Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member asked about cost overruns at the North Slave Correctional Centre. There were some overruns. The Member is talking about the two previous years so we're going back some time even before the life of this government, but there was some over expenditure at North Slave compared to budgets for the year-end at March 31, 2004. There will likely be some over expenditure this year as well. Although at this point we can't even predict that, because of the pay problem that happened not too long ago that all Members are aware of. So it's going to take some time to work all those adjustments through and figure out just exactly where that's going to shake up.
However, as Members will be aware, the department didn't come forward for a supp and doesn't expect it will have to come forward for a supp this year to deal with those overages. Through the course of business, you look for other opportunities to save money in other areas. For instance, we didn't hire as many family law lawyers as quickly as we thought we would. So that wound up not costing as much money in that area. So you always have areas, or you hope you'll always have areas, that will balance off and so far we think that that's going to be possible.
In terms of the courthouse, the Member is right; one way or the other we're going to wind up with a new courthouse here because the work done by Public Works indicates that the present courthouse can't be renovated to provide the sort of space that is needed to deal with the security issues. So we're looking at either being a landlord for new space or for building a new one ourselves.
In terms of the RCMP, I met with the RCMP last week and discussed the issue of open spaces or vacant positions. They assured me that they were working on a plan that would see them all filled very quickly and have, since that meeting, gotten back and said that they believe that they are very close to having all of the positions filled already, and they are now working on making sure that they have people to transition for the positions where officers will be leaving the North this spring. They are very confident that they will be able to fill all of the positions.