Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the department sharing those accurate numbers. Although I appreciate that there are peak times and it's seemingly in the numbers that were shared, at no peak time did we go past 15. The average seems to be somewhere in or around seven or eight-ish. So I think the point that a lot of the Members are trying to raise here as it relates to this facility is that building a 23-bed facility, even with the potential for growth as a Territory, population-wise, it seems fairly excessive. The reason why I think that the Members are concerned is not just because of the size of this piece of infrastructure but that, as a government, we are trying to work toward restorative justice. We are trying to take on preventative-type measures, and the fear here is, and I hate to use this term, if you build it, they will come. That means that it would be simple for the justice system, whatever that is, to just start filling the empty space, knowing that it's available.

That's a concern. You know, we are taking a lot of steps and measures through our programs and services to try to minimize acts that would require someone to be incarcerated. Based on that, we would hope that these numbers are not numbers that are trending up, but are trending down. If that is the case, and if that's what we're investing in, and if that's the direction we're heading, then that's also another reason why this number of beds is concerning.

So this is more a point for comment for the record, because I appreciate that the facility itself is under contractual obligation and that there is not much we can do as it relates changing its size or specifications, but I wanted to be on the record, Mr. Chair, with sharing concerns, as my colleagues have, about building excessively in this case a correctional centre. We've had these kinds of projects before in the past, in fact ones relative to corrections, that somehow were planned with good meaning or good intention and then, in some instances, completely have gone off the rails and haven't even been used. So I just want to bring that to the department's attention. Thank you, Mr. Chair.