Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, like many Members of this House were shocked by the findings of the Auditor General's full audit of Health and Social Services' child and family services work. Not merely as a legislator as I'm concerned by this clear lack of oversight on the part of the Minister, I'm appalled as a parent.
Mr. Speaker, Members on this side of the House will do their work with both the Auditor General and departmental officials when we conduct our formal review of this report. However, I am concerned about the accountability of the Minister of Health and Social Services on this matter.
The government clearly has blatant disregard for the well-being of children in the Northwest Territories. How such failures of oversight by the Minister could be overlooked, not just for four years but a continued passing of the buck arguably since 1998.
In 2000, the Child Welfare League of Canada recommended the development of case-load standards, which is still incomplete. After the 2014 audit, the league was commissioned to do workload management study to help identify what resources were required to deliver child and family services. Still, Mr. Speaker, the Minister has failed to act on these recommendations. The work is still not finished.
We know the department officials were only tasked to assess their financial and human resources needs towards the end of the 2018 audit period. The Minister cannot pass the buck to his senior administrative staff, as they are newer to this portfolio than he is.
The auditors were informed that departmental officials had focused their efforts on implementing the structured decision-making system as their top priority in order to address the concerns of the previous audit, and it comes with little surprise that most of the frontline workers who met with the auditors informed them that they had not received sufficient training to support them in using these tools.
To clarify, Mr. Speaker, in 2000, recommendations were put forward, and then ignored. In 2014, an audit was conducted by the OAG and was ignored. The same year, another audit was conducted by the league, and that was ignored. We are now in 2018, and this new Auditor General candid report in hand cannot be ignored, Mr. Speaker. I will have questions for the Minister on his accountability on this file. Thank you, Mr. Speaker