Mr. Chairman, I am sorry that it has to come to this, where the Minister is feeling that he is forced to stand on his budget. I want to echo that a lot of what Mr. Ballantyne said is that there has been a lot of great initiatives that come from this Minister and this department, and there is a lot of support in this side of the House for what is being done. The Minister is right, Members of this committee do feel very strongly about this issue. I have a sense that we are very close to resolving it.
Mr. Chairman, I don't know why this debate is necessary this afternoon. We have almost a $17 million budget for this department, $300,000 -- if my math is correct -- is way less than half of one per cent of this total budget. It is less than one per cent of the budget that we are proposing to spend on law enforcement, which is almost $29 million. It's is considerably less than one per cent of the budget we are proposing to spend on community justice and corrections, which is almost $22 million.
Mr. Chairman, I seem to hear the Minister saying, I am not quite sure how we will do it, I want to talk to my colleague in Education, I want to talk to the Minister of Finance, I want to talk to the Minister, perhaps, of Health and Social Services. Go ahead, we don't care how you do it. And we don't care how you resolve it. As Mr. Ballantyne said, the suggestion about taking it out of corrections seemed the obvious one to the Standing Committee on Finance because we were noting the growth in PYs in the corrections area.
Mr. Chairman, I don't know if things have changed since I was in Cabinet, but I believe that a Minister who believes in an issue, as this Minister obviously does, and who has clear support from the Standing Committee on Finance, all the Minister needs to say is, I will do it, it will be done, you have my commitment, we will find $300,000 additional money for victims' services. Whether you take it by cutting out turkeys for inmates at Christmas or by recovering it from the social envelope committee funds, the $3 million that I fully appreciate has yet to be allocated within the Cabinet, or indeed whether it is taken out of a midnight shift at the corrections facility in Iqaluit.
This committee is not concerned about how it is done. I think all the Minister needs to do is to make a commitment here that it will be done and that you will find a way, even if the way is not before this committee today. I thought that with the notice given on this issue from the Standing Committee on Finance, that by today we would have an answer about how it could be done. I know that it is not easy, I know there are all kinds of pressures on the Minister. But clearly the proportion of money that we are spending on police and on jails -- and we haven't mentioned courts or legal aid today but I could add those big numbers, too -- is staggering beside what we are spending on victims. The committee wants it rebalanced, the Minister agrees, the role is there. All I think we need is a commitment that it will be done, and that we can get on and approve the budget and deal with the other matters before this committee. I think the Minister has the authority to direct his deputy to do it, find a way. And the finance director has to sweat additional blood and tears and find a way. This happens all the time. I guess I'm challenging the Minister here on the floor of this Assembly. Tell us it will be done. Whisper to your deputy minister. Do it and get on with the business of approving your budget. I'm sure you'll find a way, especially after all the fuss we've made this afternoon. Let's fix it up and carry on with approving this department. I don't think it's necessary to delay the approval of this department for even a week. Just make the commitment and this will all go away and we wish you well. Thank you.