Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I was talking about the Addictions Forum work and certainly trying to compare it to the work that’s already been done to date and tying it equally together with some of the issues I’ve raised, as well as many other Members have raised here in the Assembly today. It’s no surprise to the Minister and I’ve repeated it many times. I believe we need a treatment centre here in Yellowknife and that we need treatment facilities that are appropriate, of course.
My question to the Minister of Health and Social Services today is: Speaking to the Addictions Forum – and I’ll be tying all those three subjects together – what have their interim findings been when they’re out knocking on the doors of the territory’s citizens, and what type of advice and direction are they getting to challenge addictions in a manner that all the previous reports and studies and experts have not provided us? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The forum was not required to provide an interim report or a verbal report back to the department. They’re working with departmental staff. What we’re hearing unofficially is that they are hearing many good recommendations from the communities, and one of the forum members spoke to me in an unofficial capacity and indicated to me that he thought that they had accumulated at least 10 good recommendations from the communities so far. Thank you.
Thank you. I think today is a great opportunity if this Minister of Health and Social Services would like to avail himself to it, which is what are many of those good recommendations? I think he said there may be upwards of 10 recommendations. So what are those good recommendations they’ve been hearing from the communities so we can get a sense of what’s actually happening out there? Thank you.
I don’t know what the recommendations are. The recommendations that the guy mentioned, as he was indicating to me that they had these recommendations, was he did indicate that the communities thought there should be some treatment on the land, that there should be some sort of detoxification in the system, and then also that they should be able to utilize the treatment centre in a way that would be a good piece to the overall treatment of addictions, sort of people in the Northwest Territories. Those are generally the only things that I recall, off the top of my head. Thank you.
Thank you. There have been piles and piles of reports by experts, advice in these particular areas. The government could field a library on its own on how much it’s studied over these particular initiatives.
I’m tying this point to expert advice and expertise on the panel. Maybe the Minister can speak to the expertise this panel brings to this discussion on the Addictions Forum, and maybe he could use this occasion to highlight what expertise and experience they have around this to ensure we’ve got the right people in this process. It seems like one that was kicked off quietly then set out to find some facts, and we won’t hear from them until after it’s done. So there seems to be some gaps as to what experience, strengths and expertise they bring to the table and what they will be bringing to the table for policy advice. Thank you.
Thank you. We have heard lots from outside experts, there’s no question about that. This forum has given us an opportunity to hear from the people, from extended families, friends, neighbours, people who live with addictions every day. These are a group of people who have lived a life of addictions, some of them have lived lives of addictions, some of them are involved with the treatment centres, some of them are involved with counselling at their own community level.
The bottom line is, these are a group of people who we felt would be a good group of people to extract a lot of the solutions from the communities as they travel around. So I guess their expertise is really the life they’ve lived. The group of people that have come together, some of the individuals are very good at organizing the forums, and travelling with the forums, and doing documentation as well as documentation with our staff. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. By all means I’m sure that these are good people. I just would have thought we would have heard more about their expertise than the life they’ve lived.
My next question, of course, is the last one, which is: Has the Minister been getting any feedback about two particular areas that I am very passionate about, which is youth treatment options and certainly a treatment centre here for Yellowknife for dealing with addictions? Those are two very important recommendations that I hope are coming forward on how to deal with youth on a youth treatment level, and certainly, as I’d said earlier, a treatment centre possibly for Yellowknife, being one of the largest regions and certainly a catchment area for a lot of problems. Thank you.
Yes, thank you. I haven’t heard from the forum that there was any specific indication from the communities that they met, that they felt there should be a treatment centre located in Yellowknife. I’ve heard that earlier, somebody had indicated that somewhere, but specifically, officially from the forum, I haven’t heard that.
As far as youth treatment goes, I think that initially one of the forum members that we put on there had discussed a lot of youth treatment options with the department previously. So we thought putting her on the forum would bring that to the forefront, but again, officially, no, we haven’t heard about any treatment for youth that would be recommended through the forum. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
