Thank you, Madam Chair. Just briefly, something that's not mentioned in this report as I'm presenting this is the fact that we do recognize the important and difficult work that the child protection workers do, and we do, just in case there is any sense out there from hearing our report that we are only pointing out perhaps the problem areas, it's probably due to the fact that our committee hearing process, in our process we are just reporting what we heard in our public hearing process. But I do understand that there are children in our communities that find themselves in a position where they
have to be apprehended in order to protect their interest and keep them safe, and we do appreciate and honour the work that child protection workers do. It is difficult work and we wish that a lot less of that would happen. But when they do happen, we need to have a system in place and we know that the child protection workers take care of that. So I just want to add that to the statement that I presented here.
As a Regular Member, I'd like to know if I could ask a question to the Minister about the role of justices of the peace. Once again, we know and we appreciate the work that justices of the peace do. They perform an important function in our judicial system, but their scope of work and practice is different than what the judges do. The witness we had in Inuvik spoke to us, and I think she had a valid point in saying that she would have a problem with a justice of the peace doing a court hearing on child apprehension matters, but that it would be okay for them to get involved in the initial stage. So could I ask the Minister to clarify that? Thank you.