Mr. Chair, I’m not too sure if this type of discussion has been taken up by our Aboriginal Affairs Minister and the Aboriginal governments on all the jurisdictional or intergovernmental relationship issues with our government and their government in bringing a stronger linkage between the two governments on this type of issue here with child and family services.
Child and family services are key to our communities. With health and social services, again I go back to the 16th Assembly where a great
concept of the communities were going to take some type of role or leadership role when you looked at the family situations in the community, but that didn’t come about. I remember that in the 16th because I went with the then Minister into the Sahtu communities, and they were asking different communities in the Sahtu, are you interested in this, do you want to do this. We got our hopes up in Colville Lake and Fort Good Hope, same as the other communities, but nothing happened, diddly-squat. Now you want to have this. It has been raised by the Auditor General and it had to do with the financial issues.
I want to look at this issue of regaining the trust again of the Aboriginal governments. You know, we have to show – and that’s what I agree with Mr. Bromley’s comments on earlier – just give a short period of time to show some measureable results showing that the linkage is going to be strong with our Aboriginal governments. Right now, you know, they’ve been stung once, so they’re going to be looking at this issue again and saying, do you really mean this business, do you really mean it? Show us something. Right now we have not seen much action in this area here, and the Auditor General has noted it clearly.
We’re playing with people’s lives here, families and communities, and that’s serious business. This isn’t something that’s like a road or a bridge. These people have feelings. They have hopes and aspirations.
I’m hoping that the Minister can put some strong plans together to show us yes, we are making a difference in our small communities, especially with the Aboriginal governments on this issue here. Thank you.