Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, clearly, as the Member has articulated, the history of child welfare in the North and in many jurisdictions has not been one that could be looked upon as a shining success. I would like to think that we have learned from some of the significant mistakes made in terms of changing our legislation. In terms of recognizing the need to involve the communities with plan of care committees and hopefully family and children services committees at the community level. Of a commitment to hiring more social workers northern trained, hopefully as many as possible aboriginal social workers.
But the Member is right. The statistics are clear. They are stark. The majority of children in care tends to be aboriginal in the Northwest Territories. We have no clear link in our systems, for example, between child welfare information systems and the justice system where you could cross-reference to see if there is a link or with income support or with SFA to see which children have gone on to higher education. Would it be possible to do that kind of cross-referencing? It probably would with some effort, but the anecdotal information and for those of us that have been around the system long enough, we would not argue with the anecdotal assumption that a far too high percentage of children, that specifically there are permanent wards, end up graduating into the adult system where they are in need of supported living arrangements or they get into the justice system. That is a significant shortcoming that is yet to be addressed.
Mr. Chairman, the fundamental issue though is, children are deemed to be in need of protection and we have to come up with a way to work with communities and families to make sure that children do not require protection. Those parents and their families recognize that the risk they take if, in fact, they do not provide the care and protection of their children. That is the fundamental issue that we have to try to deal with as opposed to trying to keep fixing things after they are broken, which is very difficult. Thank you.