Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up again today on my Member’s statement, and again I have some more questions to the Minister of Justice on the corrections program review. I would like to thank the Minister for getting me a copy of that, but, of course, having a copy of that leads to many more questions. I would like to begin by asking the Minister a question. Of the 18 recommendations that are contained in the report, which ones have been actioned on or is there a plan to enact any of those recommendations in that plan? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Part of the plan is we will be acting on amending some of the policies and programs in place. There have been recommendations brought forward to our attention. My department is going through each and every recommendation on which ones should be expedited and others might take a bit longer time. We will be going through each recommendation and see which recommendations we could implement right away. We will be informing the Members as we progress. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I’d hope that the department could come forward with an action plan. The review itself is now two and a half years old. I think the department needs to work with the Standing Committee on Social Programs to make sure that the recommendations that are there -- and there are 18 of them. They are all good recommendations, Mr. Speaker, but some of them certainly stick out a little bit more than others. I would like to get a commitment from the Minister to work with the Standing Committee on Social Programs to go through the recommendations and develop an action plan on following that up. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it has always been part of the plan. When recommendations come up, whether it be these 18 recommendations focusing on improving offender supervision and rehabilitation, I can go make some changes to our programming. Then we need to inform the Members and work with the Members on identifying certain areas where they have concerns or issues. We need to hear from the Members, as well, or ideas being generated by the Members. That can be integrated into our changes or amendments that we are going to be making to our programming. By all means, we will be working with the Social Programs committee on this particular piece of work. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I was wondering if the Minister could share with us what he feels the department’s priorities are when it comes to those 18 recommendations. Thank you.
Mr Speaker, the 18 recommendations, as I stated, we are as a department going through each and every item and highlighting which areas should be expedited or, I guess, delivered immediately. Those are areas that we can share with the standing committee. The rest, if it is a long-term strategy, then we need to highlight those as a second phase and a third phase. We will be sharing that information with the standing committee. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It has been two and a half years. Again, I think it is very important that the Minister and the Department of Justice get together with the standing committee and develop an action plan on how we move this forward, how those recommendations are acted upon. Again I want to ask the Minister if this work can be concluded by the end of the life of this government, which is September. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, although it has taken over two years, we want to have a program that is beneficial and that will resolve some issues or concerns are being brought to our attention through these 18 recommendations. We want to have the best product that is suitable to improve the offender supervision and also rehabilitation. The Member has alluded to rehabilitation on numerous occasions. We want to have the best product that we can deliver. That is probably why it is taking us some time, but we are coming to a conclusion in that respect. One of the goals, of course, either at the end of this Assembly or into the new 17th Assembly, but this is one of our priorities that we want to start working on. Mahsi.
