Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have raised a lot of the issues with regard to the Department of Justice and one of them is, the camp facilities for low-risk inmates where they can be taken care of in the community with programs, such as is the case in Fort McPherson, we have the Tl'oondih Healing Society. In Aklavik they have been working on the Knute Lang Camp. Also there have been efforts made to deal with the whole question of justice, healing and trying to find ways to work with the inmates to not deal with only the crime, but to deal with the individual and allow them to find a way to deal with the circumstances they find themselves in. A lot of those circumstances have to do with the lifestyle they are in. Unless you change your lifestyle and change the way you live your lives in regard to alcoholism, drug abuse and violence, in order to deal with those problems you have to be able to deal with it one on one. You cannot expect to deal with all problems for everyone. It is an individual problem you are dealing with.

There has been money spent looking at developing proposals for the Knute Lang Camp in Aklavik and Fort Resolution which was approved by the previous Minister, who I believe was Mr. Kakfwi. They were working on formulating these on-the-land correction facilities to deal with these low risk offenders and allow them to serve their time in an environment that is familiar with them such as the Mackenzie Delta. We hear there are lots of overcrowding in our facilities, corrections staff is working long hours and the problem is going to be getting worse. We have to do something to stem the flow of inmates from the communities to these correctional facilities. A lot of time the inmates end up in jail because there is nowhere else to house them. We have to look at the whole area of Justice, but also keep in mind the healing approach in the communities.

In my experience in Fort McPherson with the Tl'oondih Healing Society, they have done a lot to deal with, not just the individual who has caused the crime, but the family as a whole who also feel the repercussions of taking that person away from the home. It affects not only the spouse but the children. It affects the income to maintain the well-being of the home. A lot of times these individuals have to go to social services to get through because the man of the house may have been working before and is now in a correctional facility somewhere outside the region. You have to look at it in the context of families. We cannot just deal with justice with the individual, but you have to deal with the family problems where we hear time and time again a lot of people keep going through this cycle of going to jail. A lot of times it is based on assault. A lot of time that assault is on the spouse of the individual, but yet you might deal with the person who caused the crime. You are not dealing with the spouse who has to live with that feeling of hurt from a person they love. They come back after being in jail and go through the same cycle again. In order to break that cycle, you have to deal with it in the context of the whole family.

Regarding the question about where do we get the monies for these new facilities, we have to look at it in the context of an investment. The cost to maintain and operate the existing justice system as it exists now is costly. We have to find new ways and methods of dealing with the whole question of justice. What I am talking about is the area of community justice. People are now formulating these community justice committees and it is a good start. You have to allow them the ability to not only make recommendations but to have a say as to how that person is going to be rehabilitated. If that means that they suggest they put them in land-based facilities around the communities or within the regions, I think in the long-term that will probably be more helpful than continuing to try to put money into an existing process where we are finding it is costing this government more and more money because of overcrowding of our facilities and also the amount of time and effort that is being spent on keeping these inmates in those facilities maintaining staff and the workload in those facilities.

I would like the Minister or deputy minister to tell me exactly what role do they see the people and the communities taking. I have been asking many questions about the Tl'oondih Healing Society in this House in which that effort was put forth by the Gwich'in Tribal Council and Assembly to establish such an institution to deal with, not only the social problems, but trying to develop healthy people in the communities and in the region so that you have a healthy society that you can work with to find a system that you can deal with individuals, families, children, adults and work with them to identify the areas where those problems originate from. I do not think we are born as criminals. We are not born as offenders. We are not born to assault people. I believe it is hereditary. Until this government and the Department of Justice see that and deal with it as a disease just like alcoholism, drug abuse and violence, we will always continue to have the same cycle where people go in and out of institutions.

I would like to ask the Minister in regard to considering looking at some sort of a proposal in dealing with the Knute Lang Camp and Tl'oondih Healing Camp of possibly using these facilities to consider looking at some proposal to deal with those offenders in their regions and within an environment that they can relate to in regard to the Delta. With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you.