Debates of May 17, 2007 (day 9)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Minister direct the department and authorities to continue with ongoing activities and to design and adequately resource a plan to develop child and family services committees in the communities and that this plan be presented to the Standing Committee on Social Programs as part of the 2009-2010 business plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to add to this. I will be voting in favour of this motion. I just want to state that, in our committee discussions about all that we heard, we were quite puzzled by the fact that, as of now, there is only one family services committee in the communities and that is in Fort McPherson. We also recalled when we were in Fort McPherson about a year ago, we were told that up to one-third of children in that community were being apprehended. I think the community felt really important that day getting to action and set up a committee and to not only deal with the situation, but work towards reducing the need to apprehend children. I think they have done that job because I believe the latest statistics showed that the apprehension has gone down. I do appreciate that there have to be a lot of community leaders working in different areas to make that happen. I think what is happening here is the legislation provides for such communities, but there have not been parallel resources that go with that or the leadership and support on the part of the government to facilitate that process. So the possibility that was envisioned in legislation has been allowed to fall by the wayside. Through this recommendation, we are hoping that the department will pay more attention and work with communities at least in major centres or in communities where there are more apprehensions, where there are frequent apprehensions. We could understand that in some communities they have not had an apprehension so there might not be a need for such a committee, but I think we feel what is happening is these committees are not in place. Their absence is not noticed until a child is actually being apprehended. By then, it is too late to set up a committee and the people in the communities are left to wonder, how come we didn’t have any say on what is going to happen with this child or what is in the best interests of the children? In order to avoid that, we need to have the department working more diligently to facilitate this from happening.

I do want to state that we do understand that there is a plan of care committee that gets set up when a child is apprehended. But this is something different than that. So I just want to put the context of this motion in order. We just would like to see the department putting some resources into this so that, while the child protection workers have to do their job of protecting the safety of the children, we do make some effort to involve the communities in talking about and in having a say on what is to happen to those children. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. To the motion.

Question.

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried