Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I must apologize. I missed the last part of the Member's comment or question because there was lots of table thumping and cheering about her intent of her question. Could I just ask the Member just to repeat the last part of the question, please?

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mrs. Groenewegen, could you repeat the last part of that question?

Thank you. Maybe I'll just rephrase it because maybe it wasn't that good. Would the Minister consider reprofiling the $4 million, currently being spent on southern placement for youth, to develop a residential youth treatment centre in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is a good suggestion and an outstanding issue and, in fact, I believe it did come up during the review of Health and Social Services' budget. But we are currently working on a proposal with Bosco Homes to look at repatriating, as the Member has suggested, some of those services to the North. We have to keep in mind that they're not...All the children that are out there, many of them have unique circumstances. You can't sort of just lump them all together and think we can move them all back en masse. We have to look at this carefully. But we are looking at that. We recognize that some of the services we believe, as well, could be provided in the North and we hope to have some progress on that here in the next few weeks. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we've been talking about this for a long time. This is not a new concept. This is not a new theory. It's easy to say, well, you know, the circumstances, the issues these youth are dealing with are unique. Listen, we could name them on two hands what the issues are, I mean, that are leading to addictions. I mean, you know, they may be unique, but there's probably only, like, about 10 contributing issues to some of these things. I'm sorry to say, but it's not unexpected some of the outcomes, after what some of these youth have been through and some of the problems that they face. It's not rocket science. It's not hard to figure out. You need professional people; you need professional help; and you need good facilities. I don't know why we can't do that without studying this any further. I'm not a professional in this area; I may not know much about it; but it's pretty obvious to me what the solution is and I'd like the Minister's commitment to not just say, well, you know, specialized services for specialized problems, unique problems. I want the money brought home. You know, as a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I know I have to wind this up. There's $4 million. I would ask the Minister, would he consider a proposal from four different regions for $1 million to start treating

youth in residential facilities? I think it could be done. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We always are open to considering proposals, but we are going to continue with the plan that we've put into place working on the repatriation that I've just previously mentioned, working with Yellowknife Health and Social Services and Bosco Homes to look at their current children down south and youth down south and which ones that we think, looking at all their circumstances...and it's not just addictions, many of them have concurrent disorders or presenting problems and some very unique behavioural challenges on an individual basis. So we are looking at that, but we are always open to looking at proposals. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Okay, so just so we have this clear and on the record, if you got a proposal from a group of people who could come up with a professional approved accredited service to treat youth, say in the Beaufort-Delta region, and they asked for $1 million a year for a number of years to be funded, would this government give that serious consideration? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We're looking at, as the Member raised herself, the issue of re-profiling existing resources and if that proposal is tied into that fundamental understanding, of course we're interested. TTC was initially built because it was going to pick up the slack so we wouldn't have to send children south. That was what initially lead to Trailcross in Fort Smith being set up as well. Those facilities, in fact, in turn, got filled, and children with even greater needs and more complex issues came to light. But, yes, we're prepared to look at proposals. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Places like TTC and Trailcross are proof positive that we have the capacity to deal with our youth in the North. We don't need to ship them south at $4 million a year and I would ask the Minister to examine models of that nature to bring our youth home. Would he do that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Miltenberger.

Yes, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This process has been underway since shortly after last April. We've been working with the co-management boards up and down the valley, with the Inuvialuit, with the Gwich'in, the Sahtu. We met with the Tlicho chiefs. We've met with the Northwest Territories Metis Nation. We've met with the Yellowknives. We've met with the barren-land outfitters. We've been talking about the numbers.

If you look at the interim measures, there's been some clear steps that have been agreed to in the short term. Some of the co-management boards have come forward, especially from the North, with their own recommended courses of action that they have decided in their wisdom that they want to move on and that we've agreed with. So we've made some decisions. We also have a broader strategy that's going to allow us to move ahead over the next four or five years. The first step is to take the steps that I've laid out and we want to follow through on that.

There's also a big meeting come up here the start of next week that's going to bring together folks that tie into the Bathurst committee. We've brought in, as well, some other people that didn't sit on that committee the last time to look at issues surrounding the Bathurst herd, and we are going to redo the numbers this spring and summer with the census count. So we do have a plan and we think it makes sense and we've consulted extensively. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Supplementary, Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess the key word in this is consultation. I know I've been getting a lot of feedback from a lot of hunters and trappers saying that they've never even heard of this strategy. I haven't heard of it and I don't think any of the Members of this House have even seen it mentioned in the business plans or anything, last year or the year before. So I'm not sure where the Minister has been engaging in all this consultation process with all these management boards and everything like that. Just to get back to the question, I want to ask the Minister, can the Minister go through the Internet and get a polling of what the people in the NWT actually think that this strategy is going to do? Maybe develop some ideas into how we can better implement some steps to helping the declining numbers of caribou and having a forum where hunters and trappers can actually have direct input into this whole strategy, because I think a lot of hunters and trappers are being excluded out of the consultation process because they're either out on the land doing hunting and trapping. If we move out on a public education campaign...