Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in the spring 2000 session, a report called It Takes A Community was tabled in the Assembly. That was prepared by the Child Welfare League. There were some 58 recommendations contained in that report, along with the message to this government to increase the numbers of social workers. That report found that the caseloads for supervisors were some 80 percent over what was considered an acceptable standard. They found also that the caseloads for social workers were more than 40 percent higher than what they should be. So they recommended that this government hire close to 30 new social workers, at a minimum, to deal with the situation across the Territories. The department's response to that report was called A Children's Services Action Plan. They proposed in that report to increase the numbers of social workers by about 30 over three years. A year ago this month, I asked Minister Miltenberger about the plan and he responded at that time, we were in year two out of a three-year plan and that another 11 PYs are scheduled for 2003-04. Yet, Mr. Chairman, when I look through the budget, I don't see the funding for that critical increase in staff. So that means that four years after this important review, we still have social workers with caseloads too high and too few supervisors. I understand that the supervisors are still, for the most part, carrying extensive caseloads, so they don't have adequate time for proper supervision and training that you might want to see with staff.
So I know we've managed to increase the numbers of social workers in the Territories over the past two years, but in many cases, we are probably hiring young people who are recent graduates and who may not have a lot of experience. If the supervisors are carrying great big caseloads as well, they can't provide the mentoring and leadership that you obviously would like to have with new people in the job.
I also had understood that in year three of this plan, that we are going to see an increase, particularly in supervisors. The first two years were concentrated on getting frontline staff and then we were going to concentrate on getting supervisory staff in place. If we really are serious about trying to keep families together, why has the Minister chosen this year not to proceed with the final 11 PYs that he had committed to as part of the three-year plan?