Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The department did get an appropriation at the end of the fiscal year for foster care because of the increased numbers of cases that we experienced in that year. We are working hard now to try to determine whether or not we had an extraordinary increase that's just an anomaly, whether it is just something that will only happen once, or whether this is something we can expect to see on an ongoing basis. It's not clear at this point. We don't have an answer to that yet, we need to do more research on it.

We are looking at some initiatives that will help us over the coming year to cut down on the number of cases where we are required to apprehend children and place them in foster care. One of the first things is development of an early intervention strategy with the Departments of Justice and Education, Culture and Employment. We hope to be able to build on some of the suggestions that were given to us by the Standing Committee on Finance and the Special Committee on Health and Social Services about implementing school-based services for youth, along the lines of the model that is operating in Arviat where at-risk children are identified early and the departments cooperate to find ways to provide support to the children and family so they don't come into care. That's the first initiative.

The second thing is the development of two pieces of legislation on children and family services and adoptions, as a follow-up to the good work that was done over the years in child welfare reform. The focus of the Family and Children Services Act is to find ways to get communities to take ownership of some of the problems and find solutions that will bring community resources to bear to keep children in their homes with relatives, to find help for the parents, and to provide counselling services through the resources available in the communities and the regions.

Part of the community action fund philosophy is to try to help communities find ways to implement innovative new projects that will result in healthier families at the community level. There is $3.2 million in that fund and we're developing the guidelines for it at the moment. It's intended to provide some help in terms of early intervention. We think that, unless we start getting to children and families before these problems occur, we're going to continue to see an increase in the number of times we have to investigate families, apprehend children, place them in foster care, and process department adoptions to find new families for them.

There is a lot of work under way to, first of all, assess the problem but, secondly, to find cooperative ways to deal with it. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, we would be pleased to share that information with the Member.

Mr. Chairman, perhaps those two questions could have very easily been put together as the answer is very similar on the approach to dealing with these issues. Mr. Lovely did outline the issue and some of the areas where the concern had come in. There is no difference in foster care than residential care for children, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Madam Minister. Mr. Dent.

Mr. Chairman, yes, it is still shown in this activity.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know whether I would term it as lax controls, in this situation. Over a number of years, in terms of dealing with social assistance, we have been asked to try to work with the previous year's figures as if it were a controlling factor. It is a continuous desire for us to try to keep the social assistance down.

But the uptake on social assistance, as Members know, certain areas in the Northwest Territories do not have employment opportunities. They are less able to seek employment. I know that one region, where before there was very limited use of social assistance, now, because of the lack of job opportunities, more social assistance has been given out.

As well, although the figures are not all in, there are many, many, many young people, young women, or older children, having children -- those numbers are very, very high. Once a young lady has a child, there is an obligation to provide social assistance to this person. That number has vastly increased.

There are areas where we feel much more work has to be done. The only thing that I can really say that will help is to try to get to the communities, try to deal with the individual communities to bring more awareness on exactly what is happening in their communities on a global basis. We have no control over 67 births in Gjoa Haven in one year, or 72 in Arviat. Some of those young people are 13, 14, 15 years old and having children.

So we are in that blip, that is what I see when I move from community to community. That is obvious to my eyes and probably obvious to everyone else's eyes. In trying to deal with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment on investing in people, and all the programs, we are trying to pull that together to see if there are other ways that these young people, instead of relying on social assistance, can work themselves back into training, back into an educational program. But I know that it is extremely difficult when you are raising a little child with no means of male support for that child. A lot of the demands relate to that particular area of growth. The only way that we can try to meet the Minister of Finance's expectations to keep this figure down, is to try to deal with the communities on a very proactive basis, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I see us doing that in conjunction with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. I don't believe that we have the financial flexibility right now to try to catch these people who are in the social assistance net. We have to work together. It isn't either/or, Mr. Chairman.