Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Naturally I agree with the recommendations and questions that have been raised in the report of the Standing Committee on Social Programs as I am a Member of that committee. I also wanted to comment briefly on some of the other areas I am interested in and have been outlined in the report.
The first area I wanted to touch on was corrections. It has been recognized for a long time now, Mr. Chairman, that our corrections facilities are dramatically overcrowded. One of the things that happens because of that is the lack of space for programs. If you just look at the name of the facilities, Mr. Chairman, they are called correction facilities. The reason for that is because we are supposed to be correcting people, hopefully in the way they think and the way they act so they can re-enter society as contributing members and not to consistently go back and forth in a revolving door. The lack of adequate space affects that. I know we are not walking with $100 bills hanging out of our pockets to contribute to the capital budget, but this should be seriously looked at, Mr. Chairman.
I also wanted to comment that some months back, this committee had wanted to try to initiate the repatriation of federal inmates back to the north. It seemed as though, at that time, that the department almost took a hands-off approach which is unfortunate because to date, I do not think anything has really happened in that area to bring federal inmates back north who are in the south. There is an act whereby the federal government will pay to house federal inmates in the north. One of my areas of concern is that I do not think anything concrete is actually happening in this area. I would like the Minister to indicate what has been done since the fall to repatriate or to facilitate the repatriation of federal inmates to the north?
Another area I wanted to touch on is the legal aid area. For some time, the Social Programs Committee has been advocating the use of more lawyers in the legal aid offices so that there are more consistent services being provided and that people do not have to look around for various lawyers. Hopefully, that would also speed up the process in some of their situations. There was a report done by the legal services board, and in that report there was a recommendation that a separate legal aid lawyer to deal strictly with family law should be hired. Of course, this is something that we had recommended some time back. I would like to know what has been done in this area, Mr. Chairman.
Under the coroner's office, there have been arrangements made for a new chief coroner on a contract basis. Hopefully, that person will get things back in order. The other area of concern I have under the coroner's office is the fact that there is a serious lack of space in the communities, facilities that people can use to prepare and store bodies while they are waiting for burial or for removal. This poses a potential health problem. The department should be seriously looking at this as well in order to try to rectify this problem or at least to alleviate it. Under violent offenders, this is an area, Mr. Chairman, that has to be looked at because right now there does not seem to be a way to deal with violent offenders who pose a threat to the community, people who consistently go into jail, come out and cause harm to their neighbours, relatives, friends and then land back in jail. The only way to deal with that is for the Crown's office to apply for and to get a person labelled as a dangerous offender. They are imprisoned indefinitely which means basically you throw them in jail and throw away the key. I do not think that is the answer. This department has to look at this. We have a lot of small communities, and when people come back to their communities and are a threat to their neighbours, there has to be a way to deal with that other than just locking them up forever.
The other area of concern I have is the community justice. I have talked to community people. Although this is a grand idea, and I fully support it, there does not seem to be enough money in the area and certainly not enough training. Once again, I acknowledge that we do not have too much extra money to be putting into all these areas of concern, however, I think we should be trying to find creative ways of utilizing our dollars and to perhaps collaborate with the federal government in order to make these dollars go a little bit further. In the area of training, for some time I have been advocating the development of a law program and a law program would go a long way to helping people working in the community justice area, as well as perhaps, coroners, justices of the peace, court workers and simply, people working within the court system. I know that the college is looking at developing such a program. I would encourage the department to work with the college and with the community that they have struck in order to actually ensure that a program is developed and implemented. This might mean putting in a few dollars, Mr. Chairman, because researching and developing a course takes dollars.
Continuing in the area of training, the Minister Responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs has indicated she is willing to take a lead role in developing a community development course, certificate and diploma course. One of those courses would likely be a community justice course, so again I would ask the Minister and his department to collaborate with the Minister Responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs in developing a course that is relevant to the Department of Justice and that, of course, would mean contributing some dollars for research and development as well as manpower. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.