Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I am assuming that now that we have new monies for additional funding in this area, that we can count on seeing some additional facilities open for family violence shelters in other communities?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The 9.4 percent increase I mentioned was to the overall departmental budget. The other significant investment I was referring to was the addition of the social worker positions, 10 last year, 10 this year and 11 next year, if they are approved. In terms of any increase to this particular activity, there has not been any. Thank you.

Thank you. I was actually heading down that road. My next question is regarding the comment the Minister just made about placing shelters in every community. What is his time line? How ambitious is this statement in terms of when we can expect to see a safe home and a family violence shelter in every community?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, what I was talking about with Mr. Krutko was the finding, trying to work with the communities to ensure that there is a safe place for women and children in the event of an emergency need. Would that be a safe home, would there be arrangements made with someone in the community? That would probably be the first step and the first choice. It is something that we will be raising as a normal matter of business, but I will be raising it with the board chairs when we gather. It is going to be something that we are going to initiate and give some extra effort to.

When will we have one in every community? I cannot say, but we will work with the social workers and the regional health boards and the people in the community to try to identify a safe place in the event of an emergency need for women and children. Thank you.

Let me ask a simpler question then and maybe the Minister will be able to answer this. When is the next time we are going to see a new shelter being funded, over and above the five that are already on-stream?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At present, there are no plans for any further shelters that I am aware of and based on the funding we have, it is fully subscribed to with the existing program that is now being delivered. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the community of Fort Providence has applied on a number of occasions for funding to run a family violence shelter. They have staff in place. They have funding for a family violence counsellor. They have a facility that was turned over and transferred to them from the church. However, that does not seem to meet the criteria, whatever the criteria may be to access funding.

I wanted to know how serious the Minister is about funding new facilities. What does it take to get on-stream? Does it take a community crisis? How did Fort Smith get their funding? What criteria did they have to make to qualify? Why can't anybody else qualify?

The Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of the proposal my colleague makes reference to. I know that this is an issue. I know that we are planning, along with the alcohol and drug issues, trying to deal with this within our mental health and family violence framework that we are working towards completing and that we are going to have an action plan hopefully attached that will identify how we are going to try to address the needs that are out there in terms of family violence. The particular proposal that my colleague referenced...very clearly, we are in a situation here, as I have said from the start, where the need far outstrips the resources we have available. We will be making the case through this framework of how we intend to proceed, if we can get the support and the funds to do that. Thank you.

Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can appreciate that the Minister is not fully aware of all of the submissions made in the past, so I wanted to ask, as we start to see incidents of violence increase in the communities, along with the resource development projects that have come on-stream, we can only expect it to grow. I would like to ask the Minister if he would consider again, or get his department to consider again, communities that already have identified resources and facilities. Would he consider looking at and reviewing the submissions that were submitted previously?

The Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I would make that commitment within the family violence context, as well as within the context of impacted areas with major socio-economic resource development. So yes, I will make that commitment to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Roland.

The Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, that particular piece of legislation falls within the purview of the Minister of Justice. However, when I met with the Social Programs Committee, I did make the commitment to write to the Minister to encourage and emphasize the critical nature of this particular piece of legislation. There is some work that has been done in terms of a survey of other jurisdictions, but it is something that the Minister of Justice has within his purview. Thank you.