Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been a problem in the large communities and it clearly shows. For a long time, a fairly long time, as we know it has been like that. When we started going to the different communities, when we started gathering in each of the communities from the camps, it was not much of a problem when we are gathered around in the camps, but we had talked about it and thought about how we could further improve it, but it does not seem to be improving at all. It has been talked about by a lot of people about how they could improve it. It feels like it is going to improve slowly but those social workers in the smaller communities especially, I think that if they had better or further education it would help more to resolve these problems and these social workers who have not had enough education to do their jobs, although they are literate in English. When they have husbands and wives they know how to counsel children. I do not think that they have formal education with counselling with these sorts of problems. Without the formal education, I think that this is why social workers in the different regional offices, if these programs of training are delivered to these regions, it would be better.
In Pelly Bay there is a special committee from the territorial government, Mr. Chairman, one person came into the community only once from the housing association committee. I know that in the other communities, in the other hamlets there are committees, as we are called committees in these communities. As a committee in a community we do not have much power to try and fix these kinds of things.
I have worked for the municipality of Pelly Bay for some 16 or 17 years, and prior to working for the municipality of Pelly Bay I was one of those people that goes out camping, spring, summer and in the fall, Having been out on the land for a number of years, I find that there were almost no social problems in the small communities.
In and around 1950 people from the outlying camps were told that there would be social programs available within a prescribed community, social programs such as housing, roads, government offices and social welfare. After five or six years, we realized that putting people together or cramping people together into one small community was not a good solution. But this is something that we all know we will have to live with.
Forming different committees is not a solution to our problem. We have tried that at the community level in Pelly Bay. I think we have about seven or eight committees within this community which has a population of 400 people. I agree with the mover. We should do something about decreasing the social problems we are faced with within the Territories. I agree with the Member that we have to do something about this problem. Knowing that we are going through extreme restraint within the system, I think this would put more financial burden on this government. I am not against the Member's motion, but since we have a new Minister of Social Services, maybe we should give him a little more time to see if he can deal with the problem. I think there are other alternatives to solving the problem. I do not know what the alternatives are, but I think we should give the Minister a little more time to see if he can turn things around for the better. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.