Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, would like to speak on the issue of the Family Law Act with regard to the effects we are seeing in our communities, especially my constituency. This is a major problem in the communities of Aklavik and Fort McPherson. What we are seeing is that it's becoming pretty apparent that this is becoming not just a problem, but an epidemic with regard to the numbers of children who are now presently in care and also being put through the court system where the whole court party has to put aside two days just to deal with family apprehension issues in the courts. It tells you it is now taking up court time. In Fort McPherson, they have to put aside two days in this month to deal with the children in care. I met with the social services people in the region and when you hear that 11 children are being considered to go into permanent custody, that tells me that we are now in the process of doing less than what was done in the past, which was children were taken away from their parents at an age of five and they never saw their parents again until maybe they are lucky to be home when they are 10 years old. By the time they got home, they didn't know who their parents were. They didn't know who their grandparents were. I don't think we intended to reinvent history here by duplicating what was done in the past. For me, it's a total catastrophe waiting to happen. You see major cases regarding things like Grollier Hall, the hostel systems and what we have seen across the country because of how governments have treated aboriginal people, especially aboriginal children. I think it's offensive that this government is now duplicating past history. I think as a Minister, knowing this problem is out there and not really doing anything to deal with the problem, makes me wonder if we are really carrying out the regulations and legislation we put forward.

In the legislation, as it was presented, the first option that was supposed to be considered under legislation was establishment of plan and care committees in communities. From my understanding, there are no plan and care committees anywhere. Yet, looking at the correspondence that was given to us when this legislation was going to come forward, that was the number one option on the list to be considered. As a government, we cannot fund a system where the social worker is doing the apprehension, the social worker is doing the plan and care work, the social worker is developing the legal argument to take to court. The social worker is the one who is going to be presenting the case in court. That was not the intention of this legislation, to have our frontline workers being set up to do all the dirty work, knowing that they will have to live in those communities. Those decisions that they make will fall back on them because of the decisions that are made either by a judge or by a court. It is causing chaos in our communities. These people are under a lot of pressure because of carrying out legislation that was intended to protect the child, but also ensuring that it is not used or abused where we have this number of children in the process.

We have to have the mechanisms in place. You can't establish a plan and care order for someone and say you have to take alcohol and drug treatment. You have to take treatment because of violence. You have to take treatment because of your problem of co-existing with other people. Then you find out, sorry, there are no treatment programs. I believe there is one program being delivered in Hay River with 30 beds, but you might be lucky to get in in two years. If we can't implement decisions or plan and care orders that we cannot carry out as a government, we shouldn't be imposing plan and care orders on parents knowing we do not have the capacity for those parents to take those programs. Yet, that is what is in the plan and care orders.

Then your other option is to go to court. When you take that option, you find out that the courts are booked, so the 45 days, which is the amount of time these children can be apprehended, passes until the next court party or court date can be put on the docket. Then you have to designate two days for the court party to deal with this plan and care order which goes to court. I think there is something wrong with that system when we have this many children in the system and we find out that 11 of them may become permanent custody cases by way of court order. That would put them into that cycle of being bounced from one home to another home, to one home to where we end up finding out that these kids are going to be in the young offenders' facilities, in our jail facilities, in our federal jail systems. That's how it starts out. We have great intentions, but once the children get into that system of being institutionalized, they become born into a lifestyle where they will be going in and out of institutions. We've seen it. It seemed to me that we are not learning anything from this legislation.

I have met with the Minister on this. We met last week or a week-and-a-half ago with members of the community of Fort McPherson. We have raised this issue about the idea of the establishment of plan and care committees and communities willing to look at that. Now all they do is the chief gets a phone call and he's told what can you do. By the time he is called into it, it's too late or already going to court. When it gets to court, you are not even allowed to be in the courtroom. That's the type of situation we are running into by way of legislation, and how it's been carried out and how it's having a direct effect on the cost of not only the delivery of the program but also the time and resources that are being put into this by frontline workers. I think it's burdened the system so they don't even have time to deal with other matters such as the elders' issues, pensions or the overall problem of people with disabilities. It's had a major affect on our progress. I would like to ask the Minister to respond to that. It's something I feel strongly about and has to be seriously looked at.

The other area I wanted to touch on is the area of the mental health workers and alcohol and drug workers in our communities. My concern is that it's not really clear of how we are going to reprofile these so-called community-based frontline workers. In most communities, we have an alcohol and drug program that's administered by the community. We may have a mental health worker in the community and I am getting the calls from those workers saying what is the status. Am I going to have to go back to school or what kind of qualifications do I have? Do I have to have a degree in becoming a mental health worker? Do I have to go back to school for two or three years to become an alcohol and drug worker? Those types of questions are out there and as a community, we also would like to know what is this going to do to the services that are presently being provided in our communities and are these positions going to stay in our communities or are they going to go to the regional centres like we've seen with most other positions? Could the Minister elaborate more on that and give us some assurances about the status of this whole process to reprofile or redefine these positions? Those people are frontline workers, along with the social workers, who deal with the problems day in and day out. Yes, they are overworked and underpaid. I believe they should get a major increase, but I don't want to see us losing these positions from our communities. Thank you.