Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just my opening comments with respect to this report. Early in the life of this Assembly, I had constituents start to come to me and talk about concerns that they had with the Child and Family Services Act. Quite frankly, in the beginning I couldn’t tell whether it was problems that we actually had with the act or whether it was problems that we had with the implementation. There were issues that certainly through the review become clear that there are a few gaps in the act. There are some things in the act that do need to be looked at and a few things that do need to be changed in the act.

Overall, it is my opinion that this is a pretty good act. It has a lot of positive aspects. The one thing

that I feel is quite positive is the requirement for community committees. I think that is a mechanism whereby communities can be empowered to take on some responsibility with respect to the apprehension of children within the communities. Unfortunately, as we all know now, the act really wasn’t implemented in several ways. Going out to the communities and listening to what the people had to say was incredibly valuable for me. I feel like I learned an awful lot about some of the difficulties that individuals are having in these communities, particularly with respect to the apprehension of the children.

As a committee, we came up with a number of recommendations. I support those recommendations. I am not going to talk about the specific recommendations. We will do that later when we are out of general comments and we are more on the detailed aspect of things and we are talking about those recommendations. I do want to talk about some of the key areas that I heard and my colleagues heard.

One of the key areas that I think came up in every community we came to is prevention. Prevention is key. We need, as a government, to take more proactive steps to help families; to help families that are in poverty, to help families that are in crisis. There are a number of things that this government is doing that are good. The Healthy Families Program is a very good program. Everywhere we went where this program is delivered, we heard positive statements. People like this program. In those communities it is adding value. Unfortunately, we are only delivering this program in four communities. We need to expand this program. We need to take other steps in prevention.

Earlier last month I attended an anti-poverty workshop. This was a good workshop. We had an opportunity to talk about some of the things that are leading families down difficult paths. Poverty is one thing that is obviously leading people to situations where their children are being apprehended for things like neglect. We need to work on an Anti-Poverty Strategy as the Government of the Northwest Territories. We make reference to that in this report.

One of the other areas that we heard about is how this system is perceived as adversarial, how this system seems to be combative rather than collaborative. We have made a lot of recommendations about changing our mindset around child and family services, about becoming more collaborative, and becoming more cooperative, and working with our families, and working with the parents and working with the communities. This is something that I think we need to do in order to find reasonable solutions to the challenges that we are facing with respect to child

apprehension. We must help families. We must work with them. Fighting them is not the solution.

I have mentioned already the child and family service committees in every community. So far we have had one or, rather, we attempted to have one in Fort McPherson and the first round did not work out very well. To my understanding, they are now establishing a second committee in the community, but there is a lot more involvement from the Department of Health and Social Services. From what I understand, it looks like it is going to be a success. I think we should be very proud of that. We should be proud of the work that the community has done but also of the work that Health and Social Services has done to work with that community to actually get this thing up and running. It’s a step. It’s just a step. We need to have community committees in every community that we have.

One of the things that we heard over and over again is that when a social worker is called in due to concerns about a child in a home, the child may be taken out on a temporary basis at which point the social worker and the parents have to develop a plan of care where they work together -- I wonder if anybody’s listening -- where they work together to come up with a solution on what the parents and the family need to do in order to get their child back into the home. Unfortunately, a lot of the time one of the things that comes up is mental health and addictions. And the social worker and the family agree that one of the steps that need to be taken is mental health and addictions counselling of which there is none in the community that these people live.

Right off the top we are setting these families up for failure. We are not helping them; we are hurting them. Children need to be with their families where appropriate, which is most of the time.

We need, if we want to be successful, to be more proactive on mental health and addictions counselling; which, for the record, is also something we should be doing with respect to an Anti-Poverty Strategy. Two things we could be doing at the same time. The Department of Health and Social Services needs to be a little bit more proactive on providing front-line, in-the-community alcohol and drug counselling for those individuals in crisis.

Another thing we heard is the frustration that people have in the fact that they don’t even understand the act and what is happening to them as people and families. The act, although for the most part it is a good act, is confusing. It is very, very confusing. It is very complex. We did not hear one person who has gone through the system indicate that they had any understanding of the system at all. We need to be a little bit proactive there as a department. We need to get in there and we need to do some plain language work on this act. We need to make sure

that people understand it. We need to do more communications. We need to educate our people so that they understand the act. We’ve made recommendations to that effect as well.

We’ve also talked about placements. A lot of the time, maybe not as much now, but often a child will be taken out of a family and placed in a foster home with a loving foster home who cares and wants to work with these children and do well, but that foster home may not be of the same cultural background as the child that has been taken out. This is unfortunate. We need to do a better job of working with families, grandparents, uncles, aunts, individuals who can take these children with a little support from the government. Right now if a grandparent takes a child, they get no financial assistance, yet they still have to pay the bills, they still have to buy the food. We’re not helping, we’re hurting. We need to make sure that we take those steps and find ways to allow and support families who take these children on short-term and longer-term placements if necessary.

We heard from the social workers as well. Social workers have an incredibly important job. I don’t envy them. I wouldn’t want to be an individual that has to go into a home and remove a child. I can’t imagine how difficult that is for the social worker and I can’t imagine how difficult that is for the family. Sometimes it needs to be done. Thank goodness our social workers are professionals. I’d like to applaud the social workers for all the hard work that they do. We know it’s a difficult job. They expressed concerns. They have concerns about the policy manuals. They have concerns about the regulations. They have concerns about the act themselves. They have asked for plain language documents. They have asked for more training. The department needs to do this. The department needs to do this so that the social workers can be more collaborative and less confrontational. Not that they are, but the system is. They want to help. They don’t want to hurt. Right now, often we’re hurting.

We’ve thought about these recommendations long and we’ve considered them. I stand behind them as a member of this committee and I think if we move forward with these recommendations, we can make a difference to these young people and these families. Yes, it’s going to cost some money. But the long-term benefits of this, if you tie this in with an Anti-Poverty Strategy, are significant and will save us money in many, many areas down the road. These recommendations talk to the Housing Corporation. These recommendations talk to Education, Culture and Employment. These recommendations talk to Justice. We all need to work together as partners to solve these problems. This isn’t just a health problem. This is a GNWT problem. This is a people problem. We all need to work together to find these solutions.

I encourage all the Members to read this report, think about the recommendations, and let’s all work together to help the families of the Northwest Territories.