Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions surround the topic of emergency shelters. I’m hoping the Minister of Justice is also listening to these questions. The Member for Yellowknife Centre brought up in general comments yesterday the issue of the Yellowknife downtown emergency shelter. He went into great lengths to talk about the concerns that the citizens around the shelter area have with respect to how things are being run. The fact that there is still consumption of alcohol happening, delinquency, no solutions being offered. If they are, they are being remiss in doing so.

The Member used a term that these people are lacking hope. They needed hope. I’ve been reminding myself that it’s more than just hope; they need a purpose to move on. Many Members were involved with the follow-up not that long ago with the shelter administration. We did get an update. There are about 283, on average, patrons to this shelter that frequent it quite often. Again, I’m talking from multiple angles here, Madam Chair. As a previous business owner in the downtown core of Yellowknife, my first inclination when this project came on was one of relief, only to find out that this became a funnelling effect for some of the lost souls to congregate in the downtown core, which basically culminated to more violence, more theft for the shop owners and a lot more disruption for the downtown merchants and in respect, as well, for the patrons and residents of the downtown core.

I know the Minister didn’t have a chance to respond to the Member’s comments, but given the fact that this involves Yellowknife, involves many constituents of mine, involves many constituents of many Members here on both sides of the House, can the Minister take a moment now that he’s had time to think about a response, what is the department looking at doing for program review to enhance the quality of life for these patrons who are in need of intervention, substance abuse intervention, counselling, redirection, job deployment and rehabilitation? Thank you, Madam Chair.