Debates of August 21, 2007 (day 14)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we talked about our concerns with addictions across the Northwest Territories. We have studies on addictions across the Northwest Territories. We have people, Mr. Speaker, who work the front lines. They not only talk about all of these concerns, but they want to do something about it. They are hard working and caring people who do their job 24/7, Mr. Speaker, because they care about the clients they serve. They do this, for the most part, very cheaply. We have board members who are volunteers who do it for nothing.

It came to my attention, Mr. Speaker, last night as we went through the budget process. We go through the supplementary appropriation process, and I see all of this money that is thrown around, Mr. Speaker. I see thousands of dollars on a trip to China and yet we make these people who work the front lines, they scratch, claw and beg for every nickel they can get. It just doesn’t make sense, Mr. Speaker. They have enough on their plate with the work that they do to worry about where their next dollar is coming from. The transition house in Inuvik is always having to wait for their funding. The Inuvik Interagency Committee ran out of funding. They can’t operate anymore and now they are trying to access the community capacity building fund just so they can keep going. Family Counselling Centre closed after 23 years because they couldn’t compete with what the government was paying out. They couldn’t compete with it, so they had to close their doors after 23 years of providing a service for Inuvik. Mr. Speaker, these front-line workers work in the trenches and they not only talk about doing something about problems with addictions, but they want to go and charge these problems head on. What do we do? We arm them with a squirt gun to go charge the problems.

Mr. Speaker, it is time that we took a serious look at how we do business here. It is time that we put our money where our mouth is and not just talk about these problems across the NWT and pay thousands of dollars to tell us about these problems for the NWT. We have to support the NGOs who provide a valuable service because they care about the well-being of the residents of the Northwest Territories. It is about time that we did, too. Thank you.

---Applause