Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My comments will be very general and fairly brief. I am pleased to see there will be a review to reform the Health and Social Services system. This is obviously needed, we need to refocus and reform. Once the department has some documentation on this, we as legislators need to sit down and dialogue on this whole issue of the social network that we have here in the territories. I think it is a lot of people's opinion that we can not continue to do things in the same old way. We need to debate the future of these

programs from many perspectives. One is are they effective, are they doing any good, what is the cost of them, are we getting value for our money, can we use our money more efficiently?

We all want a strong public health system and efficient social services. However, I think it should be noted that we have, over the past many years, raised and given people a great deal of expectations in the whole area of social services. I think what we need to do is give a picture to the public as to what they can expect and what they cannot expect, what the government can provide and what it cannot provide. There has to be some realism because of the dollar problem. Right now the social envelope occupies apparently 62 percent of the total budget. The Health and Social Services Department is $247 million, which is slightly less that a quarter of the budget. While this needs control, I understand the need that the public has. The problem that we have is that we can not continue to take money from different areas and allocate it all to the social network. We do need to keep money in other departments, and other programs throughout the territories as well.

One area of concern in that is the whole area of forced growth. I understand it is because of Legislative needs, but I would like to try to get some specific clarification from the Minister later on as we are going through the budget. What is forced growth? What is causing this? It is adding tremendously to our cost.

I would like to take a moment to express some comments in perhaps two or three areas. One is the whole area of addictions. We have programs, but I do not believe we have a real program that attacks the root of the problem. We have programs in place for instance, alcohol and drug addictions, whereby individuals, they are at treatment centres. Even here, those particular areas need reforming as well. We really do not have a great assessment system prior to people going in for treatment. As my honourable colleague, Mr. Erasmus, stated earlier, we do not have a support service once people come out of the treatment centres.

I think there are a lot of repeat individuals in these centres. We have to start asking the questions, are we solving the problem? More important, are we even attacking the root of the problem? Do we have programs in place to attack alcohol problems, educational systems to discuss in schools, alcohol difficulties, addiction difficulties? One other area that I have heard of with regard to costs is the whole medical travel problem. I understand it is escalating and that we again need to obtain several million dollars extra over what was budgeted last year. This whole area is of concern. We do need to control it and we need to know. Again, as Mr. Erasmus stated, some of the travel can be done on a basis of prebooking, whereby we get better value for our dollars.

Mr. Chairman, those are my very brief comments on a department which has tremendous impact on a lot of people in this territory. It is a department that consumes and requires a great many dollars. Again, going back to my earlier comments, I am very pleased to see that the department is initiating a review to reform the whole Health and Social Services system. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.