Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today, I have some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services.
Some days I talk about what the Northwest Territories would look like without drugs and alcohol. That’s an exercise that I’d like to use as a bit of a visioning exercise.
We have many, many healthy people in the Northwest Territories and that’s something to celebrate and something I’m very happy about. But you know that political statement that’s always said no one left behind? There’s a lot of people who are living in bondage today to drugs and alcohol, who are being left and who are not realizing their potential in life. We cannot forget about them. This group that sits around in this room, as Mr. Miltenberger refers to as this august group, let’s face it, this is kind of the cream of the crop here and people may not be struggling with those kinds of things. But we cannot forget about those people who are out in our communities who struggle every day. We have to talk about it. We have to keep it in our consciousness.
To that end, our Minister of Health and Social Services struck a committee, an addictions forum, the Ministerial Forum on Addictions. These very good candidates who have gone out to the communities and have tried to engage people in the topic of addictions. But when they came to Hay River, they met with all the front-line workers, all the people who work in those. There was not a single person that I could see in that room that actually had a problem with addictions.
What is the Minister going to do with his forum on addictions to talk to the people in the homeless shelters, the people who are incarcerated, the kids in the school to get the discussion? Let’s talk with them. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Members’ statements.
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The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We would have no problem directing the forum to visit with the shelters or any facilities where there was an attraction of people that had addiction issues, recognize now that their plan was to have public meetings, and advertise and try to draw people to the meetings, recognizing that they could only draw the people that were interested in the topic. Sometimes they don’t have that interest in some communities, but we are finding that in the smaller communities they are getting a lot of interest. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in a committee meeting when we were receiving a briefing from ECE the other day, and I’m not going to give away anything super confidential here, but we were talking to children about their education, and there was hardly any of them that did not talk about their ability to get an education in the absence of talking about the addiction to alcohol in their family, in their parents or in their community of one of those things. These were kids that we are talking about education, and they were talking about how many people in the community were drinking. That is an interesting correlation. As I said, the Minister has great people on the forum. Will the Minister commit to… You don’t need to send the whole panel, the whole group. Take someone like Paul Andrew, for example, who is chairing this.
Will the Minister commit to sending either one or two delegates from the commission into the places where we know there are people who could talk about their issues and shed some light on where we need to go and spend our dollars as a government? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, yes, I will commit to that. Thank you.
I think there are stories to be told. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement, I think that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission went a long ways towards the healing that comes from people being able to talk about their issues. So while I applaud the Minister for forming this group and sending them out, I think we need to talk to the people who can share the most with us, and I think that is the people affected every day by the addictions in the Northwest Territories.
When does the Minister expect to have results from the work of this commission? Is there still time to integrate this kind of very focused discussion that I’m talking about? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the plan is the fieldwork for the forum would be done by March 31st. Soon after that we are going to select a group of them and maybe even have other people involved to write the report. Yes, there would still be time for them to expand some of their fieldwork if necessary. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We heard our colleague today talk about training so that young Northerners can take advantage of economic growth, all kinds of things.
Will the Minister confirm that when we talk about the amount of money that we spend on social issues as the Government of the Northwest Territories, that addictions should be one of the highest priorities of this government? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I recognize that addictions are a cost-driver in our various systems. Addictions are a huge cost-driver in justice, also a huge cost-driver in health and health outcomes of our citizens.
Yes, I am trying to make that a priority for the government, as the House knows. We are trying to work with various groups in the community. We talk a lot about addictions across the territory, whether it be alcohol, drugs, or even cigarettes, for that matter. We spend a lot of time talking about those addictions, so we are trying to do something about that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
