Peterson calls for children’s advocate

Keith Peterson is pushing to make children’s advocacy a top priority for the department of Health and Social Services.

“Children make up a third of our population and yet, in far too many circumstances, are the most neglected and under-served people in our society,” the Cambridge Bay

MLA wrote in a letter to Health Minister Levinia Brown on April 26.

In the letter, Peterson said he was disappointed to see that the department had set aside a child advocacy proposal created in October 2002 by an ad hoc committee struck up by the department, along with the Nunavut Association of Municipalities and the hamlet of Cambridge Bay.

During questioning, departmental officials would not discuss a children’s advocate position, but would only talk about a “client representative” Peterson said, calling this “unacceptable.”