Mr. Speaker, the suggestion that is being made by the Gwich'in leadership is that any monies that are so-called "identified for their purposes," for servicing their community and clients in their community, in fact be directed to their organization, not to any other territorial organizations, or not to any other community organizations that are providing that particular service.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say -- and I am going to provide a copy of the proposal to all my colleagues in this House because I believe, Mr. Speaker, this is the first program which an aboriginal organization has...This organization has spent $800,000 developing the facilities for this particular program. There is no other community, no other organization that has taken the time to spend their own money for a program of this particular type that includes a total program that deals with all aspects of the community. They do not want inmates to be removed from their families. Of those situations where there is family violence, it should be dealt with between the community and within the family because a lot of the issues that deal with that violence, whether it's abuse, physical abuse or sexual abuse, have to be dealt with in the context of the family addressing those issues.

The family, the community and the individual; those are all important components. And they truly think that this is an important initiative and they want this government and, of course, my colleagues, to see the importance of not finding new money but rather taking advantage of existing money that is in our programs to support this particular important initiative. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause