Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to other interested groups such as the Status of Women and the Native Women's Association, they have been consulting me in regard to how they feel about the whole child advocacy area. They feel very strongly that there has to be some sort of an advocacy group to represent children in the north especially the problems we see within our society, especially in relation to the Young Offenders Act. Looking at the problem we see as dropouts, also with children who are runaways, there has to be something
there for them where they feel that they are part of the overall decision-making process that seems to be always run by adults. A lot of times we forget that there is a sector of our population which makes up a large percentage of the overall population of the Northwest Territories, that is the youth and the children. I think, from what I have been hearing from them, that they feel there is a real need for such an advocacy group to be developed and established in the north to work with the Government of the Northwest Territories, especially with the different federal programs that we see coming along, where the federal government sees a real need to assist the children and the youth to develop them because they are going to be the next leaders. They will be having to deal with a lot of the problems we are dealing with today. I think it is critical we do formulate some sort of a group such as a child advocacy in the Northwest Territories. I would like to ask the Minister, has he been aware of the concerns of other interested groups besides myself in this particular area, especially with the Status of Women?