Thank you. I guess I am just trying to push the point here, Mr. Chairman, to make sure that the two departments are in fact discussing these kinds of issues. Once a facility has been constructed, it is difficult if adequate planning and space was not allocated for programming to go back and rebuild the facility. I would hope that the people who are in the business of delivering this type of program, which would be the Department of Health and Social Services, and also Justice, when it comes to facilities, would be consulted in these matters.
I did have questions for the Department of Health and Social Services earlier about programming in the new facility and did get a response back from the Minister that indicated that the Department of Justice felt that their current approach had been fairly successful, but that Justice had indicated its willingness to consider development of addiction treatment programs for delivery within correction facilities if, on review, it was shown that another approach was warranted.
I suppose I had just hoped that in answering my questions this way, the Department of Health and Social Services was in fact consulting with the Department of Justice, and the Department of Justice did indicate that it was willing to look at all the possibilities and all the possible methodologies for delivering programming. It would seem a shame to build a brand new facility simply to lock young people up and not to adequately address their programming needs.
I just want to encourage the Minister to at least enter into formalized discussions with the Department of Health and Social Services on these types of issues. I think it is important. Going forward, they have a relationship, they have an ongoing relationship to work on these types of programming issues when it comes to young offenders with addictions problems. We know for children in our community who may not be incarcerated, sometimes it is difficult to get the adequate level of counselling they need, if in fact they need to be in a facility. I think there is an availability of out-patient services but not necessarily residential. Sometimes it is a matter of having to get them into facilities in the south.
It would seem that if we could kill a couple of birds with one stone and have drug and alcohol treatment programs available in the young offenders' facility, it would make a lot of sense and it might save us from having to send young offenders who were released eventually to the south for programming and for treatment. I would just like to encourage the Minister to continue on that road.