I just want to clarify this point on core funding. To date, the $300,000 that has been allocated is basically for services with regard to the non-insured health benefits program, which is a program through Indian Affairs for aboriginal groups, status Indian and Inuit; that is the only group who can access the $300,000. This is based on the per them which the Minister mentioned: $100 per adult, $75 per youth and $50 per child. We are paying people $1,000 per month to take children from their homes to put them into care units in Yellowknife, Fort Smith and Hay River, yet we have no problem with paying $1,000 per month, which averages out to approximately $33 day.
This is the kind of money which you have to justify: The individual cost of $50 per child versus the cost of that to society and the youth. We are finding that more and more of our children are being taken away. We say what we are doing today is for the next generation. There's not too much hope for the next generation as it stands right now, especially with regard to education and jobs.
If you review our statistics, it boggles my mind; you can incarcerate people, take children away, deal with the cost of courts, yet we have no problem with that. Under another program, we've lobbied for this initiative with the federal government and private industry, and this government. Who are we here for are for the big boys in industry or for the little people who can't stand up for themselves, who basically don't have a hope in life of obtaining a lifestyle where they can basically say that they were a success. Instead, they're just another statistic: this is how many people who are incarcerated; this many people are in groups homes; or, this many people are alcohol or drug cases. Sooner or later you have to put faces to these statistics.
We have no problem paying for the costs of medevacs or sending people out because they've tried to commit suicide. I find it appalling, we act as if our eyes are closed, yet reality is in front of us, we see it every day, we hear it on the news. A guy was just killed on the Fort Rae highway over the weekend; an old lady was run over in Fort McPherson because of alcohol. We have no problem with those things. It's just news which has happened and so what. Soon that " so what' is going to cost us in incarcerating the young people, having to build new jails and other institutions. We must deal with this today or we're going to have to deal with it sooner or later, and every one of us as taxpayers is going to have to pay for it. This is why I'm saying the initiative is unique in Canada; unique in the sense of aboriginal people who consider themselves a family unit from the grandfather to the infant. This is something which we are losing touch with.
With regard to the motion, the motion is saying it's a process for the government to sit down and negotiate; it's not telling them that we're going to take any money out of any programs. It's saying sit down with these people and negotiate. The word is "negotiate," enter into negotiations.
Negotiations are never over until they're over. I don't know why everyone is assuming that the outcome is already made up, that they are going to get funding, but at least give them the opportunity to sit down with this government to try to negotiate the process through. This is all we're asking for. This is all the motion says. It doesn't say they are going to get dollars at the end of the day. The wording of the agreement is "enter into negotiations."