Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For someone who was here in the 13th Assembly when

this legislation was brought forward, we insisted, especially for the majority of the Members in this House where we were the majority at one time in the 13th Assembly, that whatever legislation came

forward that there had to be insurance that the communities would have been involved in whatever process that was put in place to ensure that they were involved with whatever happens to those children. The children of their communities, the decision that is being made with regards to the individuals in regards to social workers and establish a committee so that they can try to resolve this dispute at the community level.

Mr. Speaker, part of the legislation was the formation of the child and family services committees, which is a very important component

of this legislation. There are 10 clauses in the agreement which reflect that committee and what it is going to do and what powers it has and when they can be notified.

Mr. Speaker, the important part is that before any decision is made to take the child to the next step, which was the courts, that these committees would have been able to sit down with the social worker, the family, the plan and care committee workers and try to work out a solution so that those children would not end up in the court system, would not be permanent wards of the Government of the Northwest Territories by way of permanent custody. And yet, Mr. Speaker, I, for one, have fought for years to get a plan and care committee or community child and family services committee established in my community of Fort McPherson. There were people who were committed to sit on this committee. They volunteered their time and themselves to this committee, but yet there was no support whatsoever from the Government of the Northwest Territories to even find the resources, to find the support that they needed to do their job under this legislation.

For us to sit here 10 years after the fact, and more than 10 years since the legislation was passed in 1998, realize that now we have some 600-and-something children in care. It is expensive. It is $8 million to the Government of the Northwest Territories and increasing, and yet you look at the number of children who are under permanent custody or wards of this government, are some 200 children. Almost 30 percent of those children are now in permanent custody. I, for one, feel strongly that whatever legislation we put in place which identifies an important component of how this process is going to work and not funded and say, we are sorry, the funding wasn’t allocated. Well, you found $8 million to fund the foster care side of it, but it is more important that the resources were put there in the first place and the community members were willing to volunteer for this committee.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to realize that the legislation that was put forward had great intentions. But yet, Mr. Speaker, if the important component is not there by way of inclusion of communities, inclusion of a process that would try to resolve these issues before they got in courts and also the cost of the court time, the cost of the social worker time, the cost of the policing costs, all these costs you add up could have paid for these family care committees long before where we are today.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to also realize that we also have the system in place that was mentioned in regards to what happens to these children after they turn 16. The thing that frustrates me is that a large number of these children who

basically ended up in the care of this government by way of foster care, by way of permanent custody and turn 16, got themselves in trouble with the law because of petty crimes, are now in our justice system by way of our courts, by way of our jail facilities. A lot of these young people are now in southern institutions. Was that the intention of this legislation? I hope not. But that is a result that we are facing because this legislation wasn’t followed the way it was passed in this Legislature, but, more importantly, how it was carried out by the Department of Health and Social Services to ensure that that very important component was there to try to resolve these disputes before they came to be more than what they should have been which try to have these things resolved at the community level by the community representatives and trying to find solutions for the community and residents but, more importantly, for the children of our community.

Mr. Speaker, the most important asset we have as people are our children. The same thing applies to our communities. Those children are our future. They are our future leaders. More importantly, they are what maintains our society.

Mr. Speaker, I hate ranting on the point of what has happened in the past, but I think sometimes you have to learn from your mistakes in the past in order to go forward. I always go back to what happened in residential school where the government-of-the-day had great intentions in regards to the White Paper to assimilate native children into white society and make them white children, which they weren’t. This concept of what we are doing here by way of using legislation to find ways of apprehending children, finding ways to break up homes and take the children out of our home isn’t much different than what happened back then. I think it is important to realize that, from First Nations communities, this is one of the most irritating things that we have to deal with from community leaders, from MLAs to the chiefs, to our counsellors, to our family members, to our siblings and to our relatives, because we all live in the same environment.

I think it is important to realize that what we are doing here hopefully would not have us end up in the courts or end up in another major lawsuit because government policy wasn’t followed like it was intended and someone took the wrong route in regards to how they implement it because they felt that section really isn’t that important so let’s not implement that section. We will just go directly to the courts and let the courts make a decision what is going to happen to this child. That, for me, is the downfall of this legislation.

If that legislation was followed as it was basically passed in this Legislature, we would not be here today. It hasn’t been and because of that, we have

to pay for it today. That is why I support a comprehensive review of this legislation going to the communities that basically have the highest number of children that have been in the system and talk to the community, talk to the parents, talk to the children, talk to the foster care parents and find out why this system is not working.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting the motion. I ask that the other Members support it also. Mahsi.