Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This section covers, obviously, an area that is important to a number of us, community health programs,
which also includes the Child and Family Services Act. I thank the Minister for providing us with the department’s or, rather, government’s response to the Child and Family Services Act in time that we could discuss it as we get to this section.
A lot of work was put into the review by committee and a lot of work was put into the responses by the department. Although we may have some differences of opinion on some of the wording within and we may not fully understand each other yet on what the recommendations and what the responses are, I look forward to an opportunity and I look forward to continuing to work together on that to find some real meaningful solutions and a real solid go-forward plan so we can benefit the children and families in the Northwest Territories.
However, there are some specific finance questions I would like to ask, things that are obviously timely and things that we or I and some committee members feel may have been missed in this business plan and these main estimates that we see in front of us. In the Child and Family Services Act, one area that is critical and makes our act unique in many, many ways is the establishment of the child and family service committees in the communities. During our journeys we heard many, many people talk about these committees. Some people were talking about them because they just learned about them for the first time ever when we mentioned that they exist; others didn’t know about it. But these are unique aspects of our act and it is something that we should be proud of. Unfortunately, we haven’t done a very good job of implementing these committees.
The Minister can correct me if I am wrong -- I may be -- but I could have sworn that there was some reference during previous discussions that the Minister made reference that the department was hoping to have five committees up and running during 2011-12. My question is around those committees. If you look at the response to the Child and Family Services Act, it actually said that it doesn’t make any reference to establishing any new committees at all. It says that you agree that these committees are important, but that there are significant financial implications associated with this recommendation. A detailed cost analysis will be included for consideration in future GNWT planning and full implementation will be dependent upon available resources, which worries me given how important this is. Could the Minister commit to ensuring that at least five child and family services committees are established in the Northwest Territories by the end of the 2011-12 fiscal year?