Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have anything to add to that. I don’t agree with him, but those are his comments.

That item also was requested by the Member in the standing committee and I responded to the standing committee on the same day, February 25th, that we will implement that within the upcoming 2011-12 fiscal year using our own resources. That would also include consulting with child protection workers and managers. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do continue to work with Fort McPherson to set up that committee there and part of what I would like to see happen there is to have less children in care in McPherson. I agree with the Member that Fort McPherson has one of the highest number of children in care. So that is a long-term goal and we will continue to do that. I want to make that clear. We will continue to work on setting up more children and family services committees.

In the communication I had when I met with the committee on the recommendations of the CFSA review it was made clear to me that you...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me to my right Deputy Minister Paddy Meade. Further right is Mr. Derek Elkin, director of finance. To my left is Mr. Dana Heide, assistant deputy minister of operations.

No, $45,000.

Yes, I said yes, and I’ll say it again. I understand the challenge that the Member is pointing out is the fact that right now we block fund the program to Aurora College. Yes, I will commit to reviewing that separately on the merit of each program.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I clarified that in my letter to the committee and all the Members on February...actually, this morning. The five committees that we’re talking about in the business plan is to do it the way we’ve been doing it, which is to have no money in it. That’s not new. There have been no monies to set up children and family services committees. Okay? So we will continue to do that. But we have seen very poor results out of that.

I want to say, the CFSA standing committee report said that you would like us to get a lot more aggressive and have a more robust program. You want us...

Placing all of those nurse practitioner grads into our system would require partnership between the department and the government as an employer and the graduating students. I could tell you that we have a history of really good work in employing those nurse practitioners coming out of Aurora College. We have enough nurse practitioner positions within the whole Territory to employ every one of them if they wanted a job. It is difficult to always match nurse practitioners and other health care professionals who graduate from our education system into the exact positions and communities that...

Mr. Chairman, the Member knows that our budget, every cent and every dollar is allocated so I am not sure where he thinks that I could come up with $1.4 million to expand this program within this budget. I know that the Members have suggested that I look at $12 million under Child Protection Program but a lot of them are under contracts already. I would be happy to provide the Member with detailed information if he had an idea about where to move the money. I could tell you right now that even one of these two move it will have a consequence.

Mr. Speaker, I talked to the chair of the standing...

Mr. Chairman, I don’t want to read too much into it, but is the Member suggesting something that we could move around within the budget? If so, I would like to hear what he would like to take out in order to pay for what he thinks is important.