Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I would like to speak in favour of this motion as well. As former chair of the Special Committee on Health and Social Services, I know during the committee work, we often heard in communities that people felt the family violence prevention workers needed more support. We know, in talking to the family violence prevention workers, that they agreed salaries were a very, very big problem.

In the final report of the Special Committee on Health and Social Services, we talked about front line workers like those who work in family violence prevention. In our report, we noted they are asked to do too much with too few resources.

Most of their time has to be spent dealing with immediate crises or balancing the range of services they must provide. That is because of a lack of adequate funding. As a result of that, we found those workers didn't have enough time to do prevention or follow-up work. That sort of work is extremely important if we want to be able to properly deal with family violence.

I also made a Member's statement on Wednesday of this week asking that the government deal with salaries as a significant part of their strategy of zero tolerance towards violence. As I noted in my statement, many of the programs across the Northwest Territories have had to shift dollars from programs into salaries in order to keep their salaries at a comparable level to what they started at when the programs began ten years ago, just to keep up with inflation.

What that means now is that there are many who don't meet the minimum standards set by this government for running something like a group home. They can't provide the same level of care that this government insists upon for people in care in government facilities because they don't have adequate funds. I think that is important because we have to make sure that, if family violence shelters are part of our social safety net and part of the whole government strategy for social services and dealing with family violence, they must meet certain minimum standards. I think we have to deal with that very quickly.

At this time, I would also like to commend the workers at the Yellowknife centre, the Allison McAteer House. I think, in spite of difficulty with funding, they do an exceptional job of providing referral support, counselling and shelter. I know they have even found a way to have a child advocate. I think that's a very important function, someone who can work on behalf of children is needed. I think we've heard another Member in this House recommend that this government look into having an ombudsman for children. I think a child's advocate in a community is an immediate step we should work towards in all shelters in operation across the territories.

In spite of declining funding and the tough financial times, the Allison McAteer House staff have still found a way to run an outreach program. Again, this is dependent almost entirely on staff being willing to work for very low wages and doing an awful lot as volunteers. Alison McAteer House is a 12-bed, two-crib facility. I think Members would be interested to know that during 1992-93, they provided over 4,000 bed nights. In 1993-94, that was down somewhat, but still 3,500 bed nights, and they weren't able to satisfy the demand. They weren't able to provide shelter to people at all the times it was needed.

Madam Speaker, as other Members have pointed out, there will be costs for these salary increases, but I think the Members of the Standing Committee on Finance have already pointed out that Members in this Legislature do expect to see the government prove they are serious about the policy of zero tolerance towards violence. Madam Speaker, to do that, we have to put money where our mouth is.

So, Madam Speaker, I would urge all Members to support this motion. Thank you.

---Applause