Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I have to state once again that the proposed transfer of the Territorial Treatment Centre is not a wise decentralization move, but a reckless dismantling of a very fragile and crucial service for children, not only at the Territorial Treatment Centre but all over the North, who increasingly require highly specialized care. Rather than building up on its fragile strength, the government is proposing to start from scratch just because it’s politically expedient. I would like to ask the government to hold off this plan until a substantive assessment has been done. Further, the government should look into maintaining the current specialized services at the Territorial Treatment Centre in Yellowknife and at the same time placing at Dene K’onia another level of youth treatment centre because there is a huge waiting list and I know there is a need for this.

Madam Speaker, as I already stated, the insistence on the part of Ministers Dent and Miltenberger, however sincere, that the extraordinary special needs of these children are going to be taken care of in Hay River as well as they do in Yellowknife is hollow. I’m telling you this because this is simply not possible. I have to state for all the good people in this Assembly and out there that it is not because Yellowknife thinks it is the biggest and the best because it’s large. It is because that even as a big city, these services in Yellowknife, the services for pediatricians, psychiatrists, audio therapists, speech therapists and ENT specialists are in terribly short supply and they have been carefully stitched together for the whole of the Territories. It is because these children are located in Yellowknife that they are now able to have regular treatment that they need.

Already in Yellowknife this summer we are losing an ENT specialist and psychiatrist. We have already had to rely on a visiting child psychiatrist from Edmonton who comes here only once a month. I’m told that he gets four to five files each time he comes and he has almost 100 files of children on his mandate.

Madam Speaker, the information the Minister provided to us yesterday in our mailboxes shows that in every category, the services available for children in Hay River fall short to what is available in Yellowknife. This is not about Hay River or anything, but it is about the reality; the reality of the difficulty we have all over the country in recruiting and retaining very specialized service providers.

Madam Speaker, we have to understand that there are in the NWT an alarming statistic of children with severe cases of behavioural, emotional and mental health needs. Whether they be caused…

Your time for your Member’s statement has expired, Ms. Lee.

Sandy Lee

Range Lake

Madam Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to finish my statement.

The Member is seeking unanimous consent to conclude her statement. Are there any nays? There are no nays, Ms. Lee. You may conclude your statement.

Sandy Lee

Range Lake

Thank you, Madam Speaker and colleagues. May I just conclude by saying that, Madam Speaker, we have to understand that all over the NWT we have an alarming statistic of children with severe cases of behavioural, emotional and mental health needs, whether they be caused by FASD, a dysfunctional home environment or clinical issues. This centre in Yellowknife is the only network of specialized care we have and surrounding it are a web of highly specialized services that these children desperately need.

The right thing for the government to do is to strengthen what we have so that you can serve all of the North and that we are ready for the increasing needs in future. This decentralization move is nothing short of a destruction and dismantling of something very fragile that we need to have for the children of the North. If we could for one moment forget that this is in Yellowknife, I know that everyone here would agree that there is no need to move it or change it or dismantle it or fix something that is not broken. I believe there are lots of other issues of the fiscal matters that we’ll be discussing throughout the day today. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

---Applause