Mr. Chairman, the recommendation that the committee made was taken seriously. We have been looking at it and discussing it for a number of weeks now, trying to find some way to meet the recommendation. It seems the committee is going around the edge, almost telling us how to manage our respective departments. If the intent is simply to increase the resources allocated to victims' services, then it is something that I agree totally with. If there was a possible way of finding additional money to do that, we would, but, as Members see, almost all additional, new money has gone to forced growth.
All the additional person years and money allocated to corrections is simply going to help the existing staff. One additional person per shift is being put into existing facilities. There are three shifts per day working in these facilities, like the Yellowknife Correctional Centre, the Iqaluit correctional facility, the Hay River facility, the River Ridge facility, among others. What we've done is responded to a review that suggested we were understaffed. For the well-being of inmates, staff and general safety of everyone concerned, it was recommended that we increase the staff allocation. This is what has been done here.
To suggest that we could somehow reduce here is just not possible. Again, I suggest that we simply take the recommendation and tell the committee we will do what we can over the next few months to ensure that some resources are allocated to victims' services, and that where it will come from be left to the discretion of this government. As Minister, I don't have the responsibility to do that, but with other Ministers from the social envelope committee, I'm sure we can meet the call of the standing committee.
It's not going to happen and I understand that if they're unhappy with my response, they will stand me down until the end of this session, or whatever. I think we should just have a discussion about it and come to grips with the fact that there is no new money. Reallocating from areas like this which are highly legislated, where we have just started to move towards giving RCMP sufficient money to do their job the way they're contracted to do and where we're moving to more proper staff allocations, as required by legislation, is just not possible.
I think in the matter of a month or two, surely we can take that as the first commandment once we set up the community action fund and, secondly, as a direction to this government and to the Ministers of the social envelope committee as to where we should allocate some of those resources. We can recommend to our partners, the women's groups and other organizations involved in this work with us. Thank you.