Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Because the honourable Member brought this up previously in the Assembly, we did some background work on the numbers and on which inmates could be eligible for electronic monitoring.
You have to take into consideration that wouldn't include inmates who are obviously serving sentences for violent offences. They wouldn't be inmates who were convicted for drug trafficking. Of course, the possibility of it working would only be in the larger communities which have existing correctional facilities where the possibility of using correctional staff to monitor the inmates could be utilized in order to reduce the possibility of additional staffing costs.
We found that, of the 35 inmates at the Yellowknife Correctional Centre, of those inmates who are from Yellowknife who could possibly be on electronic monitoring, 29 of those were serving sentences for violence, four were convicted for trafficking in narcotics, so there is only one person who would be eligible for electronic monitoring in the Yellowknife situation.
The situation of the 23 inmates at the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre, again, those from that community who would possibly be eligible for electronic monitoring, living in that community, 14 of those were serving sentences for violent offences, leaving 9 who could possibly be eligible for electronic monitoring.
In the Baffin Correctional Centre, there were no inmates who would have been eligible for electronic monitoring.
So it came down to the fact, Mr. Chairman, for the limited amount of inmates, it would be cost-prohibitive to establish this program for that.
Recognizing what the honourable Member says as far as the possibility of individuals on intermittent sentences being in that situation, the possibility of it working in Yellowknife increased slightly, but it still, to me, didn't justify going to the expense and the work of establishing this program at this time. Thank you.