Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct that these are two very serious issues. Crack and crack cocaine have caused all kinds of problems in all of the communities, small communities. Communities are trying to deal with it; people are trying to deal with it in various ways. There is something that an individual can get to a counsellor that we will send individuals for treatment for crack cocaine addictions.

Prescription drugs are a little bit different issue. Prescription drug addiction is a very hidden addiction, so it’s something that’s difficult to bring out into the public. People can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We will be coming forward with enhanced home care in the next budget session. We have been working on developing enhanced home care. We’re working with the federal government. The federal government is providing us some funding directly for home care as well. It’s part of the overall continuum of care for seniors in the Northwest Territories. We do have a strategy to develop care for seniors and the idea is to maintain people in their own homes as long as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not sure we spent a lot of time on tying in other professions going into the community. One of the main things that we’ve discovered, certainly, are that when the RCMP moves into a community, they often come with a spouse that is also a professional, whether a social worker or often a nurse, so we utilize that employee as well at that time. The problem with that is that the RCMP stay two years, or three years if they ask to stay the additional year. Often the partners of the other professionals that are coming into community also end up being short term. Thank you.

The first set of recommendations, the most prominent set of recommendations were around treatment on the land. So we are developing a treatment on-the-land program with the communities. We are receiving recommendations from those communities. We are proposing to run some of those recommendations or proposals as pilot programs. We are trying to develop a youth treatment program. Like I said, there’s a consultation process in Fort Simpson where we’re trying to develop an on-the-land youth program. We’re looking to other jurisdictions to see what they’re doing with mobile treatment, I think...

I can say that on-the-land treatment program is going to be very specific. It’s going to very specific to that community. I doubt if one program is going to even fit into two communities. Just about every individual community would have their own on-the-land program. There is going to be slight differences in every one of them. That’s why we’re really relying on Aboriginal people in the communities that said to us when we travelled and when the forum travelled, we want on-the-land treatment, so we’re asking them to come to us, bring us a proposal on what it is that they see on the land, and we...

Yes, the Department of Health and Social Services works in partnership with Human Resources and Aurora College to develop some supports that would put a number of initiatives in place that will allow us to recruit and retain positions at all levels throughout our system. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are not planning on updating the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan. The Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan is something that is taking us from now to the end of this government. There is no time to update it. Within that action plan, we called for a Minister’s forum and visit with the people to get information from the people on what they think will work in this area. That’s what we’ve done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From October 23rd to 25th last week, we had gathered 50 people, 60 people in Fort Simpson to look at the development of an on-the-land youth treatment program. We need to be able to get that information and we’ve hired an individual specifically to develop that program. We need to look at what the youth had to say, how they see the program developing.

Now, I have to say that when we were travelling in the Sahtu, the people over there certainly want to see not only the youth go out on the land but the elders and the youth together to go out on the land for treatment. I’ve...

One of our initiatives, through the Aboriginal health and community wellness division, is to develop wellness plans in all of the communities. Within those wellness plans, we are going to determine whether or not an on-the-land treatment program is what that community wants. Once that has been determined, our intention is to try to fund all of the treatment programs that are being proposed over the next couple of years. Money permitting, our intention is to try to fund them. Thank you.

Thank you. If the Gwich’in are able to line up some other uses for the facility. I recognize that they have talked about the other departments that may be able to use that facility and then it becomes feasible for them to operate. At that point, they said that that building could be available for a treatment program or two. So if they’re able to run some other programs and I can’t remember specifically, but he mentioned that they had worked with ENR, they’ve worked with Justice to make that a possibility. If that place is operational and we have a program developed, we certainly want to put a...