Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I received several phone calls regarding the matter of children being taken from their homes and apprehended and put in other homes in other places.
Mr. Speaker, I feel that we as a government must do more to help families find solutions to deal with problems in the homes and also finding ways to improve the lives of the people and families who live in our communities.
In cases of alcoholism, unemployment, social problems that we see in many of our aboriginal communities, we must find solutions, not ways of breaking up families. I strongly believe that family treatment in regard to family counselling and other initiatives are the way to go.
You cannot heal a family by taking one child or one person out of the family. You must deal with the problem as a whole in which you must deal and heal the family together.
I believe children can no longer be taken away from their homes or taken away from their communities and say that we are solving the problems in our communities. I feel that this government has to enact the responsibilities we take on as a government to provide good health care, good education, improve the social conditions in our communities. Simply taking our children away is not the solution.
Mr. Speaker, I have been receiving calls regarding how children have been taken away. In some cases, it has been very violent and very frightening to the child to have your door beaten down with a sledgehammer. People you do not know or who do not know what is going on with you, grab you and take you out of the home without having an opportunity to say what the repercussions are going to be on that child.
The shock alone of having to go through that experience is unacceptable. We see these situations on television in places like Detroit, Russia and other places in the world, but why do we use that method of abducting children in the Northwest Territories?
With that, Mr. Speaker, I will have questions to the Minister on this matter later.
-- Applause