Mr. Speaker, although the secretary of state is responsible for Africa and Latin America, he has written many extremely articulate and informative articles and has been a leader in the House on the issue of early prevention. He deserves a great deal of credit. I have tried to use many of his ideas because they are just plain good. They are great ideas. I thank him for his long term involvement in this issue. He has been a true national leader on this issue.
The secretary of state's intervention is good. The solutions that have been employed in Alberta can be lessons to be learned and employed across the country. Much of that has been used in other headstart programs.
I am hoping that this will be a national program. I envision that three sections can be used.
The first is to use the medical community at time zero. All women go to their doctors during the course of their pregnancy. This would be an ideal opportunity to address prevention for FAS, nutritional aspects and others.
The second is to use the trained volunteer model which is used so successfully in Hawaii. It usually involves women who are good parents and who can act as mentors to families at risk and other families. They can teach people how to be good parents. We have seen the need for that in our country.
Last, we could use the schools from kindergarten to grade two like the example used by the Minister of Labour in her Moncton Headstart Program. We can bring parents and children into the schools to learn the basics of parenting and the importance child-parent interaction.