Mr. Speaker, we have sent the deputy minister plus the staff from corrections division to Fort Smith to meet with the union and staff to review the plans we have initiated. We will see how those discussions go. If the management of these facilities has differing opinions from our management as to whether we are meeting the spirit and intent of legislation, we will know in due course, but as far as I know there is agreement from everyone except the union. However, that may change. What we are doing is proper and probably in the best interests of everyone for the short-term. In the long-term, there will be some work completed to see how the corrections facilities which we presently have meet with the needs of the communities that are increasingly asking for community-based facilities and bush camps to take care of young offenders. We will also be looking at communities taking responsibility for adult offenders who are remanded until court appearances and sentencing, and also adult offenders who, in many cases, the communities feel they can, with minimal or no supervision, take full responsibility for. That is the short-term objective.
As I said last week, we have some concern that since we had originally tried to open another open custody facility in Hay River and have stopped work on that project because of some local controversy, instead of spending $300,000 opening another open custody facility somewhere in the territories, we have decided the best use in the short-term of River Ridge was to move the young offenders who are sentenced to secure custody to Hay River and to have open custody young offenders in River Ridge. That is for a period of a few months and that would give us the time required to set the basis for longer term planning.