Thank you. One last question. Mr. Chairman, I know the Minister, when he was on this side of the House, was very concerned about our seeming inability to get blue-chip information from the Department of Health and it was a constant concern. As he knows, we've raised concerns about the number of children being apprehended and particularly it seems, the number of aboriginal children being apprehended is on the rise. We did ask the Minister for some information on that and a colleague of mine posed an oral question and received a response from the department about the ethnicity of children who have been apprehended and there is one column in the response from the department that suggests the ethnicity is unknown and it's a large proportion of the children who have unknown ethnicity. The department indicates that when a child's ethnicity has either not been entered into the child and family services information database or is not known, the ethnicity is considered to be unknown. I think this certainly raises a concern. It gives the impression that in some instances, the effort or the bother just hasn't been taken to even enter the child's ethnicity into the system. So of course we are unable to track this accurately now and unable to get the kinds of information that the committee was looking for. I think this was just a further example of our frustration in getting the types of information that we have been looking for. I am wondering if the Minister could speak to our seeming inability to track this kind of information.
Brendan Bell on Bill 3: Appropriation Act, 2003-2004
In the Legislative Assembly on February 17th, 2003. See this statement in context.
general Comments
Bill 3: Appropriation Act, 2003-2004
Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
February 16th, 2003
Page 114
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