Thank you, Mr. Dent. Final supplementary, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi. I appreciate the Minister's commitment on this particular, important issue. My final question, Mr. Speaker, is will the Minister ensure the development of aboriginal language curriculum receives equal treatment to other curriculum development projects at the department, such as English Languages Arts, Mathematics or Social Studies, and place the resources necessary for its development in the department where it should rightfully be placed? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The development of curriculum is an important aspect of the work that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment undertakes. All of our curricular instruments are considered important, so we don't say that one is more important than the other. All of the areas that are part of our curriculum in the Northwest Territories have to receive attention and make sure there is an important curriculum in place.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the area of the mental health and addictions awareness campaign is something that the department has been working on from within the resources we have available and trying to target the youth is a marketing campaign out there on the ill effects of drug and alcohol use in the territory. We have started working within the department. Again, we do have limited resources, but we feel that we can focus some of our existing resources in an area that will start to see some results and we will be working with the youth groups and community-based stakeholders and consultation of a development plan we are working on is still in the process. I don't have an actual timeline as to when we will come out with a final document, but we are beginning the process, as I stated, internally and working with other groups out there in trying to come up with an appropriate tool. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, according to the government stats, the youth in the Sahtu are very high and I would ask the Minister if he would consider coming into the Sahtu region to talk to the youth as the main stakeholders. These youth are faced with a tremendous amount of pressure with the pipeline, with the changes in lifestyle and also with the changes of our culture. Would the Minister commit to coming into the Sahtu region, talk to the stakeholders, the youth themselves, in terms of how we help them get off alcohol and drugs and stay away from these types of addictions that are detrimental to the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we develop this plan and come up with a framework that we can go out and have some of the consultations with the youth groups out there, I would be happy to travel with the Member working on our schedules, trying to go in and bring some of this discussion to the forefront. I do believe that if we are going to start this, we are going to start in communities, as well as individuals, families and aboriginal organizations that are involved in this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to the Minister arranging some time with me to go into the region. Would he have an open-book policy when he comes into the region that his department doesn't put pre-notions in terms of how we put this together? Just ask the youth, sit down with them, look at what kind of ideas they have, just ask the real stakeholders, the future of our people here in terms of how we help them help themselves. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess one is having an open book is which book are we speaking of? In working in the planning, I believe to sit down and have some good dialogue, we need to put some framework in place as to where we hope to go and bounce that off people to find out if it's a good direction or not. So, of course, we are going to be there. When we start this process, we want to hear from individuals on how they think things should go. Ultimately, there are some difficult choices to make for individuals and that has to be part of the process, as well as admitting that things need to be done and choices first need to be made on an individual basis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my Member's statement, I have very serious concerns over the incidents that have allegedly recently occurred in Hay River and certainly we do know a few of the facts to be true. That is that an individual came into our community and he was on probation in a different jurisdiction and was considered a high-risk sexual offender. Now, he was there for six months before anyone detected his presence in our community. I would like to ask the Minister of Justice, on a national basis, does the justice system not have a means of having a person report in when they are on probation when they have gone missing for six months from the jurisdiction he was in? It says in some of the information that I have read that he is expected to report to the jurisdiction that he was leaving from and report to the jurisdiction that he was coming to. So, theoretically, he should have come to the Hay River RCMP detachment and identified himself as being a high-risk sexual offender when he arrived in Hay River. Now, the chances of that happening are probably fairly slim. Given that, I would like to hear the Minister respond to what kind of a safety net is in place to make sure these folks are reporting...I don't want to say folks. Let me say to ensure that these criminals and pedophiles are reporting when they are on probation in jurisdictions in Canada. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Bell.

Mr. Speaker, it's a very concerning situation. I know that everybody in the territory is expectably upset by what has happened here and feel that the system has let us down, Mr. Speaker. I want to tell you that the offender was on probation in another jurisdiction, as the Member has indicated. When he didn't report to his probation officer after I think it was a week or two, there was a warrant out for his arrest throughout the country. It is unfortunate that we didn't recognize or notice that he had arrived in the Northwest Territories, was living in the community. Normally, yes, this offender should have reported to the RCMP and been submitted and included in the sex offender registry, and in that case, had he come into this jurisdiction, the RCMP would have been notified and then they would have made a determination around what kind of notifications had to be made to the local jurisdiction. The problem was that we didn't pick up on the warrant in this jurisdiction and it is regrettable, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at the school where this individual was volunteering in Hay River, the school has taken a very proactive approach now and they are going to be requiring, by policy, that any volunteer working in our school system would automatically be required to provide a criminal records check. So this is a policy change that has come into place very quickly. I'd like to know what the Minister plans to do to ensure that this is not just in Hay River, that this will be implemented everywhere in the Northwest Territories. As I said, this could have happened anywhere in the North. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Bell.

Mr. Speaker, I think that's a very good suggestion and obviously this was a good decision, in my opinion, for the Hay River DEA to take. A number of the DEAs across the Territories, I understand from discussing this with the Minister of Education, have similar policies. I'm not sure if all do. We would urge all of the DEAs to undertake such a policy. I think it's a good recommendation. I know that if you're going to be an employee for the Department of Education, you must undergo a criminal records check. That has not always been the case, obviously, for volunteers, as we're finding. But I would urge municipalities, DEAs, anybody going to be having volunteers work for them to ask their volunteers to submit to a criminal records check, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.