Mr. Chairman, the previous capital items that were included were put there by the previous department that was responsible for corrections. One of the things that I became aware of, as the Minister responsible for corrections, is the real lack of any firm information base, on which to make projections. There is, in fact, a real inadequate information system, which I think the Standing Committee on Public Accounts or Standing Committee on Finance recognized over a year ago. We are working on that. We are trying to make sure that the information we need to manage corrections is readily available. I think we have just about completed that.

In short, there was no way for me to substantiate allocating capital monies the way it was. That's why there has been such a major deletion, to the tune of over $20 million. I couldn't substantiate it. The basis of the planning is unknown to me. What I have set out to do is, following the tabling of the master plan, agree that the process we're going to follow is to determine what kind of capital money we need to maintain and upkeep the present facilities we have, to take into account the impact that division is going to have on the territories, and to plan for communities and regions, asking for specific ways in which we can give community-based programs and facilities an equal chance to get in on the capital plan.

In order to do that, we, first of all, needed to get approval by this Legislature, by the Standing Committee on Finance and Cabinet, for that direction. Now we think we are close to an agreement, the planning will be done and made available to Members, I hope, by next fall. It will substantiate what a new five year capital plan will look like, how much money we think we need to upkeep the present facilities to get maximum use of them, what type of regional and community programs and facilities to budget for, to support our projects, and to be clear about accepting division. That is something that is going to affect our planning in a major way.

There is nothing in this programming process yet, to help us articulate what our O and M projections are going to be either. That's the other area of work we need to do.