NWT’s Scan law ‘may not be very effective at doing much of anything’

Elements of the NWT’s proposed Scan legislation are drawing skepticism – as well as praise – as the bill moves through the House toward becoming law.

Scan stands for Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods. It is one of the tools the territorial government is looking to deploy to help curb the illicit drug trade and other criminal activity.

In the legislature last week, justice minister Jay Macdonald said the proposed bill is rooted in civil law and does not rely on seeking a criminal conviction.

Bill 49, as it is known, empowers the GNWT to “receive complaints from members of the public about rental premises where people are continually disturbing or endangering their neighbours by engaging in illegal activities like drug dealing,” said Macdonald.

“When a complaint is received, a Scan investigation is then conducted and – if the evidence supports the complaint – [the GNWT] can apply to the rental office for a community safety order to end the illegal activities at the rental premises.”

Yellowknife North MLA Shauna Morgan said that after months of study, she worries the legislation “may not be very effective at doing much of anything.”

She said while Scan could help in some situations, like banning certain people from a rental property without having to evict all tenants, the proposed law “has the potential to do real harm.”

Morgan said the legislation will move people faced with a community safety order to another location. In a best-case scenario, she said, that could bring some peace to nearby residents, but she said the evidence suggests drug crime networks are already “highly mobile.”

“Dealers might hole up in someone’s apartment today and then move on in a day or two to someone else’s place,” she said.

Morgan said the law does not consider what might happen to people removed from a home or shelter, and the territory could face a situation where “we haven’t gotten rid of the drugs or the dealers, and now we’ve made someone who’s likely addicted even more desperate.”

She said in Yellowknife, those people could end up in encampments.

Other MLAs voiced strong support for the bill, arguing residents had pressed for urgent action during community consultation about it.

“Scan doesn’t end addictions. Scan doesn’t end organized crime, the RCMP do that. Health and Social Services does that. There’s a whole bunch of holistic society-wide measures we need to put in place,” said Range Lake MLA Kieron Testart.

“But what this does is very specific. When the communities know that they have a predator in their backyard, now they have a tool to deal with it.”