Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had some questions that I wanted to address in terms of one of our priorities in the 17th Legislative Assembly, and that deals with investing in prevention and education and also enhancing our addiction treatment programs. Really, we only have one treatment program in the Northwest Territories and that’s on the K’atlodeeche First Nation Reserve. I wanted to talk to the Minister in terms of what he is doing, just get an update of where we are in enhancing those treatment programs, and also looking at existing infrastructure in the Northwest Territories that will be able to provide such services and programs for those in need.
Can I ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, has he identified, to date, any existing infrastructure in the Northwest Territories that would be suitable to operate as an addictions treatment centre that would provide the adequate and appropriate programs and service for those that are suffering from addictions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are waiting on recommendations from the Ministers’ Forum on Addictions and Community Wellness. We do suspect that one of their recommendations may be to place an additional treatment facility somewhere. Once we get their recommendations, if that is one of the recommendations, we will weigh those against the current treatment centre we have in place and then move forward from there.
I’m glad the Minister has mentioned that he’s waiting for recommendations from the Ministers’ Forum. With that said, would the recommendations from the Mental Health Addictions Plan, the recommendations from the Beaufort-Delta meeting Building on our Foundation, Regional Dialogues, 2010-2011, the budget dialogues from this year, would those recommendations not say the same thing, and why are we waiting when I’ve got one, two, three, four, five, six reports here that say the same thing? I’m just trying to prove a point here that we need to start creating action rather than continue to consult and make these reports to tell us what we already know.
I would ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if he hasn’t found any existing infrastructure to date – we have a lot of great NGOs in the Northwest Territories that are doing a lot of great work in these services but they need the program and service dollars – would he commit to looking at these NGOs, partnering with them, providing them with the dollars they need, whose main mandate is to provide programs and services for addictions treatment? Would he commit to working with these NGOs and help them and support them so they can support ones that are in need? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I recognize that we do have several reports. What I also recognize is, up until 16 months ago when I became Minister of Health and Social Services, there seemed to be a lot of issues surrounding a lack of treatment to the individuals suffering from addictions. So this forum was struck so we could go out and hear from the people firsthand. I’m not sure that those reports had full across-the-board community consultation like we’re doing with the Ministers’ Forum. We do try to fit what we have into the system, but so far we are hearing some preliminary things from the forum that we haven’t thought of that aren’t in those reports. So once we get that information back, then yes, we will work in other reports, as well, to see how they line up with what the Ministers’ Forum tells us and we will move forward from there. We are almost there. We are now just entering into March and the plan is to have the report back from the forum at the end of March. Thank you.
I did make reference to reports, but I didn’t ask the question specifically on the reports. I asked the question: Is the Minister willing to work with these NGOs that are providing good services and programs on a very stretched dollar? Would he be willing to work with them, provide funding dollars so they can provide more adequate and appropriate services for those people that are in need in the regional centres, here in Yellowknife, and doing the work in the NWT? Would he commit to working with the NGOs… Not work with them, support them financially so they can provide the services. I’m not asking him to work with them, but provide them with the appropriate resources so they can deliver these programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
If additional financial resources are going to be issued to NGOs that are not currently in the budget, we would have to go back through the business planning process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to ask one quick question here. The Minister said that he was waiting to hear back from the forum. I just want to know if the Minister is familiar with the Health and Social Services Regional Dialogue, 2010-2011. Can he just answer yes or no? Does he see the recommendations and directions that came from all the regional communities in the Northwest Territories, because he says he’s waiting to hear those recommendations. Is he familiar with any of these dialogues, yes or no? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
