Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, FAS is not new. It has been with us since the discovery of alcohol. It has just taken us this long to figure out the great damaging affects of alcohol ingested during pregnancy. We have heard the grim statistics today in this House, the most sobering one being that 25 percent of women have acknowledged that they drink during pregnancy.
Mr. Speaker, the issue of special needs has been before this House my whole time as an MLA and it has been very, very emotional and very, very pressing. One of the big issues is, how do we deal with special needs children in the schools?
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Education referenced the Student Support Needs Assessment for the Year 2000, and I have gone through the document a couple of times, read it and I have made some underlinings. While it acknowledges that there are problems and they have done lots of work in this area, there is no specific or clear reference to FAS or FAE. There are references to all types of behavioural issues and some disabilities such as attention deficit disorder, Mr. Speaker, but as we have heard in this House, while diagnosis is difficult, unless you know what you are dealing with in a school, it is very difficult to prepare a proper plan for that individual child.
A behavioural problem, because there are problems at home resulting from a possible separation in the family or other family problems, is going to be a totally different problem than anger management problems at school resulting from FAS or FAE, Mr. Speaker. Therefore, I would encourage the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to take a look at how they can improve this document. It is a good start, but very clearly if we want to really make a difference and try to provide the best service possible for children with FAS/FAE, when we do student support needs assessments, it has to be identified, as it has been in this House, as a very critical problem, that while preventable, is not treatable.
When we start doing that, then we can start building the kind of programs and the kinds of supports that we need to deal with these very special children. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
-- Applause