Tom Beaulieu

Mr. Speaker, initially when the shelter opened, it was just to give the people a warm place during the day so that they are not wandering around and up and down the main street. It was someplace where they could sit in a warm place, watch movies, watch TV and use facilities and so on that were available there. That was the intent of it.

As time went on there were more demands placed on the society that was running it, such as are there any programs available for those individuals? Is there something that could be done with them? Could you do in-house programs? Do you recommend them to...

Thank you. Maybe yes, maybe no.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know if we are going to be funding it beyond March 2013, because this was originally a three-year pilot. All the partners were in for three years. Now we are alone. We are continuing to fund it. We have funded it for one more year. It has its opposition; there is no question about it.

We want to evaluate what is there. We want to see if there are programs that we are putting in there now such as a navigator type of service to help individuals to pursue employment, education opportunities. I am going to see if those things actually have an impact.

We are going to run this...

I don’t have that information with me. I don’t remember if the crisis line is still open or not. I can verify that information for the Member and advise the House whether or not that crisis line is still open.

This week we are running the course again, the Mental Health First Aid course. It’s going to be offered to all the regions, and some of the major communities that I notice on the list – I don’t have the list here with me - but I believe one is Hay River. Somebody from Hay River is here. For sure someone from Smith, Yellowknife, Deh Cho, Sahtu, and the Tlicho communities are here taking that course that they will take back to their regions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department’s environmental health officers are visiting communities that are at most risk and working with local staff from those communities on how to address the issue. We haven’t done work with the other departments specifically on this as we try to address the issue of overcrowding or trying to address the issue of municipal services, if that is a factor at this time. We have not done that work. We are doing our work with the local health authorities and local health centres to see if we can address that issue in that way. Thank you.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

I would like to pay tribute to the late Frederick Harold Lafferty of Fort Resolution. Frederick was born August 19, 1939, and passed away on July 3, 2012, at the age of 73. Frederick was a Metis man who lost his wife many years ago and lived his life for his grandchildren, children and great-grandchildren.

Frederick has spent the last few years in long-term care here at Stanton Hospital. Frederick was a family oriented man who devoted a great deal of his time to his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He enjoyed nothing...

I guess, first off, a Caucus priority was to look at a treatment centre, looking at existing infrastructure. Where the actual treatment centre, if that is the direction that the various forums across the Territories come up with and that is the best direction they feel that it’s going to be to have a treatment centre located somewhere in the Northwest Territories in addition to Nats'ejee K'eh, then we will move in that direction.

Right now we’re serious. We’ve employed these 14 individuals who will go across the territory, and they will come to us with recommendations. If a recommendation is to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Although it may appear that the drug issue is a huge issue in Yellowknife, we want to identify exactly how huge the issue is. One of the first things that we are doing is to put together groups of individuals that will be looking at the addictions across the territory, including Yellowknife. So we have a group of people that we’ve selected that will look at the addictions issues in Yellowknife. That’s the first step.

No, we have not taken this report out. We’re looking at some of the key recommendations in there. There were about four or five key recommendations in there that we are looking at closely before we take it out to the public. Thank you.