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.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the Minister for that information since he didn't seem to want to give it to me the other day and since there was not one word of that in the information that was provided to me from his staff, which was rather inadequate. Now that

I know that, I can think about it and let some other people ask some questions. Perhaps I will pursue it further. Like I said, I wanted to thank the Minister. Thank you.

Any sentence of two years or more is a federal sentence and, as a result of that, the federal justice system kicks in, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The honourable Member is correct. In the past, there was the possibility of a federal institution being established in the North to try to address some of our needs and try to reduce some of the federal inmates going to southern institutions. But as it stands now, those discussions were withdrawn by the federal Justice department. I don't know exactly when, but I know it's not on the table as it stands now, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sorry, for the record, I just wanted to clarify that it was not the Minister of Justice but the Solicitor General's Office of Canada that deals with correctional services.

I think Mr. Ootes probably has a valid point. However, I think there is significant financial pressure on the federal government, as well. It's something that I am certainly willing to take up, but as far as the substantiation for it and the economics of them putting in major capital dollars, that may be an issue that they might not view too favourably, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Shame, shame.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, if the Solicitor General's office were looking at expanding some of the facilities to address some of their capacity levels, certainly I would be addressing the issue with the Solicitor General. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, when was the last review of the community justice system done and the role of the community justice specialist that we have in place in the communities?