Mr. Chair, I acknowledge the member's longstanding interest in fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects. He has done a tremendous amount of work and research in the area. He has really increased the level of awareness certainly in our own caucus in relation to the causes of FAS-FAE and the devastating effects not only for the children born with FAS-FAE but also for their families and the larger community.
The hon. member is right in that Health Canada did strike a national advisory committee. The committee is to provide independent strategic advice and expertise to Health Canada on FAS-FAE and promote collaboration and partnerships across disciplines and sectors. As I understand it, the committee consists of 18 members representing those sectors, including health, addictions, corrections, education and research, and it has representation from first nations and Inuit.
The hon. member is probably right that we need to do more and we need to do better. I must also give credit to my colleague the Minister of Labour, who has taken up this issue because she sees its effects in relation to homelessness which she deals with. When dealing with homelessness we look at the people who are on the streets, who are homeless either temporarily or unfortunately, more permanently. Many of them have mental health issues. Many of those mental health issues are related to FAS-FAE. My colleague the Minister of Labour and I have been talking about this, and she deserves credit for pulling together across government a range of interested departments to talk about how we can do a better job of integrating our responses.
For example, there is additional funding to deal with FAS-FAE on reserve. We received new funding of $10 million in 2002-03 and $15 million on an ongoing basis has been approved to expand FAS-FAE programming for first nations on reserve. We need to work more effectively with those communities to understand what the exact needs are and how we reach those people, how we reach people who may become pregnant and if they are pregnant to reach them and tell them they cannot drink or do drugs once they know they are pregnant.
We also know that the problem extends well beyond the aboriginal community. Recent studies would indicate that the fastest growing group of people who are a challenge to us in relation to this are middle class women in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties where perhaps social drinking is a part of their lives. We need to get the message out to them that one drink is one drink too many if they are pregnant.
The hon. member has raised some very important issues in terms of how we as a federal government can get our house in order and then how we link to the provinces, to communities and to grassroots organizations that are on the front lines. If the Minister of Labour were here she would say that the money has to get to the front lines; the money has to get to the grassroots community based organizations that know what is happening in those communities, that know who their client groups are. I could not agree more.
The hon. member also probably agrees that we have to rethink what we are doing in this area. While we are getting new resources, are we actually getting better results? Those are very serious questions. I would be the first to say that we have to do better; everybody has to do better.
I applaud the three prairie provinces for the prairie network on FAS-FAE. We are linked into that in certain respects but again we need to work more closely with those kinds of networks that are closer to the grassroots and the communities.
There is a whole lot we could be doing to re-order the way we all work in meeting the challenge of FAS-FAE.