Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We can certainly provide a report on what other jurisdictions are doing and how they do it. We know that in conversations with our stakeholders, the boards and the educators, they tell us that this is, in their opinion, the best way to deal with it. I think it's important to remember that although we had been putting a large amount of money into the system over the past few years, it was only when I became aware that this money might not all be going into special needs that last year, I issued a directive that you didn't get the money unless it was actually being spent on special needs. We tightened up the requirements for how it would be spent. So that, along with the new special needs directive that we're planning to send out or issue later this year, should ensure that we are seeing the sort of supports that are needed.
I'd be quite happy to make sure the committee has information from other jurisdictions where the process might be handled differently. The biggest problem that I hear from people who have this system in their jurisdiction is that it doesn't deal with all of the kids. Only those kids who've been able to have an assessment are the ones who get the funding then. Because unless you're labelled as having a special need, there is no allocation of funds if you're in that kind of system. We are, right now, unable to ensure that we can get all of our students assessed. We don't have the health care professionals in the North or in the system that we can make sure that's happening. So we have, to date, been relying on the schools to tell us who needs to get that sort of assistance.
You know, it would cost this government I don't know how many millions of dollars, to do an assessment of all of the kids in the North to find out how many are affected with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I doubt that Health and Social Services has the money for it and I don't think we're going to get the money for it, so if we wait for an assessment to say that this child needs some assistance because of that medical problem, then I think we're failing those kids. Whereas the system we've got now, if it's recognized that the child needs some support, then it's expressly stated in the act that every child shall get an education that is appropriate in the classroom. That's a requirement that each of our divisional education councils has to live up to. It's our obligation, then, to try and make sure that we can provide the funding so that they can do that. They were telling me consistently that they weren't getting enough money. I looked into it and said, well, part of the problem is I don't think you're spending, not all of you are spending it where it should be spent. Then when we got that straightened out, they still said they're not getting enough money. I know that I've talked to parents who say that they know the schools aren't getting enough money. So we've moved forward to try and improve that situation. I think that now it's going to take us a little while to get the money into the system and to demonstrate that we can better deal with the problems that we're facing out there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.