Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the matter of the learning centre here in Yellowknife, I want to indicate to the honourable Member and all Members of Yellowknife that I have instructed my staff and they are carrying out a meeting with both district boards here to resolve this matter, to come to a solution to how we deal with the learning centre and the delivery of programming for those students. A
meeting will be held on that specific issue. We are trying to be proactive in trying to bring about a resolution in that matter.
With regard to the suggestion that had been made by the standing committee, the partners for youth initiative, as the honourable Member pointed out, it is an inter-agency cooperative effort being implemented in Alberta. It is interesting to note that we don't pay much attention to our own, but a similar model has been implemented in Arviat. That's one of the reasons for the success of the high school programming in that community.
There are a number of community agencies that are working together right now, including the business community, that have been involved in programming in the schools. I agree with the advice that has been given and I want to indicate to Members here that we recently signed an interdepartmental agreement with Health, Social Services and Education for coordinating the planning and delivery of social policy area programs and services. What we need to do now with this agreement is to agree on specific protocols between the respective departments that clearly outline areas of responsibility and the process by which cooperation is to occur at the community, regional and departmental levels. We need to do that.
We have now a tri-ministerial committee of deputy ministers who are currently identifying critical needs for interdepartmental and inter agency cooperation. Over the next few months, we will be drafting an implementation plan for cooperative and coordinated action and delivery of services in the social policy area. That includes the whole matter of how we address cooperative action in responding to student needs in our schools. That is one element of that.