Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the issue of courts and requirements we place on families is one that we take quite seriously. In fact, we tie up a lot of time in the courts because of our issue with the safety of children. We also get the other side of the equation, as I have stated earlier to one of the questions made or comments made, the fact that there are some people who think that, as a department, we are too involved and we place much too many requirements on a family before they can have their children reintroduced back into the home environment. We have a very stringent process of when a child is put in our care before we would release them back into the family. I've also dealt with the other side of it where I've had family members saying and calling regarding the intervention by social workers. Ultimately it's the safety of the child that comes first and we act on that.
The issue of testing is one where, I mean, we go even, for example, and I'll use the Mackenzie Delta with all the activity up there. Companies were requiring for safety of worksite that drug testing be done. That's being challenged, and it's being challenged across the country as well. So at some point we'd be looking to a challenge. I believe with what we have in place and the work we do with partners in communities under our own legislation, we have a very stringent process of reintroducing a child back into the home. We want to ensure again the safety of the child comes first. So home visits, if we have a social worker who's in the home and they realize that the reason these children were taken away was because of an abuse situation of substances and they recognize that that has not been cleaned up, then the child will not be returned back to that home.
Now, we've had lots of occasions, and I think most would know somebody in the community that went through issues of substance abuse who had children taken away, got their act together and got cleaned up and within a matter of months were back into some sort of an involvement with ourselves as the Department of Health and Social Services. So testing can be fine and work for awhile, but shortly after that testing is done we can still have family members potentially falling back into old habits. Unfortunately there's not going to be an absolute fix to the situation.
I think we've tried to be as careful as possible in this area. We can look at what other jurisdictions have done, but I think we can establish that our system in place is one that does take the safety of the child first. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.