Mr. Speaker, with regard to health issues; education and knowledge being delivered to communities and regions -- whether it is an issue of the program on A.I.D.S. or many of the other issues surrounding S.T.D.s and new issues that people are dealing with -- the Department of Health and the government in the very first years embarked on a door to door survey for retrieving and giving information. We combatted the lack of will for receiving the information, but the big problem is that as the educational process goes on, there is still the lack of awareness that "it

could not happen to me. This is something that happens to someone else."

We still have the problem of trying to create an audience receptive to whatever we do. As a result, after that program and after numerous meetings with the health boards, it was proposed that many people in the regions felt that they had a different clientele and wanted to deliver an effective program in their area. For example, there was the language issue and the issue of what was acceptable to people and the best way for them to receive information. As a result, many of the resources that were available in the Department of Health were earmarked to go to the different regional boards and into the different regional programs so that the community of interest could develop a program that would be appropriate to that community, whether it was with language, radio programming or a newspaper or information booklet.

Each nursing station has a high degree of pro-active programs to bring into the community clinics. When I had that responsibility, we did travel to the communities and we were getting more of a response from men to come into the health centres. We felt there could not be an overall program for everybody in the Northwest Territories.

So, how is it best handled? One suggestion was to find something appropriate at the regional levels where people could identify what level of knowledge people were at and what the specific problems in the communities were. A conscious effort was taken to try to provide the resources at the regional health board level so that the exercise could take place. If a community or region came forth with an extra program, then we would entertain it as the Department of Health, in terms of giving the financial resources or going to someone else to try to help. The whole idea was to try to get the regional bodies to deal with that because what is appropriate for Deh Cho, in delivering an awareness program, is entirely different from the Sahtu or Baffin for example.

The whole new idea of people coming forward when they become H.I.V. positive, and going to the communities themselves to talk to the people was more important than the A.I.D.S. spots we have for general promotion. These people could provide more to the communities and regions when they make that presentation themselves. We have been funding and giving support to these types of initiatives because we are told that they are more effective than the total global program. Thank you.