Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Roland is speaking about two different things. One is a voluntary agreement where parents would volunteer to participate in certain activities that would speed up the return of their children or bring about some confidence that the help that they receive would make their home a safe place for their children again.

The other is the plan of care committee, which is a group of people who could come together in the community to assist and provide advice and input, and that is provided for in the legislation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am referring specifically to agreements that parents would sign as part of the course of action that would be required to have their children back in their homes. I have worked with a number of families in my community in this area to try to see what can be done to ensure that they are doing the right thing. At the same time, their rights as parents are not being infringed upon. That is why I ask in the case of parents who do sign an agreement for a plan of care for their children, it might require sometimes giving funds to the department for care of their children in another home or homes that they might identify. When they sign this agreement and they have problems and circumstances change and they would like to get a change in that, how is that done? Once they sign it, it is done, stick with it until the end or you do not get your children. Or is there a way of going back by agreement between the staff and parents to ensure again that both sides are able to follow through with what was initially planned? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, by mutual agreement, there could be changes made to a plan of care under a voluntary agreement with the parents. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the whole area of testing, there were certain areas that she said, in response to her opening address, that there were some defaults or some boards not carrying out the responsibilities that they were given. She stated that one of the areas was the area of TB testing. Can the Minster state which health board is not carrying out that duty and responsibility?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I stated before in the House, we are just still in the midst of doing the operational reviews. We did not think it would be appropriate to mention certain boards. I had given the information in a general sense to let Members be aware that there were deficiencies in the carrying out of certain programs and services and monitoring, but I do not think it would be appropriate to name specific boards in this area. Thank you.

Just with regard to that comment, it is clear we are not receiving the service that should be arrived at in allowing patients to have the access to programs where everybody has the same opportunity to have different types of tests and different types of things done, so that they can be able to have early detection. Why is it that it is not mandatory for these different tests with regard to the different health boards?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, some information that will come out tomorrow that I will be willing to meet with Members to discuss and we will be providing copies of, is the Fanning report, which will make specific recommendations with respect to the issue with TB surveillance, screening and treatment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Another area we touched on is the area of statistics. I have some statistics with regard to the community of Aklavik with regard to people diagnosed with cancer from 1988 to 1997. According to you, there were 28 cases. Then you look at the Territory as a whole, there has been almost 1,000 cases in that same time frame. Does the Minister have the latest information, before you make the comment that there has been an increase in cancer cases in the Northwest Territories? Has this information been compiled so it could be released to either the committee or to the public?

Mr. Chairman, I am not sure which document the Member is referring to. Is he looking at a copy of the health status report perhaps? We do have information on statistics on cancer from 1986 to 1997, which we could...I think the information in the health status report is probably what we have already decided would be appropriate to dispose for public consumption. Thank you.

It comes from your department. It is the Government of the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Health Protection Unit, Northwest Territories Registry, June 9, 1999. Out of the Northwest Territories alone, there was some 679 people diagnosed with cancer. Yet in the Inuvik region, there is almost 200. Almost one-third of those people are in the Inuvik region. In Aklavik, there was an estimated 20. This is from 1991 to 1996.

I would like to ask the Minister, in her response, it is up to the individual. I hate to be blunt, but to come right out and say to a lot of people that I have received correspondence from or talked to family members on the different deaths that occurred lately, these people have been going to the health centre time after time after time, to a point that people have to practically threaten somebody on the health board or threaten a particular doctor to take action before they are sent to Yellowknife to be diagnosed. Yet the statistics tell us that it is a problem.

I want to ask the Minister, what is her department doing to spruce up the area of testing and ensuring the evaluation is done on patients, so that we have results so people do not have to continue to carry on? If you are sick, you are sick. You go to a health centre, you see a doctor because you feel sick. People do not go there because they want to harass the doctor or the nurse or whoever.

When people come to a point where...in the results of this TB case in my riding, I just sent a letter to the Minister yesterday from another constituent of mine where her dad passed away from stomach cancer. This guy was sitting in the hospital for four days and they wanted to send him home because they needed the bed in the hospital, so they put him in long-term care for four days and were going to send him back to Aklavik, but he had to call his daughter who was away at school and she had to call a doctor to demand that he be sent to Yellowknife. If that is the process, we have to get this department to really react to health care issues. What is this health care system coming to? I know recruitment and everything else is great, but we are spending millions of dollars to fly people around the world to look for nurses, meanwhile the system is slowly deteriorating to a point where people are not even meeting the basics of their health care.

I think it is important as a government that we seriously start doing more in analyzing the information and also being able to get more technology out there. If we can use the technology and have that information available to people so they can get earlier detection with regard to cancer and other diseases that are out there, TB or whatever, it will save us money in the long run from having people who are passed that stage of being able to be treated and having to have them pass on. I would just like to ask the Minister again, what are they doing to improve it and when are we going to see these new results published to give us the latest statement where you mentioned there is an increase?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we do publish our health status report every three years. Certainly the information, as Ms. Ballantyne has indicated, on certain diseases is published quarterly, every four months, through the EPI North report. Mr. Chairman, all I can say in response to Mr. Krutko's concern that people are not being diagnosed early enough is that we are doing everything we can and we are committed to ensuring that we do have a good quality health care system in place. I think that there are probably a lot of cases as well where people do receive very good treatment, and when they do not, obviously that is the time when MLAs and myself as Minister hear about that. We are committed to addressing any shortfalls in the system that might contribute to preventable negative results. Thank you.

I quit, that is it, no more.