Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning to each of you, and thank you for taking the time to be with us.
Ms. Polak, my question is somewhat similar to the one the parliamentary secretary has raised. With respect to the framework agreement you say you brought to Ottawa in September 2008, can you give us an idea of its present status? Has it led to negotiations, and can you give us a sense of how these negotiations might be progressing? As I understand it, you're still operating under this 20-1 model.
The government is saying they want to move to a prevention-based approach. But testimony here at committee has indicated that there may be some problems even with that approach, given the preliminary evidence coming out of Alberta, where the first agreement was signed. With the aboriginal population growing three times faster than the non-aboriginal population in B.C., there's still some urgency here.
As Mr. Rickford says, there might be cold comfort in the fact that we remain status quo at 5.3% of kids in care, which is still eight times higher than the Canadian non-aboriginal population. Can you give us a sense of where those negotiations are? It's been two years since this has come forward. Are we anywhere near some kind of an agreement?