said Smith.

Asked by Range Lake MLA Kieron Testart how the GNWT is implementing the approaches recommended by Smith, justice minister Jay Macdonald said it isn’t. Macdonald said he had received no request from the RCMP for these particular supports but was open to having the conversation with Smith.

During public safety town halls and at public hearings on proposed crime prevention legislation, some NWT residents have called on RCMP and MLAs to institute the likes of border checks and increased security at airports

Smith has previously said manned RCMP border checks, drug sniffing dogs at post offices, or searches at airports are limited by Supreme Court of Canada rulings requiring police “to have reasonable suspicion” before they stop and search a vehicle or mail.

Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures or arbitrary detention.

If implemented, a system of highway cameras, licence plate readers and electronic monitoring would not be RCMP-owned. Instead, Smith said, the GNWT would purchase the equipment and give RCMP access to the footage and data.

Keeping people out of jail

Regarding increased security at airports, Smith said airlines are responsible for allowing nothing illegal on their planes.

Smith did suggest changes to security at post offices will be coming soon because of upcoming federal investments into Canada Post. He didn’t describe what those improvements would be, saying he did not want to inadvertently help people circumvent them.

The chief superintendent, who is the commanding officer of NWT RCMP, also believes the territory should offer more on-the-land programs and healing camps in place of sending people who commit crimes to the North Slave Correctional Complex.

Other jurisdictions pursuing those approaches are “finding higher success rates than what we’re seeing,” Smith said.

Macdonald said setting up such programs would require engagement with community and Indigenous governments in a “holistic, collaborative approach” to decide how that work moves forward and which communities would host them.

Jolene Saturnino, an assistant deputy minister for the Department of Justice, said the GNWT is looking at Yukon’s CAR 867 program – a government and RCMP-staffed mobile crisis response team created in 2022 to respond to mental health-related calls – and what similar options are available for the NWT.

Smith said 17 percent of calls to which RCMP responded in 2025 were mental health-related and each call took about four hours on average.

He said a program similar to CAR 867 would not take RCMP away from mental health calls, because police would still have to accompany healthcare workers, but would better serve people calling for help.

Currently, if a person tells police they are suicidal and police believe there is a threat to their or another person’s safety, Smith said RCMP have to bring them into custody for a health assessment. Having healthcare workers accompany police would mean they could determine if there is a true risk to a person’s safety, he said, and connect them with resources instead of arresting them.

“We’re police officers, so we don’t have the ability to make that determination that somebody who said they’re suicidal, they really mean it,” he said, “or if they’re just frustrated and need to talk to someone.”