Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would encourage the department to keep a close eye on the potential for repatriation. I think it only makes good economic sense to improve services as much as we can close to home. Having a core group of clients might help provide services or the base for services to a lot of clients who are not in need of institution care as well. It could perhaps cut down on travel costs and improve the quality of life for a lot of Northerners.

I think that this Legislature has in the past expressed its support for repatriation. I know I would certainly hope to see this watched carefully. I would certainly support seeing -- whether it takes capital or increased funding for professionals -- more people brought back to the Northwest Territories for treatment.

We are seeing growth here. I notice in the budget books that we do not see any growth for early intervention. This initially caused me some concern because it appears from looking at the budget books, we are seeing dramatic increases in the cost for treatment after people are presented with problems, and no growth at all for preventative programs. I am pleased that the government has agreed to add $2 million, although I recognize it does not show up here, for the Early Childhood Development Program.

I would just like to again reiterate that while we are talking about that money, it is going to be important that Members of this House, through the committees, have access soon to what is proposed for that program, so that we can have input before the department or the government moves to spend any of that money. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not hear any questions, just comments, and we will take those into consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like the Minister to expand a bit on the plan for the Early Childhood Development Program. Could she identify the program areas, is it children's programs, primary care, community health services, where the money will be targeted? I know they had a fairly wide range of initiatives.

I would also be interested if she could speak to the cooperative approach that is going to be used to develop a joint plan with Education so that, in fact, it meets all the goals and ties into the Healthy Children's Initiative and all these other areas where there is money for young children. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe Mr. Miltenberger could narrow the question down a little. He wants more detail on the early childhood development and he wants to know how the two departments are collaborating on these efforts? Mr. Chairman, I would just like clarification.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are two issues. Could the Minister identify where this program is going to fit within the various program areas before us today, children's programs, primary care, community health programs. Since this is a joint initiative, could she lay out how she intends to work with the Department of Education to come up with a tight, functional strategy that is going to tie into other initiatives like the Healthy Children's Initiative and will flow on into literacy and all these other areas where there is money being spent for children? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We could speak generally to that, but it is the level of detail that the Member is asking for, to take the entire $2 million and allocate it to these particular things that are identified in the main estimates. However, if he would like a general overview, I could ask Ms. Ballantyne to elaborate further. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can appreciate the complexity of this particular issue. I just want to make the case again, while we do our work with the children with us, ultimately we want to have children born healthy so that we no longer have to deal with FAS/FAE and the related problems and we can focus on strong families and giving them the skills and support at home.

If you want to look at a long-term investment, having children born healthy is probably, I would suggest, where we would like to have a lot of attention paid. How that is done will require a lot of work with social workers, nurses, and all these other folks. To me, that is the ultimate goal if we ever want to have a day where we do not have to talk about FAS/FAE in this House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for those comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question to the Minister is can she give us an idea of how many children we are talking about who are in care at this present time? What percentage of those are aboriginal children?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just need one moment, Mr. Chairman. We do not have the exact numbers of children who are in care at our fingertips here. We certainly know what it is, we just do not have the details here. I can say that generally it is usually between 300 and 350 children in care at any time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Does the Minister have any idea of what percentage of the children who are in care are aboriginal children?