Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can confirm that residents, based on 15 years of real experience, are very concerned. I hope the Minister also becomes concerned about this.

Could the Minister please explain how that same philosophy that industry should contribute to the cost of roads they are using and degrading, how has that been applied in the case of the new Inuvik to Tuk all-weather road? How will industry contribute? Mahsi.

Thanks to the Minister for that response. I’m glad to hear he’s all over the safety issue. That’s number one, of course, and that happens with this increased traffic now on the Ingraham Trail.

I’m sad to hear confirmation that the secondary road will not be built and I hope the Minister will look into working with industry to see if he can get them to put it in. We do a number of things, because, I mean, it’s clear that this damage does happen with truck traffic. Any resident out there and the Department of Highways can tell you. We do things in a number of different ways up here. The winter...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize Mr. John Stephenson, chair of the YK 1 and resident of Weledeh. Also, Simon Taylor, chair of the Yellowknife Catholic School Board, and some of the staff here today. Also, the residents of Weledeh, Jacob Schubert, one of our Pages today. Thanks to all the Pages for the service they are providing. I believe I heard John Stewart was in the gallery. I can’t always see behind me here, but another resident of Weledeh. I understand Roy Erasmus is in the crowd. I’m very happy to see him and any other folks that are returning for our celebration coming up here...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to make a very brief comment. This bill represents a big effort to date, as the Minister has said, but still leaves the public hanging on a number of issues that should properly be dealt with in the legislation.

It’s an important improvement over past efforts and I congratulate the Minister on that. Unfortunately, it is not an impressive piece of legislation, other than its length and its propensity for unnecessary and confusing detail. While I wish I could support it, I cannot in good conscience endorse it. Fundamentally, the bill is unnecessarily...

Thanks to the Minister for that. I believe the Minister provided a range of possible measures. I was hoping to hear how he defines success, what we mean by success. So I’d appreciate any comments the Minister might have on that.

Could the Minister commit to provide this House with an evaluation of the success of each of the current addictions treatment centres that we refer people to? At a minimum, statistics on short-term and long-term relapse rates would be useful, but I imagine the department has other measures of success it could report on. Mahsi.

Thanks for that response and I’m certainly aware that we’ve done this for a long time and this is not something that we just started. I imagine that these different treatment centres use different approaches to treatment and that may be appropriate for people with different backgrounds.

Could the Minister provide an overview of the main schools of thought in terms of how to treat addictions? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe we have ever given consideration of a fully supported alcohol and drug addiction treatment centre the attention it deserves. We need thorough, informed debate to examine the pros and cons leading to a clear, evidenced-based decision and commitment to act.

Ministers have frequently said they are considering various forms of treatment. We’ve played regional politics, closing one centre to open one in another region, only to close it a few years later and never providing the support and oversight needed.

We need to remember that beating an addiction is not like going...

Thanks very much, Madam Chair. I ended with the query about follow-up with this legislation. Given that it is stepping out in a new way in how we run plebiscites across the Northwest Territories and it’s a departure, has the Member considered any follow-up, working with the appropriate authorities for follow-up and monitoring and evaluation to see how this works and be prepared to consider amendments if deemed to be appropriate? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Welcome to the Member for Sahtu and his proposed legislation. I think the first relevant fact for me is we’re talking about the sale of a government-controlled substance. So this is already sort of beyond the course of normal business. So we are used to specific regulations and guidance being put forward on controlled substances like liquor. I thought it was very interesting. I was not on the committee and I did not travel, but I’ve been listening closely to the committee and found it interesting that they found considerable merit in both the pros and cons to the...

If we’re going to make progress on this, we need to be able to define what we think success looks like and find a way to measure it.

Could the Minister explain how the department currently defines and measures success in terms of addictions treatment? Mahsi.