Thank you, Mr. Chair. Whenever there is an issue that we approach Cabinet and we try to secure money for any new programs, et cetera, the reality is the economy is bad, we all know that, and so it's tight. We are doing our best. I mean it's not okay. We need to do that.
One thing I did not mention, and I just got a note from John MacDonald, actually, was that the other thing we are doing is because I believe that parenting courses have a lot to do with it, and it's not just parenting we have to tell people what to do; it's that social interaction that happens with that.
When I was a single mom, my first child and became a single mom, I did not know how to bathe my baby. I came from a home. I was a street kid at 13 years old. I had no idea how to bathe my baby. I was afraid of my baby. I was afraid of dropping him. I was afraid to tell anybody of anything. My child was almost four years old before I had that child assessed with Tourette syndrome. Even though I saw the visual signs, the movements, the motor ticks, et cetera, I did not want to see it. That, I do not think I am an abnormality. Especially people who have hard lives, we do not want to bring out any more things that are bad about us. We internalize enough.
So one thing I am excited that the department is doing, and it will take a few years, probably three years John has told me, is that we are looking at new classes, curriculum in schools to actually address parenting before they get out of school, because a lot of these people are young parents. I know it was a hard sell, and I may take some flack. I am okay with that. Just the same way it was important that we got sex education into schools, I think now is the time that it's important to talk about parenting in schools so that people, students, start to realize that having a baby is not just about keeping that person because I want to keep them for love. It's 20, often 30, years of serious commitment. Sorry, some of my colleagues understand the dilemma of that.
We have an obligation as society. We cannot make the assumption anymore that parents are getting that support from their grandparents, especially Indigenous children. People who have lost their parenting skills because of residential school, how can we expect them to automatically know how to parent without giving them those tools? So we have an obligation as society, and I am glad to say that education is moving towards that direction, that within a couple of years we will actually have parenting courses within schools. Thank you, Mr. Chair.