Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First, let me wish fathers across the Northwest Territories and in this House Happy Father's Day. I appreciate a couple of very heart-warming statements from Members today on that. That was very nice.
Mr. Speaker, yes, obviously last resort in these very difficult situations deciding on a parenting arrangement after a marriage has broken up, the last resort should be the court system. We are very concerned about it. As the Member pointed out in his statement, when these dealings end up being overly litigious and very confrontational and long and drawn out, it is certainly in nobody's best interest, least of all, obviously, the children involved, Mr. Speaker. So we are concerned with that.
We are doing a number of things in our programming and we get a contribution agreement from the federal government to assist and help us with some family law initiatives, but there are a number of programs we have underway. One of the interesting ones is a pilot project with a local lawyer who's been working out of Hay River and Yellowknife, and also done a number of these by conference call and video conference, but around mediation and helping people avoid the court system in these situations. I think that is the goal and we need to do more of that. So yes, we are very much aware, Mr. Speaker, that the court system is not the best answer and the best result for dealing with these very difficult situations. Thank you.