Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm glad to have the opportunity to provide some general comments to the Minister and his staff. I'll start off with one of my favourite topics, the North Slave Correctional Centre. I'm not quite sure how it all plays out, but there were some expenditures that had to have taken place in order for the department to continue to operate the North Slave Correctional Centre. I made my best guess estimates here last week, at well over $1 million. Maybe just a comment from the Minister on those cost overruns, especially in the area of staffing and how the department is handling that would be the first thing I would like to ask the Minister. Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, I'll just go on with my comments. That was the first one.

The second thing in terms of the Department of Justice I wanted to talk about was the anticipated new courthouse for Yellowknife. Obviously I'm supportive of that and other Members have had an opportunity, as well, to look at the business models that would suggest the current location of the courthouse over a longer period of time is going to cost the Government of the Northwest Territories more than it would to build a new standalone court facility. I don't believe there ever is a good time to spend upwards of $40 million, but if the government was to wait five, seven or 10 years down the road it is only going to cost

more money. As I mentioned, the business case has been made for the courthouse being built and I do look forward to moving this agenda item forward and working with the Minister and his staff on realizing it. I know it's been a dream of many people here in the Northwest Territories to have that standalone courthouse. It's a nice piece of public infrastructure to add to this area of the capital city of Yellowknife. So I'm looking forward to that happening.

The other comment I wanted to make, Mr. Chairman, was in regard to RCMP positions. I've mentioned this to the Minister previously. I know there are still vacancies out there. The $1.4 million that was earmarked in this year's budget to provide for 10 more positions doesn't even get us halfway to what we needed in the 2001 report. So in whatever way possible, I think the government really has to look towards the RCMP and policing being a top priority of the government and trying to identify financial resources to make that a reality so that we don't have a shortage of RCMP officers, so that we can address the crime rate here in the Northwest Territories. I know the number has historically been bad. I mean, they've always been that way, but when you look at strictly growth rates, it has grown 25 percent in the last three years and 21 percent in Yellowknife. So it's something I think the government needs to pay close attention to.

I think that's about it for my comments, Mr. Chairman. So I'm looking for some clarification from the Minister on how the department is handling the staffing costs going forward. Thank you.