Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of the motion for the provision of respite care services. I would like to thank the Yellowknife Association for Community Living for their wonderful pamphlet they provided and I was able to read through it.

I do concur there are so many success stories for the 29 families here in Yellowknife. However, like my colleague Mr. Krutko had indicated, in the regions and communities, our stories are much different. We do have the same needs and our families do have needs. In one of my communities there was a disabled child that could not stay in that small community because the services did not exist. That child is being well taken care of now down south. However, had we had territorial-wide respite care services, I believe maybe that story could have been different too, Mr. Speaker.

But I am pleased with the debate and the discussion here today and a semi-commitment by the Minister of Health and Social Services to review the needs and review the respite program in the upcoming budget session. I, too, await the discussion and debate that she is going to have with the Standing Committee on Social Programs as we move forward for the rest of this year.

I do like to see that a motion of this nature is a united voice of all Regular Members on this side on the importance of this issue. Once again, I would just like to say what is important for me is to expand this successful program that is here in Yellowknife to the communities and regions. In terms of how government pursues cost savings, Mr. Speaker, cost savings are for getting rid of programs and services that do not work, Mr. Speaker, not for the ones that are achieving success and our people really like and it is kind of like...

---Applause

Thank you, colleagues. I offer that to government. Those are the ones you want to cut, the ones that don’t work and not the ones that do work, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to, once again, standing in support of this motion. Thank you. Mahsi cho.