Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, initially, I was going to make a few general comments, but I will try to roll them together under community programs and services. I have a comment with regard to social assistance. I know that social assistance is going over to Education, Culture and Employment to place together the training components. The initiative is good, however, I think we have to recognize the fact that there will be people on social assistance regardless of what areas you are going to try to get them funnelled into.

The concern I have as a Member -- and I express this many times over -- is the fact that as a jurisdiction, we are probably quite behind in our basic social assistance payments to meet basic needs. From the comments from some of my constituents, single people get anywhere up to $300 a month to meet the basic demands of social assistance. I find this to be very questionable whether it is a basic need we are attempting to meet without the amount of support we should be giving, particularly when you take into account individuals who possibly are getting $396 a month -- I think that is the figure -- of social assistance to provide their food and clothing expenses. On the other hand, you are giving housing allowance to civil servants of $450 a month just to live in the north. I think that causes a real inequity in the system and an unfairness for individuals who can't get jobs to try to survive in the north. I really believe that social assistance has to be looked at. I commend the Minister's department in attempting to assist the young people with the education and training component. For social assistance, we have recognized an escalating cost over the past few years. It would be safe to say the amount is probably comparable to southern jurisdictions.

I certainly would appreciate it if the Minister would look at this particular area to increase some of the basic demands. When individuals can't have their basic needs met, many times they will come to us, as MLAs, feeling that they aren't treated fairly and expressing the problems of not having their basic needs met. They do have valid concerns when you look at it. We need to find a method to ensure that the basic needs of individuals are met.

The other comment I wanted to make, Mr. Chairman, is with regard to addictions and suicide preventions. Years ago, and not even that long ago, about six years ago, we didn't even have any treatment centres in the north to deal with addictions. It seems when all the facilities were out of the north, the process was easier for an individual to access treatment centres. They were sent to Poundmakers, Henwood, Bellwood, Action North in High Level or different areas. Now, with treatment centres across the north, it appears that it is more difficult for an individual to access treatment. Many individuals have said they used to be able to go to the alcohol and drug treatment centre to ask for assistance to get into a treatment centre. Now, not only do you have to go to an alcohol and drug treatment counsellor, you also have to get an assessment done and that goes to the regional alcohol and drug specialist in the community to determine whether the support should be there to send you to a treatment centre. The more assessments you get on an individual who is wanting treatment is sometimes discouraging for an individual to get the treatment by the time the decision is made that they can go for treatment. It seems somewhat ironic because the intent of building all these treatment centres across the north was to tempt people to take treatment. The accessibility to these centres should have been a lot easier for individuals.

I will save some of my comments but would appreciate if those two points were noted by the Minister. I want to see what her comments are on those. Thank you.