Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to speak about an issue that's not new to this forum. Mr. Speaker, many Members in this Assembly have spoken about the schools and the need for assistance for students in those schools, especially in the area of special needs, Mr. Speaker. It's been talked about on numerous occasions. The Minister has responded a number of times. There have been studies and so on. Yet, we seem to still have the problems of how we deal with the special needs situations in our schools.

Mr. Speaker, I know from the past a person who was on a district education authority in Inuvik that, for example, half of the children going into kindergarten required a speech therapist. Unfortunately, right now in Inuvik we don't have such a person on staff either in the Department of Education, Culture and Employment or the Department of Health and Social Services.

Mr. Speaker, we talk about all we want to do for our children, but it seems when it comes to the very critical age of doing something for them at the youngest age when they enter our systems we say sorry, we don't have enough. We've passed all the money on to our DEAs and DECs and they're doing what they can with it.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to know if this government in this life that we've been in as 14th Assembly Members, have we done anything to try and address the needs of special needs and support services in the classroom? Now, I know we've put some money into it, but have we done further than just saying here's a few dollars to it? Have we undergone anything that we can go and call a strategy that's going to be implemented and make a difference in the lives of those students so that when they move on in grades they're not just going as peer advancement or social pass, but they're going up and they're achieving their grades and will be ready for the world when we so-called graduate them.

I will have questions for the appropriate Minister later. Thank you.

---Applause