Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would also like to recognize the veterans, particularly in my riding and in my family. Mr. Speaker, when I was a child, I did not realize that I was growing up in the recent shadow of much grief which had resulted from my parent's involvement in war.

Our parents shielded us from this pain. My father entered the British army at the tender age of 20. When I think that is just about the age of my boys now, it is shocking. My mother had said goodbye to two of her brothers when she was 16 years old. One never came back and the other came back shell shocked and suffered anxiety the rest of his life, never able to move away from the memory of the wounded and dead he picked up on the front lines as part of the ambulance brigade. He had been put in the ambulance brigade because he could not bring himself to bear arms.

During that time, when his brother was close by in France, my uncle did not realize how close he was to him and later he received word that his younger brother had been killed in action. Knowing that he was so close by, he had such a reaction to this that again, he was just shell shocked for the rest of his life. The only, I guess, happy news for Uncle Bruce was that he did meet a beautiful, sophisticated Dutch woman in Holland when he was there and she did come back to Canada after the war to marry him as a Dutch war bride.

I would also like to recognize my grandfather who served in the First World War. I have to tell you, I became one of his favourite grandchildren because I moved up North where aboriginal people were and he served in the trenches in the First World War alongside aboriginal soldiers. He said that was the place to be. They had the skills to listen and to survey the situation and if there was a place that you had to be in those trenches, he said he wanted to be with the aboriginal soldiers.

I would also like today to honour my father-in-law, who was too young to be in the Second World War, but from Holland, he was taken to the German work camps and served during the war in a camp.

Mr. Speaker, these are all relatives of mine who have actually passed on now, but when I look at veterans, I can just hold them in the highest regard and appreciate them, knowing what they have been through. I would just like to thank all of the veterans in the Northwest Territories today who served for our freedom. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Déclaration de députés. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I too would like to say a few words in honour of Remembrance Day tomorrow. Like many in Yellowknife tomorrow, I will take part in the Remembrance Day services, marching from the Legion to the cenotaph and then on to St. Pat's. Mr. Speaker, it is important to remember the sacrifices that many have made to protect our freedoms and to mark Remembrance Day as the time to do that.

My father was a World War II vet and he was one of the lucky ones. He came back and he did not bear any significant scars from the war. I have talked to him and to other veterans about the horrors of war and, even hearing from those people, I know it is hard for me to comprehend what they have gone through.

We need to not only mark Remembrance Day to pause and reflect, but we also need to take this opportunity to remember that we must teach our children about the honour, respect and sacrifices made by so many. We must not only honour those who fought on our behalf but we must do our best to stop it from ever happening again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Members, I too will be participating in the Remembrance Day services tomorrow in Hay River. I want to remember an uncle of mine who was in the Second World War. In 1994, I had the honour of being able to retrace some of his steps that he had made after D-Day, through France, Belgium, and into the Netherlands. I was very moved by the cemeteries. The Canadian cemeteries that are there are well maintained by the Europeans, particularly in the Netherlands. It was a great honour for me to be there and pay my respects to those Canadians who had fought for our freedom.

Item 3, Members' statements. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe the temporary workers who have been brought in, two social workers and one support staff, to alleviate the immediate crises here in Yellowknife are there on a temporary basis. The more permanent solution to this problem will become a part of our planning and budgeting process, as I have mentioned to another Member who asked this question earlier this week. Unfortunately I am not at liberty to discuss what is in the business plans in response to this report.

I want to assure the Member that we do recognize this as a very serious issue and want to do everything we can to alleviate the shortages where they have been identified. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Groenewegen. Supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you. Another issue that these folks are faced with is the lack of supervisors. I think nationally the average is one supervisor for six child protection workers. We only have one supervisor in the city and, with these additional temporary workers, we would be looking at a situation of one for twelve. I am wondering if the Minister has looked at addressing this problem.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister for Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we are aware of the lack of supervision that many of these workers are under. One of the advantages of having people in supervisory positions is so that workers can discuss some of the issues with them. They have a sounding board and some direction in difficult situations. Unfortunately in the North, most of the supervisors are also carrying heavy caseloads themselves just because of the sheer volume of the work. Yes, we do recognize this as a problem and hope to address it in the best way that we can. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Another issue these folks are unfortunately faced with is, as the Minister said, they have an overwhelming caseload and are unable to do prevention work, or unable to be proactive in many cases and work with the families before it gets to the intervention stage. Short of more workers being put toward the problem, I am wondering what else the Minister is planning to do to address this situation so that in fact we can do some prevention work and do not have to always be taking children out of these situations.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe there are quite a number of contributing factors to the stress which the social workers and child protection workers find themselves under.

There is the actual volume of calls that are coming in. These calls, I believe...I should not quote the number, but I know the Members would be very surprised at the actual volume of calls across the North they are called upon to respond to.

When we do receive these calls, it may be necessary in the future to have some way of prioritizing these calls so they can deal first and foremost with the most urgent and the most critical ones. That might be of some help.

The other thing is that once social workers are dealing with a family that is in crisis and children who are at risk and it is necessary to respond, quite often the resources they need are not there so that they can in confidence place these children in placements in homes that have been screened, that have been approved where parents may have received training. I think these are all things that could be looked at as adding additional resources to the network, to the system that is available to social workers as they deal with these critical issues. These things are all issues that we are looking at. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Final supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is correct. We have been told that 25 calls from Friday night to Sunday morning is not at all unusual. These are not calls of a non-urgent nature. These are calls typically from the RCMP who say they are going to a home because there has been a problem and they need a social worker to meet them there because there is a child who has to be taken into care. These are very serious situations. I do not think any of us could comprehend how a worker could make it through a weekend with this kind of work. It is a critical problem. I sure hope the Minister sees this as the highest priority and will commit to the House to address it as quickly as she can and make this one of her highest priorities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, child protection is a very high priority to me. It is a very high priority to my department. I appreciate the work of the social workers in all of the regions in all of the communities. I ask them to bear with us as we make plans to offer more support to them in carrying out their duties. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Premier and it is in regard to my Member's statement. As we all swore an oath when we were sworn in to the 14th Assembly to serve the residents of the Northwest Territories and also that we treat everybody fairly across the board, I think it is also important that we, as the Members of this Legislature, have to ensure that we improve the programs and services that are out there. We have seen a real decline in the area of health, social services and in the health and well-being of the people who are in our communities and the residents of the Northwest Territories.

An area I have a lot of concern about is to ensure that the health and well-being of the people of the North are being well-served, to make sure that we have safe drinking water, that it does not affect the health of the residents of the Northwest Territories, especially when we as a government are responsible for ensuring that service is not jeopardized by the actions of this government in regard to carrying that out, or the inactions of this government because of not responding to it.

I would like to ask the Premier, due to the number of concerns that have come forth and knowing that we do have an obligation to the residents, is there an avenue to ensure that we continue to carry out the responsibility to work for the benefit of all the people of the North, making sure that service is measured by ensuring we do make positive steps, that we do not continue to make statements like we are looking at it, we will get back to you, but making positive efforts to find solutions to these problems for the residents of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Premier, Mr. Kakfwi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on the issue of this government providing good services to the residents of the Northwest Territories and to specific communities, I believe there is an obligation to communicate directly with the communities involved to ensure that the type of support and programs they are accessing are serving them well. If we are going to discuss concerns and issues of specific communities, then we should find a way to bring those community leaders directly into meetings so we can discuss them. It seems to me that once we raise the initial issues here in the House, then it is an obligation on our part to make sure that the community's concerns are directly involved. I think this is what the Ministers are attempting to do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Supplementary, Mr. Krutko.