Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this point we are just in the process of beginning to start to get the statistics on the activities of the community justice committees. We have only recently been able to provide all communities with that $20,000 in extra funding for them to hire a part-time coordinator. Many of them didn't have the resources before or even the ability to collect the statistics of what they were doing themselves. That was one of the reasons for looking at this as a needed investment.

Now the committees have someone or should have someone available who can start to collect some of those statistics and provide us with some more information. It is a difficult area for us to get information in. If somebody is diverted, then they are totally out of the criminal justice system, so there isn't a record that sort of matches to help us offset. That is the whole purpose; to keep people who can be diverted totally out of the justice system so they don't have a record, it doesn't show up, it's not something that is tracked in that way; the same formal way that it normally happens in the justice system.

So getting the detailed stats that the Member has asked about will be difficult, but we are going to be able to start to collect information on what types of cases are before the committees and how many diversions they are actually involved in. As the Member pointed out, there's a whole set of circumstances that have to be met for a person to move into a diversion. The accused themselves have to admit to the guilt. So they have to agree that this is an offence that they have committed and that they are prepared to work with the community to resolve the issue. The RCMP, of course, have to agree that it should go that way and, depending on the offence, it could involve some consultations with the victim and the Crown. So there has to be a whole group that agrees that this is the right way to proceed. But when you get that situation, typically the whole process can then take place within the community.

Would more money help? That's a difficult question to answer right now, too. As the committees develop more and more, as they become more and more active, there will likely be demands for more money. At this point we think that we can meet the demand within the budget that we have proposed. So we were starting to hear from some of the committees that were being very active, that they did need more money and this was the response. So we will have to keep our eyes and ears open on this and be prepared to respond further. Thank you.