Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The decision, as I have said earlier, to locate the young offenders facility for young males, for that facility to be located in Yellowknife was made a year ago by this government, by this Cabinet and approved by the Financial Management Board. That, in my view, is a decision that I as a Minister am compelled to support and try to implement. A decision to do major renovations to the tune of $30 million over seven years to the adult correctional male facility was also made 11 months ago or ten months ago, September of 1998, by Cabinet and FMB. Again, as a Minister, I am compelled to carry out the decisions of Cabinet and the Financial Management Board and this is what I have done.
I have also, as a new Minister of Justice, met with my deputy minister a week after I was assigned this portfolio and the very first thing I asked him were questions about the plans to do major renovations to the adult facility here, the reasons why decisions were made to locate the young female offenders facility in Inuvik and why a young male offenders facility was going to be located in Yellowknife. As a Minister, I took the opportunity to revisit those decisions, why the decisions were made in the first place, when they were made and the reasons on which the Cabinet and the Financial Management Board of the day made their decision.
I took into account that we have also been served notice that we have shrinking financial resources as a government. We have a fire marshal order that must be met within two years. We have a service agreement with Nunavut that must be honoured and complied with. We also have a desire to increase the number of federal inmates, most of whom are aboriginal from our constituencies, who we would like to have the flexibility to take into our correctional facilities. Right now that number is capped at 20, it means of all federal inmates who are sent down south, a maximum of only 20 can be taken by our correctional facility. We are seeking to lift that so that we can, in fact, take more of northern federal inmates back into our correctional facilities.
Those are the reasons in general terms as to why I have chosen as a Minister, not to have the audacity to ask Cabinet to make decisions that could unravel a whole range of other capital projects just so I would have the satisfaction of presenting my arguments. Thank you.