Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Health on the follow-up to the child and family services response.
Mr. Speaker, there is in excess of $12 million in the area of children’s services. Will the Minister direct her staff to look at a program in the area of early intervention and prevention in as far as child apprehensions go? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The chair and the Members have asked that we revisit our budget to see what options we might be able to come up with, and I’m prepared to do that. I have to state, at the same time, that the department is under fiscal pressure, as is the entire government, and we need to work carefully and thoroughly to see how we make those decisions. But I’m certainly open to working with the standing committee to see what options might be available. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister work with the First Nation governments to look seriously at community solutions to combating addictions? Thank you.
We do that already, Mr. Speaker. For example, we have been working very closely with the Gwich’in Tribal Council as well as the IRC. We have given them funding and we are working in partnership on addictions and after-care issues. We are looking at some projects in that area to come up with on-the-ground addiction programs.
I realize that we have eight regions and many, many Aboriginal governments. I could list some of the projects that we are working on, but I just want to let the Member know that we do a lot of work in partnership with Aboriginal organizations and Aboriginal governments. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me what the plan is to strike more child and family services committees at the community level? Thank you.
I could advise the Member that is one that I was very passionately involved with as a Regular Member. I fought to have this in the legislation the last time around. The Members and this standing committee expressed a lot of interest from the beginning to have these groups set up, and I can advise the Member that we have reinforced and refocused energy in that area and we have written to every community, we have approached every community, encouraging them to set up the children and family services committee as is provided for under current legislation. We are seeing some success in Fort McPherson and it is our hope that we will see more of that.
Mr. Speaker, there is no question that the department and myself, as the Minister, are completely committed in making that happen. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Your final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister tell me if she has had complete discussions on the possibilities of re-profiling the Health and Social Services budget to address the recommendations in the report of the Standing Committee on Social Programs as it pertains to the Child and Family Services Act? Thank you.
Yes, I have. We have had the CFSA recommendations since October. My department and I went through the report, we reviewed them and we came up with every possible way of implementing as many recommendations as possible. There are some items that are big ticket items and we needed to put that into the next business cycle.
Having said that, I understand that the Members would like us to relook at it. I think it’s really important for all the Members here to have the full information about what re-profiling means, a $12 million item. My department is working right now to give the information to all the Members of what that $12 million entails. That’s the entire operations budget for our children and family services programming. Of course, Mr. Speaker, that is a debate that we could have, but it’s really important that we have the full information so that we know exactly what we are doing when we are re-profiling. It’s about jobs. It’s about programs in the communities. It’s about on-the-ground programming that we need to deliver every day. But I am absolutely prepared to have that discussion with the Members on the other side. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
