Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for raising this particular issue. The Member did raise this issue in July and at that point I was able to read the report that the Member has referred to, and the report suggested that we can support this small number of children who are affected here in the Northwest Territories with a very small sum of money.

I have since directed the department to move forward to find the money from within to provide hearing aids to young children that the Member is describing. Th

ey’re in the middle of that process

now. I was going to wait until a little bit later until I actually had something to announce as far as a completed policy, but I have directed the department to do that and it’s underway now. We anticipate that we’ll be in a position to start providing those hearing aids to those affected children in the next couple of months. Thank you.