Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my Member's statement will be on the issue of families. I would like to send greetings back to mine in Inuvik. Mr. Speaker, before I returned to Yellowknife, I had the opportunity to speak to a class at the Aurora Campus in Inuvik. Mr. Speaker, this class was taking part in the Social Diploma Program. I had an opportunity to address some of their questions and listen to their concerns.

One of the concerns that was raised was to do with the early childhood intervention. It is a good move and I believe a lot of people believe it is the right area to be moving into, trying to deal with situations before they become problems. Unfortunately, sometimes as we heard change is a difficult thing to take and move forward with. In this situation, although it is a good move, I think there needs to be more done. The situation in my community was an organization put forward a proposal that was to try to seek some funding through this early childhood intervention. They were denied because it did not focus on just children, it focused on the family.

Mr. Speaker, if we are going to do any changes and improve conditions for children, we have to focus on families. We cannot take children, put them in the classroom, no matter what age, and figure that they are going to learn it all there, because at the end of the day, they go back home. If the situation at home is not changed, what are we doing? We give them a few hours a day of instruction, send them back home and hope that they will teach the families, their parents? I think we need to continue to work on the whole situation of families. I would encourage the Ministers in the social envelope to look at further changes that would further produce and impact families positively. Thank you.

--Applause