Debates of March 29, 2004 (day 10)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’m going to respond to the Premier’s ministerial statement today on homelessness. I was struck when I was listening to this today, Mr. Speaker, with all of the nice government and fancy jargon that goes with this and it just absolutely sometimes is amazing to me the words that we find to describe things. The average person must wonder what in heaven’s name it means.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier said that homelessness is a complex social problem. It is a complex problem; I agree with him. However, I think the solutions might be a little simpler than what we are making. I think we are making the issue more complex than what it really is. He uses words like “as we move forward with a coordinated response." Now, these people are homeless, so I’m sure they’re very interested in options for employment and adequate income. When I think of homelessness, I think of emergency-type situations. Surely there’s some middle ground between somebody sleeping on the street or sleeping on someone’s sofa and figuring out how to build them an entire home addressed to their specific needs. Surely there’s, yes, a need for long-term solutions, but sometimes, Mr. Speaker, I just wish this government could just be a little bit more practical.

When I listen to this, it sounds like we’re going to build a whole religion around this or something. They have initiated steps, they’ve held a number of meetings, they’ve confirmed the government’s short-term priorities, the government’s long-term priorities. They’re trying to learn lessons from the work that they’re doing, they’re arranging workshops. They have drafted a homelessness paper for discussion, then it will be circulated for further discussion. Then they talk about preliminary steps.

So they are meeting with folks and NGOs and stuff in the communities who are probably more on top of this, but, Mr. Speaker, when I listen to this I just can’t help but think that maybe there’s a practical solution. Like maybe someone should take a crowbar down to the Akaitcho Hall building there next to the school and tear some of the boards off some of these buildings that are boarded up in town and put a big wood heater in there or something. Try and just take, for once, a practical approach to an urgent need instead of, like I said, building a whole department or -- I don’t even know how to describe it -- a whole doctrine around it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

----Applause