Thank you, Mr. Saxton.
Before we go to the second round, I want to clarify something, Mr. Wernick, or perhaps Mrs. Cram.
It seems to me we're dealing with the symptom, the 5% of the aboriginal children who are in protective custody, which is eight times greater than for the non-aboriginal population. I want to say how troubling this whole thing is for me as a member of Parliament and a Canadian. It's certainly one of conscience. I don't think it's a partisan issue, but it's a very troubling issue, and you're dealing in a very Byzantine, elaborate framework. It's a provincial jurisdiction, federally funded, and then we have a situation where with most major bands it's administered by the local band. So I can see it's a very tough issue to try to deal with.
But then again I have a memo in front of me here about how in the last five weeks five teens from a small aboriginal community on the east coast, Eskasoni, and one man in a neighbourhood aboriginal community committed suicide. They were drug-related deaths. They're estimating that half the people under 30 on that reservation are drug users. It just seems to me that we're dealing with a massive policy failure, a failure of a monumental proportion.
You've been a deputy now, Mr. Wernick, for two and a half years. Congratulations. You're probably the longest-serving deputy of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in the last 25 years.
Do you see anything out there, any policy, any movement that might give us parliamentarians hope that things will be improving? I'm not seeing it.