Thank you, Mr. Dent. Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In terms of the additional funding for the three workers that were brought in to address some of the pressures last year, I am going to ask Mr. St. Germaine to speak to how they were funded. Thank you.

Mr. St. Germaine.

Thank you. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question then is was that included in their base? Was that ongoing funding or was that limited funding to provide a short-term solution?

Mr. St. Germaine.

Mr. Dent.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister just said that not all ten workers were going to go into Yellowknife. I know the report indicated there were two areas in the Territories that were in critical need of additional workers and one-third that was in not quite as critical but almost as critical need for workers. So if there are no ongoing funds, the Yellowknife situation is not likely to improve in the next 12 months is what it sounds to me like I am being told here. Is that true?

Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, certainly some of the ten new positions that have been identified as part of the $1.2 million investment are slated to go into Yellowknife. The exact breakdown of where the ten workers are going to go, I do not have that information in front of me so I do not want to provide incorrect information. So I will undertake to find out for Mr. Dent exactly where the ten workers are scheduled to go. Thank you.

Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would have to go back and check the transcripts, but I believe that the Minister and the department did give us an initial breakdown when we talked about this in committee, so I take it that they are backing away from what we were initially told.

What causes me some concern is I have a copy of a letter from the Minister to the chair of the Standing Committee on Social Programs that was sent out just on the 16th of February, in which the Minister has made clear that there is no commitment to any particular community for where these resources will be placed.

It really comes back to, as Ms. Lee has asked earlier today, where is the commitment to follow through on recommendations? There were very clear, precise, specific recommendations in the report It Takes a Community as to where these positions should be allocated. Very clear by number.

In the letter that we most recently received from the Minister, it is indicated that those recommendations will not necessarily be followed and that there is now going to be some consultation to determine where the workers should be. Again, the question is are we really going to follow the recommendations if we have had what the Minister has already herself characterized as good ones, and the initial indication to the committee was that she was in fact going to follow those recommendations and now it sounds like she is backing away. Where is the commitment to follow through when we do get good, specific recommendations?

Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I do not really appreciate the insinuation that Mr. Dent makes that we are backing away from the information provided to the committee. In fact, what I stated is that I do not have the allocation of the additional workers in front of me right now and I do not want to run the risk of providing incorrect information, but I will find that. I believe that where the allocations will go is consistent with the information we provided to the committee. Nothing has changed. It is just that I do not have that information in front of me right now and I will undertake to get it for the Member as soon as possible.

Mr. Chairman, the recommendations in the Child Welfare League report are very good recommendations, I believe, and we are committed to responding favourably to the recommendations in the report. We did develop a three-year plan and we are initially approved for the first year's implementation of that three-year phased-in plan. If there was no concern about financial resources, perhaps we could do more all at once, but right now what we have is a commitment and hopefully when we go through the mains -- that is where the plan is outlined -- we will receive that support. It is difficult to provide specific details when the approval has not yet been received through this budget process we are in for the $1.2 million. I guess we will come to that when we consider the detail of this department. Thank you.

General comments? Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister may be offended by my insinuation that she is backing away from her commitment, but it is not just an insinuation. The letter we received some time after the meeting with the committee, in which numbers were spoken, does not contain any numbers. In fact, the letter makes it clear that there is going to be some consultation now to determine where the positions are going to go and, as the letter says, "Will not only take the Child Welfare League's information into consideration." So it seems to me that there has been a clear backing away from what was a commitment made to Members earlier.

My question though, and even of more concern to me, is the fact that it appears that I had assumed that we were going to see a quicker response in the city of Yellowknife. I thought the funding that had been provided to get us the increase in two workers and one support staff person would be provided as ongoing funding to Yellowknife Health and Social Services, so those positions could at least be there in the base and we might be looking at perhaps another three or four of the ten positions coming to Yellowknife to try to deal with the shortfall here.

Will the Minister commit to re-examining that issue and see whether there is some way to maintain the funding that has been provided as one-time funding to give a head start, at least to Yellowknife Health and Social Services, to deal with their critical problem? Then also ensure that there is a reasonable allocation from the ten that comes to Yellowknife.

The Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, yes we can commit to reviewing the specific needs of Yellowknife. However, Yellowknife is not the only community in which there was a deficiency in the availability of child protection workers.

We have to look at the needs system-wide, but certainly we are prepared to review the needs in Yellowknife and any changes in information that may have become available since the Child Welfare League review was done.

Yellowknife is certainly a magnet community for outlying communities. It seems that people do come here for quite a number of different reasons, and I think we see probably more fluctuations in population here than in some of the other communities where the demand on the services is somewhat more predictable. So yes, we would commit to reviewing that, again bearing in mind that we do have some pressures in other regions as well. Thank you.

General comments. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When last I had an opportunity to speak with the Minister, I made a comment to the effect that hiring a southern contractor seemed somewhat strange, especially given the Minister's stated commitment to northern solutions for northern problems. The Minister indicated that I was putting words in her mouth. I would just like to make it clear that I was not putting words in her mouth.

"I know that we can work together to solve the problem and find a northern answer to this very northern challenge." Mr. Chairman, that is a direct quote again from page 722 of Hansard of July 30, 1999. Unless the Minister is backing away from this support for northern solutions to northern problems, it is here, so I am not putting words in her mouth.

I do have questions about Mr. Cuff. The Minister did provide us with some information about Mr. Cuff's background and the work that he has done. I notice that he has worked for Alberta Health and Wellness, Alberta Infrastructure and the Capital Health Authority, but it does not say specifically what he has done. There is a wide range of activities. I would just like to know from the Minister, Mr. Cuff and his associates, were they part of the major reorganization and downsizing and collapsing of the health boards exercise that took place in Alberta a number of years ago?

I notice that the Minister's letter says that several members of the team have participated in the review and restructuring of hospital and health service administration. I was wondering if the Minister has that knowledge, or her deputy, in terms of Mr. Cuff's background. Thank you.

The Minister responsible for Health, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of solutions that Mr. Cuff may have recommended or solutions that he recommended that may have been implemented in other jurisdictions.

As I stated before, he does have a reputation for developing health-related action plans which are very pragmatic. I would also state that each and every consulting contract I am sure that someone like this would take up would have different kinds of factors which would contribute to the results. That is why we have asked Mr. Cuff to closely look at some of the other initiatives of this government and some of the unique realities of the Northwest Territories.

With respect to some of the comments previously about the operations of education boards, we have also asked Mr. Cuff to look at that as well, to look at the way some of our other board structures and government structures are set up in the Northwest Territories, so that he will have a very good understanding when making his recommendations of, as I said, some of the realities of delivering services in the North. Not to say that we probably do not have some similarities as well with some other rural and remote areas in which Mr. Cuff has performed work in the past.

As to the specific recommendations that he may have provided to other agencies and some of the results of those recommendations, Mr. Chairman, I do not have that available. I would suggest that when Mr. Miltenberger meets with Mr. Cuff on the 27th that he might ask him about that. Thank you.