Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sitting here, flashback for the last 16 years. I think I’ve heard the same excuses from this department. To find a way to avoid doing what you’re legally obligated to do. Right now we went out of our way to have a public review of legislation that was brought into place back in the 13

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Assembly. Four

Assemblies later we’re still talking about the same issue.

We have some 600 children in care -- 600 -- at a cost of over $12 million a year to keep them in that system. I think it’s critical to realize that we have to find a way of breaking that cultural style of dealing with children. We have to find a way to reunite those children with their birth parents and find a way to get them to remain in our communities, not be taken away, and make the appropriate investments on prevention.

I heard all the Members talk about prevention is key. Preventing the system from getting there in the first place. Intervening early enough that you intervene with the families that you know are having social challenges. That you’re dealing with the fabric of what those families are going through, whether it’s substance abuse, poverty, addiction. That is the core problem we are having with a lot of these families. The key to that is to have a system in place that’s transparent and includes communities solving the problems at the community level. That’s why it’s critical that these committees be activated, implemented and given the adequate resources to do it.

I mean, we’re spending $12 million. If you can even take 60 of those children out of the system and reunite them with their families, just think that you’re saving yourself 10 percent. That’s $1.2 million. That’s the money you’re looking for. The achievement is 10 percent of what we have right now. Is there a way that we can decrease those numbers by 10 percent in this fiscal year and also going forward? Can we achieve that under the system that we have?

I have to disagree with the Minister saying don’t worry about it, we’ll work it into the next budget. Excuse me, but this is the last budget of the 16

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Assembly. This is it. This is what we have to work out of to see any major changes going forward.

I’d just like to ask the Minister about re-profiling the dollars that we already have in the system, the $12 million we’re already spending on children services, and also looking at the resources we’re spending on structures such as boards and agencies. I need to illustrate again that the Beaufort-Delta health board has a budget of I think $41 million with an increase of I think about $6 million from the previous year. It’s $12 million. There’s an increase from last year to this year for $4 million, but again, you don’t have a board. It’s the public trustee that oversees the board, so that money that’s there for the board that’s not being used for the board, can those dollars be used to establish these types of committees? That’s an option that I’m putting to the Minister. There’s money identified for board type of activities such as the health board in Inuvik that does not exist. It’s in the budget. Can you move

those dollars to establish those types of committees in the Beaufort-Delta region?