On another issue, as I mentioned in
my opening comments in regard to this department, we have to find a solution to the apprehension of children and find a way so we don’t have 620 kids in care. We have to find a way to work with the families, work with the communities and work with the children to find workable solutions in our communities. I think it’s important to realize that apprehending children is not the way to find solutions to these problems. We can blame the parent; we can blame the community; we can blame society in general. But at the bottom of it all, a lot of it has to do.... We can blame history in regard to residential schools. We can blame the world for alcohol and drug problems. But at the end of the day, these are problems that are not just unique to us. They’re something we have to find solutions to. A way I see to take hold of that is finding control mechanisms and finding systems in place so we work with community social workers, community bands, people on the Community Justice committees, groups like that, to find ways of looking at this through a different lens than we are today.
I’d just like to ask the Minister: are you open to some sort of working arrangement that, like in the legislation...? I asked questions when the legislation was being brought forward in the Child and Family Services Act, that communities have to be involved.... One of the things we were assured of at the time legislation was being passed was that there are going to be Plan of Care committees. Communities will have a say in regard to the Plan of Care orders that are going to be issued. There will be an opportunity for people who have these orders placed on them to have a system in which they are being heard by their leaders.
I’d like to ask the Minister: exactly what is her department doing to ensure these Plan of Care committees are working? As far as I understand, talking to the only community in the Northwest Territories that has implemented it, they haven’t had any support whatsoever from your office out of Inuvik, in regard to Inuvik health board; there hasn’t been any attempt to work with them to basically give them the tools they need to productively do their job. Again, they are being stymied by a system that basically does not want to download or upload powers and authorities to other community groups where the legislation clearly states that Plan of Care committees is part of the Child and Family Services Act. I’d like to ask the Minister: exactly how are you going to improve that relationship with the communities in regard to the Plan of Care committees in communities, which seem to have done a bad job to date?