Thank you. Mr. Gargan.

Mr. Chairman, I am referring specifically to custom adoption. Mr. Chairman, about six years ago when my eldest daughter had a child I tried custom adoption, we wanted to adopt that child. We expressed our interest and my daughter was interested in doing the same thing. Social Services then got involved, filling out papers, getting consent from the natural mother and the natural father. If we are to go by the rules, naturally if any of the parties say, "no," then the whole thing dies in its tracks.

I do not know if this a conflict, Mr. Chairman. My grandchildren are wards of this government, they are in a white family, and your department is paying for them to be taken care of. When, in fact, Madam Minister, we insisted that we take the children, we wanted them, we wanted to adopt them. The situation is not that easy. I do not know where things went wrong. Now, six years later we are still interested. They are going to court again, and they are going to get an extension, by the courts, to have those children be made wards of this government. There is not much, as an aboriginal person, I can do, because as far as the recognition of that, within the court system and within the Child Welfare Act, it does not allow for intervention by the grandparents.

I am talking about custom adoption. As far as I am concerned we are caught up in bureaucratic red tape with regard to having the department involved.

Thank you. Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will let the deputy minister respond.

Please proceed, Mr. Dunbar.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not familiar with the details of the case Mr. Gargan refers to but I can provide you with some information as to the process which is followed. The process followed in custom adoption is that our staff are only involved in the sense of completing documents required by the Supreme Court. In a custom adoption case the staff do not pass any judgement on the merits of the placement. The only time at which that might occur would be if there are concerns under the Child Welfare Act as to whether the child might be in need of protection. In terms of the processing of the custom adoption, we only complete the forms for presentation to the Supreme Court.

Thank you. Are there any general comments? Mr. Gargan.

I appreciate that information. Perhaps it has not been clear in the past. I do not know how much information is provided for that particular issue. I do not know if social workers are trained with regard to custom adoption. Do they take a special program with regard to this or are they specifically dealing with studies regarding social assistance, the Child Welfare Act or other acts which they are responsible for under their area? Are they informed with regard to this at all?

Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, they are trained in the areas Mr. Gargan mentioned.

Thank you. Mr. Gargan.

As you know, there is a federal Minister for UIC, which would put some restrictions on people who are eligible and ineligible. Has the department reviewed this issue with regard to unemployment insurance benefits? We might see an increase in social assistance if the benefits do not apply because of new requirements.

Thank you. Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like the deputy minister to respond to that question.

Mr. Dunbar.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our staff are working very closely with staff in the Department of Education, Culture and Employment Programs to examine this whole area. As the Member has pointed out, it is changing and there may well be an impact on social assistance. On the other hand, there is also the possibility that there has not been as much done as should have been done in assisting people to collect unemployment insurance in the Northwest Territories. There were delays in people receiving their monies through that program which has resulted in a significant number of people coming to the department requesting and being granted social assistance because they were in financial need at the time. I believe that working together with staff from Education, Culture and Employment Programs we are going to endeavour to improve that situation for people.

Thank you. Are there any general comments. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to make a couple of comments to the Minister. Mr. Chairman, in my observation of the Department of Social Services over the past year, there has been one significant activity taken out of Social Services, corrections was given to Justice. This budget session we have been advised that day care will be taken out of Social Services and given to Education. The employment enhancement program that was once in Social Services is now given to Education. I would like to ask the Minister, since this activity has been taken out -- particularly with corrections the PYs went along with it -- is it possible for the Department of Social Services to focus now on a wildlife harvesting assistance program in conjunction with the Department of Renewable Resources? Thank you.

Thank you. Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will let my deputy minister respond to that.

Mr. Dunbar.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The transfer of corrections to the Department of Justice has, in fact, been accomplished. The majority of the person years associated with that program have gone to that department. Social Services, under a memorandum of understanding, will be continuing to do the community corrections work for approximately two and a half more years. This was done as

recognition of the fact that in order to plan the community corrections program and the broader community justice initiative, time was required to do the planning properly. So, one of the things the Department of Social Services is doing in contributing to this initiative, is endeavouring to carry on in providing the community corrections services.

With respect to focusing on the wildlife harvesting program, certainly the department is engaged in working together with Renewable Resources, Education and Economic Development and Tourism in looking at ways in which to improve services to people who are on social assistance and, hopefully, moving them off social assistance or certainly assisting them in becoming less dependent on social assistance.

Thank you. General comments. Member for Thebacha.

Can the Minister give us some indication as to when this initiative -- I know it has been started, but when can we see some results in respect to the initiative? Thank you.