For the record, you can hear all four of them today as well. When it comes to the child and family services committee, short sights from previous governments are hardly our problem. This is something that’s in the act, it’s something that should have always been there and we need to find a way to make it happen. There are options. Let’s think outside the box.
There are, as you pointed out, already existing committees in other departments. If there are opportunities to have the two departments work together for mutual benefit and provide these services, I think we should explore those options. I would expect the Department of Health to consider any and all opportunities to grade these committees and going out to the communities and listening to them and hearing how they would like to see these committees established is incredibly important.
Every community is different, every community is going to have a different concept and idea how this will work best for them. I think it’s important to find the money. These are the children, these are the families we’re talking about, this is a big deal. So I would like to hear some more commitment to move and be flexible on this.
The second one I have to ask you about is prevention and early intervention. Recommendation number 4, we asked the department to commit to the ‘11-12 budget money to move forward on
adjuring funding for prevention and early intervention in every community, and the department, the government rejected this recommendation. We think this is incredibly unfortunate. Prevention is critical to improving the lives of children and families in the Northwest Territories and we would like to see some prevention and intervention in place.
The department travelled with us on our journeys. They knew that this was an issue. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. We also dropped the report in the Minister’s hands weeks before its official release. So they had opportunity and time to consider building something into the main estimates on this one. So I’m disappointed that there wasn’t an attempt. It may be unreasonable for us to expect that every community could have programs and money in place within a fiscal year, but there’s no reason we can’t see progress and movement in at least a number of communities. So my question to the Minister is: could she commit to ensure funding for prevention and early intervention in communities throughout the Northwest Territories in the ‘11-12 fiscal year?