Our sense and our clear mandate is that we are the lead. The Public Health Agency is the lead on this file and other departments look to us in terms of the overall strategy. As I say, we don't currently have a policy or funding to address some of those elements.
In terms of the role of the Chief Public Health Officer in the legislation, which we discussed the last time we met, the dual role of deputy and to speak independently is actually taken seriously. There is always the risk of conflict between those two roles. But in the debate that led up to the establishment of the agency, it was viewed as more important to have that position as part of government, within government, and the ability to influence development policy, etc., than to have it seen as independent and then risk marginalization as a result of that.
It was a trade-off; it was a debate, and that's where we've ended up. I think it's very important in my role that I do speak to public health issues independently, as need be, but also to actually have the programmatic levers to try to deliver, as an organization, on those issues to the extent that we have the mandate and resources to do so.
In terms of the issue of the criminal justice system, etc., it's absolutely true. Many of these kids, quite honestly, because of the nature of the deficit, don't make the connection. It's not that they want to do bad things, but they don't make the connection. They don't even recognize it when it happens. But that's a larger challenge that we can't deal with directly. I know the criminal justice system is trying alternate ways of dealing with these situations, but it is something that collectively we need to do, and the more we can do to prevent the problem in the first place, a whole lot of kids--adults later on-- will be better off.