Debates of May 15, 2007 (day 7)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, on Thursday, May 17, 2007, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends the government establish a strategy to denormalize alcohol abuse; and further that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends the government ensure communities have adequate resources to enforce liquor laws including restrictions and prohibitions; and furthermore that this Legislative Assembly urges concerned community members, leaders and law enforcement authorities to work together to enforce restrictions and prohibition on alcohol and other liquor laws.

Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time, I will be seeking unanimous consent to deal with this motion today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Notices of motion. Notices of motion for first reading of bills. Motions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion that I have given notice of earlier today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

WHEREAS alcoholism and alcohol abuse are devastating individuals, families and communities across the Northwest Territories;

AND WHEREAS alcohol was a confirmed factor in over 42 percent of suicides and accidental deaths in the Northwest Territories between 2002 and 2005;

AND WHEREAS excessive alcohol consumption is associated with serious health consequences including high blood pressure and several cancers often contributing to premature death;

AND WHEREAS up to 30 percent of NWT women report drinking during pregnancy, putting their unborn children at risk of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder;

AND WHEREAS alcohol abuse is a factor in a large proportion of crimes, family violence incidents and child welfare cases;

AND WHEREAS alcohol abuse prevents many northerners from succeeding in education and employment and achieving financial self-reliance;

AND WHEREAS the effects of alcohol abuse are resulting in substantial and unsustainable costs to government health, justice and education programs;

AND WHEREAS the 2006 NWT Addictions Strategy reports that the number of current drinkers who typically consume more than five drinks per occasion is 36 per cent overall and 53 per cent for persons aged 15 to 24;

AND WHEREAS the Government of the Northwest Territories has successfully implemented a strategy to denormalize tobacco;

AND WHEREAS elders and community members who have overcome alcohol addiction can serve as role models for youth;

AND WHEREAS some NWT communities have put in place restrictions or prohibitions on alcohol;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends the government establish a strategy to denormalize alcohol abuse;

AND FURTHER that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends the government ensure communities have adequate resources to enforce liquor laws including restrictions and prohibitions;

AND FURTHERMORE that this Legislative Assembly urges concerned community members, leaders and law enforcement authorities to work together to enforce restrictions and prohibition on alcohol and other liquor laws.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the idea of drawing attention to the issue of alcohol abuse and bringing it up by way of a theme day in the Legislature today and then following that this motion is being brought forward by the Members was decided on, or the idea was contemplated, in the previous Assembly as Members of this House are keenly aware, and have talked many times amongst ourselves, about the devastating effects of alcohol abuse on our communities, families and many friends.

Mr. Speaker, the denormalization of alcohol, the reason why we put it in that context is because, personally, I am afraid that we have become too accustomed to the plight and the misery, in many cases, of people who have become involved with alcohol and then are addicted to it and, in fact, in many instances, it just takes over their life. It permeates every aspect of their life and has many consequences for themselves, their families and for the people around them.

The excessive use of alcohol impairs people’s judgement. They do things they wouldn’t normally do. I was talking to someone the other day. I said, what would ever possess people knowing the consequences of something like crack cocaine to ever take that first chance and take that first hit of crack cocaine? What would ever allow people who are in their right minds to do something like that? This person pointed out, well, they didn’t do it when they were cold sober, necessarily. They were probably in a bar and they probably had a few drinks and they probably weren’t thinking clearly. But that, unfortunately, is the case for so many risky and devastating activities that people become involved in. People’s judgement is impaired. They go out on the land. They go hunting. They go fishing. They get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. They get in accidents. All kinds of people who are of sound mind, who would never dream of taking risks, all of a sudden, under the influence of alcohol, will engage in activities that could result in very negative consequences for them and quite often death of young people in the Northwest Territories.

These same people under the influence of alcohol cannot think clearly about consequences such as practising unsafe sex, which leads to our astronomical reports of sexually transmitted diseases and potential spread of HIV/AIDS and all of these things which come to our attention through the statistics that are reported about the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, we recognize that there is a responsible consumption of alcohol, as well. This motion is not intended to condemn anyone. This is just to arrest ourselves and say look at what alcohol is doing to the North and look at what alcohol is doing to our people. Of course there are those who consume alcohol responsibly, but many times in order to take a stand or to be the example or to set an example for our children, sometimes we would have to say, well, you know, it might be a sacrifice, but that is a sacrifice we will be willing to make to send a strong message to set an example for a younger person or for someone that may be watching us as role models.

As a government, we want the best for our constituents. We want better education programs. We want the best health care. We want the best housing programs. We want the best of everything for our constituents. One of the things that is consuming a tremendous amount of our financial resources is the money we expend to address the aftermath of alcohol abuse. I can only imagine what we would be able to do with those financial resources if we did not have to expend so much of our time, energy and money trying to deal with these outcomes.

Mr. Speaker, I know the other Members are going to have a lot of very valuable things to add on this, so I don’t think I will go on about it any longer. I thank the Members for standing together today on this issue and telling the people in the North that we recognize there is a problem and together we need to find solutions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join the colleagues here and second this very important motion. Mr. Speaker, I speak not only as a Member of this Legislature, but also as someone who has experienced the negative effects of alcohol abuse and what that can do to a family, and also as someone who has supported someone to a very successful road to recovery from alcoholism. Also, I speak as somebody who, like the Member for Hay River South and everyone else here, has suffered from the negative impacts of alcohol on our people.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is useful to show that we are not the only place in Canada that is suffering from alcohol abuse. In fact, this is a national epidemic. In a recent article in the media on the website, it says that, in 2005, Canadians down the equivalent of 7.9 litres of pure alcohol for every drinker and teetotaller over age 15. I am told by Mr. Miltenberger that a teetotaller means a non-drinker. Mr. Speaker, Canadians consume 30 percent more alcohol than the world average. All I know is somebody is drinking my 7.9 litres because I don’t drink that.

Mr. Speaker, the social cost of our lifestyle and drinking is becoming more popular in the recent years is staggering. The social cost in Canada is $14.6 billion in 2002. The healthcare bill alone is $3.3 billion, higher than the price tag to treat cancer. Mr. Speaker, we spend 1.6 million days in the hospital because of illnesses and accidents caused by people under the influence of alcohol. For the first time, more people died from liver sclerosis, regarded as a benchmark of a country’s problem drinking, than on the road in drunken car crashes, Mr. Speaker. Yet governments all over treat alcohol like a gold mine, with policies that encourage us to drink and even handicap the struggle for sobriety once people become addicted.

Mr. Speaker, in 2005, 79.3 percent of Canadians confessed to drinking which, contrary to our growing obsession with fitness and diet, is a nearly 10 percent jump from a decade ago. But the fact is this only amounts to 30 percent of alcohol sold, so we are not even telling the truth about what we are drinking.

Mr. Speaker, we always think that drinking heavily is a response to problems, but the studies show, in fact, we drink in hard times and we drink in good times. In the province of Alberta where it is topping all of the economic indicators, drinking and alcohol consumption has gone up by 13 percent. This reports that alcohol is near and dear to people’s hearts. It is Canada’s drug of choice, without a question. It is legal and promoted. We are inculcated to use it. People defend their use of it. Mr. Speaker, that is why we need to denormalize use and abuse of alcohol. It is a lot more difficult to do that with alcohol because alcohol is not illegal. It is not the same thing as smoking, which we were able to say just cut it out 100 percent and no compromise. With alcohol, we know that some people are able to do that more responsibly, but I think we all think that we could do it responsibly and we don’t understand the problems associated with that.

Mr. Speaker, also, the latest studies show that even breast cancer and colorectal cancer are contributed by alcohol abuse. It is not just liver sclerosis, throat cancer and some of the more clear items. A casual drink of two a day for women would increase chances of getting breast cancer by 13 percent. But Ottawa and provinces, and probably this territory too, is addicted to getting taxes from liquor sales.

Mr. Speaker, it has become a practice for us and it is very normal now that we don’t tolerate smoking, but we glorify alcohol. Mr. Miltenberger earlier mentioned the fact that we just accept it as a daily practice. There are a lot more positive connotations to it than negative impacts.

Mr. Speaker, I just, once again, want to say that this motion and the important part of it is that we have to do something to denormalize it. We need an effective campaign from the government. We are not just asking for a slogan, but a slogan is something that we can all get behind.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister has indicated earlier that there are lots of community empowerment going on. That is an important aspect of that, too. We know that we cannot address alcohol abuse issues without having all of the communities involved. We need to spend more resources and more time figuring out how we could strengthen the entire spectrum of alcohol and drug issues. Treatment is one of them. Prevention is in the front of that and then aftercare. You have to live with yourself after addiction. That requires a lot of support from the families. We need to create a healthy culture. We need to denormalize alcohol. We need everybody in the communities to be able to tell whoever is engaged in unruly and criminal activity, whether they are older or younger people, women and men, that we don’t condone that.

We don’t accept it and we will not take it anymore and we do not condone alcohol abuse in our communities. Mr. Speaker, another I thing I think why we need to have a strategy and a clear slogan is people out there do not understand what this government is doing. Working within, we know about all of the studies and the increased number of positions on mental health and alcohol and drug issues, but people do not know that; people don’t understand why the government cannot have alcohol and drug treatment centres in Yellowknife and Inuvik; on top of Hay River. If it is the government’s decision that it is better for us to have one treatment centre and send those who are in need of special care down south, we need to see that there’s a lot of work being done in between. Mr. Speaker, for those who are willing to look, there are a lot going on in our communities. Tree of Peace, Salvation Army, there’s Aurora House where it’s a transition house for men in Yellowknife, but people do not see that and what people see is all these horrible situations in the downtown area or in our communities, our youth being affected by alcohol abuse, and the government just seems to sit back and do nothing. I know the government is not sitting back and doing nothing. We need to let the people know what we are doing, we need to have a slogan like “Don’t Be a Butthead” or “Get Active” that we did today and get on a massive campaign to say we do not accept negative behaviour from alcohol abuse.

Mr. Speaker, on the question of enforcement, I would like to see an RCMP officer in every community in the Northwest Territories. When we were in Colville Lake, I tell you, a 1-800 number in Yellowknife to call for enforcement is not what’s going to work. In most of the communities, they want an RCMP presence in every community and if that is not possible, I believe we should figure out a way to have an alcohol and drug control officer in every community. We need the enforcement there to stop bootlegging and stop the ability for people to just call a larger centre, have boxes and boxes of alcohol get packed up in the airplane and just land and nobody has to account for who is responsible for that alcohol. The laws are already in place; we’re not enforcing it. If we can’t afford to have an RCMP in every community, why can’t we have an alcohol and drug officer in every community so that we show that we take the negative impact of alcohol and drug abuse seriously? That it is a number one public enemy. It is killing our adults, our youth, it’s keeping our people in hospital, sending people to jail, keeping them out of school and we’re not allowing our people to be the best that they can be.

Hear! Hear!

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Mr. Speaker, I just want to close by saying that alcohol abuse and alcoholism is the number one public enemy in the Northwest Territories and we have to take this seriously, and I think in a positive way this is the number one solution. Once we address this, we will have a healthier population; we’ll have reduced costs in hospitals; we’ll have less people in jail; we will have less kids going through family violence, less women being violated. It is the key to our future and we must denormalize abuse and negative impacts of alcohol. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Thank you, Ms. Lee. To the motion. The honourable Member from Tu Nedhe, Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I stand in support of this motion also, Mr. Speaker, for all the reasons that all the Members have stated earlier in all our Members’ statements and all the reasons here that are stated in the motion, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we all know that all our social ills here in the NWT have derived from alcohol and I just want to point what the Member from Range Lake did, that it is kind of a public enemy number one. But I’d more or less like to term it as the aboriginal enemy number one, Mr. Speaker, because it is the aboriginals that are in our jails, it is the aboriginals that are in our hospitals, it is the aboriginals that are in our small communities that are suffering from alcohol abuse, Mr. Speaker. I think that it’s time that we, as a government, have to develop a campaign through a motion like this to inform and educate the aboriginal people, especially our aboriginal youth, Mr. Speaker, who are most at risk, that alcohol is not and should not be considered as normal behaviour, especially when you’re consuming large amounts of alcohol in very short periods of time.

In all of our communities, all of our small centres here around the NWT are all challenged to keep the alcohol under control. We all have ways of dealing with it, but still we have to allow our own people to be in control of their own lives. That, Mr. Speaker, is a real fine balancing act for our community social workers, our community health workers and this government in trying to find where the balance is. I think a motion like this puts more emphasis on encouraging this government to work harder to find out where that balance might be and to assist all these people in the communities in how to deal with alcohol abuse in their own community, Mr. Speaker, because no one solution is going to work for all, I can tell you right now. Each community has its own circumstances and ways that they’re dealing with it today and I think some of them are really good and some of them need some more work in it. I think that if we can successfully come forward with a campaign that addresses all these various positive things about how the communities are working toward addressing alcohol abuse in the large and small centres, we could come together to formulate a strategy that’s territorial-wide that deals with this issue on a regional basis and in those regions they can deal with it specifically in each community.

With that, I fully endorse and support and I really hope that something like this we can measure with some success over the next couple of years in seeing a lot of youth and a lot of our working people between the ages of 24 and 35 years old that are in the mine right now making healthier choices, having sustainable lives and treating their families with respect and dignity that we all hope we can do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. To the motion. The honourable Member from Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, stand in support of the motion. I’m pleased to see it here. In the almost eight years now that I’ve served in this Assembly, looking back I’ve tried to take a bit of an inventory of just what have we done, or at least what have I done and helped do in the last two terms here that might have contributed something to our government’s role in reducing alcohol abuse. Not a lot of things come to mind, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps I should go through some of the acts in the legislation, but I do recall I think the Motor Vehicles Act in was it the previous Assembly, in which we amended the allowable blood alcohol levels, we reduced those. Has that made a difference in terms of accident and fatality levels on our highways? Perhaps it’s too early to tell.

Mr. Speaker, we are about to engage in a very fundamental piece of legislation, the Liquor Act, which has long been overdue and is a part of sort of the control and the management systems that we have, but it is not the big artillery barrage that some people might think it is. It is only a part, and I think a relatively small part, of what is needed in the very large agenda, a very diverse curriculum that we’re going to need to really tackle this.

So at least in the eight years that I’ve been here, I think if we really look at ourselves as a Legislative Assembly, we have been timid on this. We have not paid as much attention to it, we have not recognized it for what it is. It’s not like an emergency or a forest fire kind of a crisis that all of a sudden it’s there and we can easily focus on it, we know that there’s going to be an end to it. Alcohol and its affect have been part of society for thousands of years. It is something that’s very deeply rooted and very deeply entrenched. It’s part of our value system, part of our lifestyles and it is not going to get turned around, but, as many of my colleagues have already said, we can’t afford anymore to be complacent about the trends that we’re seeing.

Mr. Speaker, our motion asks the government in some ways to take some relatively specific action, but I would like to say that I hope the government reads into it a much broader mandate, a much broader desire on the part of the Members over here on this side, to engage in a very aggressive, very creative and high-powered approach to the issues that we’re facing and that all the indications tell us are going to get worse. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that has concerned me is that no one agency or department of our government really has the lead or the responsibility to take this on. Even in the Liquor Act itself, that is essentially a piece of business and administration law. It does not assume the responsibility to help our society undertake a responsible use of alcohol. We have the Department of Justice, of course, that deals with so many of the consequences along with the Department of Health and Social Services, Education, Culture and Employment certainly has a role, perhaps not as direct. So we have all these different pockets of responsibility and impact, but we have not taken this problem and put it up on a single pedestal, if you will, Mr. Speaker, so that we can say okay, here is where we’re going to vest the authority and the accountability for addressing and attacking this problem and this is the agency we’re going to resource, we’re going to make sure they have the tools, the dollars, the expertise needed to make a difference. I think that is one of the significant barriers that we have in this Assembly and in this government to achieving a real impact on this kind of social ill. It is so big, it is so multi-layered that we, I think, have managed collectively to avoid or defer the role that we should be playing in this.

Mr. Speaker, I do applaud the initiative of the Department of Health and Social Services, the undertaking of the former Minister, Mr. Miltenberger, to apply 1 percent of that department’s expenditures to addictions. That is an example of the kind of leadership that will hopefully get us there, but we need to be committed to it. I look at the example that other organizations, particularly the NGOs, other levels of government have already shouldered in dealing with the frontline consequences of alcoholism. We’ve talked about the friendship centres, the YWCA, the Salvation Army and we should certainly mention in there the role that the Students Against Drinking and Driving organization has played in this community and around the NWT. This is truly where leadership is being demonstrated and where we should very aggressively be undertaking a campaign to bring these strengths of our community together and forge a true partnership and coalition to take this on. That, Mr. Speaker, I think is where the first step needs to be taken if we’re really going to turn this corner right here in this Assembly. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Braden. To the motion. The honourable Member from Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, too, stand in support of this motion and I appreciate everyone in this House giving this motion the attention it deserves and the respect it deserves by paying close attention to the words that are being spoken on this side. Mr. Speaker, I’m living testament to the devastation that alcohol can cause on a family. I’ve lost two aunts, two uncles, my grandfather, cousins, friends to alcohol and the abuse of alcohol. All these people, and many more across the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker, would be still with us today had it not been for alcohol. It’s sad to see, like I said in my Member’s statement, growing up in the ‘70s it was normal, it was normal to get alcohol and it was just something that you did because it was normal. Today, I see a lot of people that I knew when I was growing up have decided, and they’ve made a commitment, to quit their drinking. I’ve seen them where their homes were busted and broken and families split apart, but I see them today and how they’re living today. Those are role models that we should look up to.

We were at a meeting in Fort McPherson and there was a young girl there who stood in front of her community, in front of our committee, and said our leaders have to be sober, our leaders have to be role models.

Hear! Hear!

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I firmly believe that. I would not stand up and support this if I didn’t practise it. I’m proud of the fact that I can come down to Yellowknife, meet with my colleagues and we don’t go running off to the bar after a hard day of debating Bill No. 8. That’s the type of leadership we need. We shouldn’t be up here saying do as I say not as I do. We have to practise what we preach because you can say all the words that you want, you can talk until you’re blue in the face, but people will see you and they’ll judge you by the way you carry yourself and the kind of lifestyle you lead. So that’s the type of role models that we should have in place.

Mr. Speaker, I’ve seen many cases where alcohol has prevented, like the motion said, people from succeeding. People will do well, they think they can have, oh, one or two drinks and I’m fine, but there’s an old song where one is one too many and a thousand’s not enough. I don’t know if you remember that, but that was from the early ‘70s. So some of us that are old enough will remember it.

Mr. Speaker, this is an important motion and I’ve seen families where there is no alcohol in the home, but the kids still run into the parties and the drinking. Why? Because it’s normal and it’s expected of you. If you’re a teenager growing up today, the peer pressure is unbelievable because not only is there alcohol, there’s all the drugs that are out there and there’s all these people selling drugs and driving these nice skidoos, they’ve got fancy vehicles and kids look up to them. They say oh man, I’ve got to live like that, but they’re scum, Mr. Speaker, to put it quite bluntly. They live off of the abuse and the addictions of people. So I have absolutely no respect for anyone that carries on any kind of work like that, Mr. Speaker. Like I said, I’ve seen kids from homes where there’s no alcohol and that. The easiest thing you can do is just go with the current, it’s the easiest thing you can do, but if you want to test the intestinal fortitude of anybody, swim against the current. There’s very few people that swim against the current.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know how much plainer I can make it, but alcohol is, as Bobby said, it’s the aboriginals’ worst enemy, it’s a lot of people in the Territories worst enemy and we have to get the message out there and it starts with the leadership. We have to get the message out there that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable anymore, it’s not normal anymore. There used to be a time when it was normal and it was expected, but I’m starting to believe that some of that attitude is starting to change because I do see some people who have turned their lives around. I have nothing but the utmost respect for these people because it’s a difficult thing to do. Mr. Speaker, I say that from experience because I’ve been through that, I’ve been through that. It started at 12 until I was, like, 23. It was a problem that I had, it affected me and all the people around me, but 12 years old, but it was expected of you at the time. So we all did it. But as you grow older and you start having a family, you realize that this is not the way to be and this is the message that we have to get out there. I’ve said twice and I will say again, it starts with the leadership and it’s not do as I say, but not as I do. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. To the motion. The honourable Member from the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, too, am in full support of this motion here. I thank the Members for bringing this forward and having the opportunity to discuss it. I want to thank Mr. McLeod for bringing some perspective in terms of his discussion.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to congratulate and honour the leaders in the Northwest Territories, especially the Members in the Legislative Assembly who have done some work on themselves to stay away from alcohol and who have worked very hard to see, for at least myself, what life is like and opening your eyes every morning and seeing the beauty of life and seeing the benefits of not having to use alcohol, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I always bring it back to the point too that I certainly tip my hat to these people who can have a glass of wine and leave it at that. That’s fine; that’s just one of the things when you’re dealing with alcohol, is that in some of the cases that at one time, as Mr. McLeod has pointed out, at one time it was normal. I mean if you look at 20 or 30 years ago it was normal. We have come a long way in government in not having so much normal, so much that at one time all our leaders at leadership meetings were coming in feeling pretty rough and looking pretty rough. I’m not one to judge, but that’s what I observed as a young leader, as a young chief, Mr. Speaker. We have come a long way today when we’re coming into meetings with our leaders; they’re crisp, they’re sober and they’re on the ball here.

So, Mr. Speaker, we have done a lot of work. We have to remember the work that we’ve done because this is about 30 to 40 years alone in the Northwest Territories in terms of in the olden days and how it used to be.

Mr. Speaker, the one issue I wanted to talk about with this business in alcohol in terms of helping out with the businesses, you know we’ve got the major potential and projects happening in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker, that there’s lots of issues that have to be dealt around with businesses and how families are affected. Mr. Speaker, the issue of the lost time, I heard one Member talk about the number of hours that could be lost due to health problems and also to business issues. A lot of people in the region talk about these, that’s a good worker, but, gee whiz, on Friday you don’t see him, you have to find a worker on Saturday and Sunday. We’re losing business. What is the government doing in terms of lost hours of labour, lost hours of employment and then we expect to have a Mackenzie gas project come down the Mackenzie Valley and see what can happen if we don’t look at this issue on many fronts?

Mr. Speaker, I like the motion where it talks about denormalizing. For me, Mr. Speaker, I’ll say it again, this is to somehow give the communities, give the regions better resources, let them deal with their own solutions in how to deal with the alcohol issue, the drug issue. It’s basically to give the people the opportunity to deal with it on their own terms. We have one treatment centre here, Nats’ejee K’eh that’s being used on the Hay River Dene Reserve for all the North. How long have they been working in the communities to deal with this issue here? Somehow if we think out of the box, give the regions and their community some money for them to use to see how best they can deal with this issue here. I think that way it will help to know that people who know, for example, people who come from the land are going out to the land to work on themselves, small families, not groups of 20 or 30 but small families of four or five, families go out on the land for a week or two to talk about some issues in their life.

It’s all about life, Mr. Speaker, when we talk about it and how do you deal with life without using alcohol. That’s something that I like about this motion where it talks about denormalizing. When you deal with the hard life of the loss of your family or the loss of a friend or the loss of a job or just the work of getting either fired or being laid off, how do you deal with that? A lot of times we grab the bottle because it becomes our friend. We haven’t ever in the Northwest Territories, under this here, really talked about the effects of alcohol and alcoholism in our communities. We have never really talked about the strategy of why our young kids are using alcohol so much. What is it that we are doing as leaders in terms of telling our youth? They hear it up here, but do they get it in here? The youth can read, but do they really get it in their heart about the power of alcohol, because it’s something that they’re doing today that’s giving them something that we can’t give them. Really think about it.

I congratulate and applaud the people who have put the bottle away. That’s the easy part. The hard part is keeping it away because there’s so many reasons, Mr. Speaker, to grab the bottle again and drink it and have a sip. There’s so many opportunities and excuses to have that, pressure on us, especially as Members of the Legislative Assembly and our families. We have every reason to speak to you to have something like that. That’s why I said I applaud the people that can have a glass of wine or a beer and leave it. Unfortunately I’m not one of them.

There’s a lot of support groups now today. There’s Yellowknife and our communities and our region. We’ve got workers in our communities. Thirty years ago we didn’t have that. The Government of the Northwest Territories recognizes alcoholism as a disease, a chronic disease that’s treatable. That’s all, but what are we really doing? I’d like to see more of it done. The Minister has indicated that we’re looking at some solutions. So I really applaud him. I’d like to work with the Minister, the department, to help do as much as we can do to get the youth off the drugs and get them on the land. The older people and the people in the communities always said take them on the land. I really didn’t understand that, Mr. Speaker, until I went down to Hay River on the Dene reserve and I talked to an elder there. I asked him what is that you mean about this because I really couldn’t get it, and I was working at the Nats’ejee K’eh as a counsellor. So I asked him what is that I keep hearing, go on the land, go on the land, and the elder on the Hay River Reserve said take them on the land. The first couple days get them to learn about the land, set nets or set some snares or help around the camp for two or three days. Maybe by the third or fourth day that person’s spirit is going to wake up and when that person’s spirit wakes up, that’s when you go and grab him or her and teach them. They’ll never forget. In the community it is too busy. You’ve got CDs, you’ve got these games going on, you’ve got sports, you’ve got friends and something happens, but on the land something else happens that’s very powerful. So I thanked the elder for that wisdom and wise things to say to us.

So we are doing a lot. We have a lot there for our people. We have to show the people who get on the land you pack your own water, chop your own wood, don’t go into a treatment centre because everything is going to be provided for you. Your food is cooked for you, your light, your heat, it’s all there for you, it’s easy, it’s not normal for people who grew up on the land. You’ve got to use your mind and you’ve got to exercise your spirit. Take them out there and work for their life. We have called it a sickness here in terms of dependency. Alcohol is just a buddy there and friend to blame us for not doing enough, blame us for the problem. Look at Tl’oondih, how come we’re not supporting Tl’oondih?

---Applause

We’ve seen the program.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Mrs. Groenewegen for bringing this motion up and talking about it. I tell you my heart saddens because I have lost someone really close to me because of this and I did not want to speak about it because I know how hurt we were as kids and how our eyes were when we had to experience that situation. I speak for many in the Northwest Territories how their parents, grandparents, and even as my colleague from Range Lake talked about the people in Colville Lake, how the elders look when they talked to us about this issue in Colville Lake. They’re fighting and they’re asking us for help, but the elder said in Colville Lake we can do the program, we’ve got the lake and the land right in front of us. That’s our treatment centre. We’ve got to think that way, Mr. Speaker.

I know there’s some really, really good people working in Nats’ejee K’eh. I know they put their heart into it. I know the work they’ve done, people in treatment centres. But, Mr. Speaker, I want to say this and I want to thank the Member from Hay River and the Member from Range Lake for supporting this motion. I want to say to the government we have done a lot for our people. We’ve done too much to a point where now they’re depending on us to sober them up. We haven’t given that responsibility to them. Take them on the land and get them to learn about the responsibility for their own life and how hard it is to stay away from the use of alcohol or drugs for people who have done that in their life. There’s some really good role models, there’s some really good ones. Get them off the alcohol and drugs and get them on the land. That’s what the elders’ message is and that’s what I’d like to confirm that we’ve been listening to them. So I wanted to say that, Mr. Speaker, that to denormalize this again for the people that I speak for that come from the land here. To deal with this, Mr. Speaker, it’s a spiritual issue here in terms of our land and I can’t explain it because you have your own sense of spirituality and that’s your own. There’s no right or wrong, just that we’ve got some major projects, we’ve got some big things to look after in the Northwest Territories and we’ve got to deal with this bigger issue here of alcohol use because our kids are worth it.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I wanted to say that from this issue here from alcoholism, it has taught me a lot. It has taught me how to be human and it’s taught me how to deal with issues without having crutches, to make excuses, and it’s taught me a lot of life. At one point in my life, it really hurt me. So I wanted to say that it’s a good motion. We should have some more discussions, talk to our people, talk to our region. We’ve made a lot of headway, but I think there’s a lot more to get done. However, we are going to discuss that hopefully in the future assemblies and hopefully that is discussed in our communities in terms of what we can do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. The honourable Member from Nunakput, Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, stand up today to support this motion. I thank my colleague Mrs. Groenewegen for putting it forward.

I think, Mr. Speaker, you have to remember -- I’m going back 50 or 60 years ago -- we were introduced to this substance alcohol by westerners and it’s a well-known fact that back in the United Kingdom and Europe it’s normal for them to do that. Whereas, in the short time, over the last 50 or 60 years, we were introduced to something that we weren’t used to before. As I indicated in my Member’s statement earlier, I grew up with my parents where they made homebrew and that was normal because that’s all they had. I heard some of my colleagues here talking about going to high school in Inuvik. I never really got to try alcohol until I went to the high school in Inuvik where I ran into my peers, the same age, 16, 17 and 18 year olds that wanted to try it. Because you’re at a young age, you want a challenge because you’re trying to defeat what’s enforceable by government. I mean they have laws that if you’re underage, you’re not allowed to drink, but that’s the kind of little things that I tried when I was growing up. It also came to a point when I started working for Imperial Oil out at Bar "C" two weeks on two weeks off. Being the youngest person at that time, my two weeks' paycheque went right to, you know, what became normal at the time, buying alcohol with my peers. That’s how I saw myself spending my money. Working two weeks on and two weeks off and spending it in a place where it should never have been spent before, but it was just normal because we were growing up. We were learning the life of maybe the older people that were able to drink.

Following that, Mr. Speaker, I made one of the wisest choices when I went back home to go live with my parents again. That’s where I came to realize that this alcohol is something that affects a lot of people. That’s when some of the elders came up to me at that time and said look, you just got out of high school, you’re young, why don’t you get involved with local politics? That was one of the best, best choices that the elders ever told me. So I think from going back from 1978 on to today, I think I’ve learned a lot. Alcohol is there, you can have it as a social drink, but don’t get it to a point where you’re obsessed with it.

Like I say, I’ve been involved with politics now since 1978. I’ve gone through a lot of things before. I think having my parents behind me to show me the right path and also when I met my wife, Lucille, in 1978, she’s the one that really made me smarten up after we had our first son. With affects like that it’s important because if you have family to back you up when you need them most, you know, they’re there. I appreciate my whole family for that and I’m glad to stand here today to say that although I drink once in a while, not to the excess where it’s affecting me, but I would like to say, though, that there are ways that we can do it. But I really support this motion in terms of hoping the government can do something about it.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I think when we talk about alcohol I think government is one of the biggest factors that plays the big role because we are the ones that support it through government services sales, either government or privatized. So we’re the ones that are supplying it to the communities and yet we’re talking about how can we denormalize alcohol. Again, that’s something that maybe, as government, we should look at. So I think, Mr. Speaker, that I will support this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. To the motion. The honourable Member from Monfwi, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker…(English not provided)

Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to endorse my full support for this motion that has been brought forward by Mrs. Groenewegen for Hay River South. This has been an issue in the communities for quite some time now. When I spoke in my language, I spoke about the importance of elders' wisdom in the past, where our elders spoke and kids were quiet around the table or even discussion periods. Nowadays when you go to communities, kids are all over the place. The parents are out somewhere and the kids are running loose.

Now is the time I see this as an enforcement on those little ones as well, focussing on them. Because what we're saying here is denormalizing means in our perspective would be it's not normal. But we are allowing it in the communities for little ones like eight, nine, 10 year olds -- I see in my community -- that are drinking alcohol, that are doing drugs. Let's do something before it's too late.

I'm glad this motion is in front of us. This motion will certainly deal with that matter, Mr. Speaker. Whether it be different logos or whatever, the bottleneck or whatever you want to call it, I think we need to do more in the communities saying booze is not good, these are the consequences. Like the cigarettes. The little ones in school, they don't know the consequences. They see the parents and, no fault of their own, they went to residential school and they suffered and they're hiding behind the booze; some of them, not all of them. So there's no fault of their own, so we, as government, need to do something. Work with the parents because they certainly cannot do it on their own as parents, because some of them cannot be role models, they have suffered enough. Let's step in and let's help them, all the communities, 33 communities we're faced with.

I'm totally focussed on the youth perspective, Mr. Speaker, because every time I go to a community I see little ones running around. They'll certainly be here around the table down the road. Think in long terms. It's time that we step in and fix the problem, work with it. Let's do something as we did with tobacco, now it's alcohol and substance abuse. It's a huge issue and we certainly would like to see those youngsters in this House one of these days. Mahsi.

Hear! Hear!

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. To the motion. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This motion is bigger than it states on words on the paper. Mr. Speaker, we talk about those who are dependent and we want to denormalize the issue, but we have to also recognize those people who are living with these people who are abusing alcohol. I'd like to take this time to talk about a couple small stories. They're really small, but just to give you sort of a personal sense of where it's sort of gone and come from in my perspective.

I remember growing up in Fort Simpson and knowing somebody who flew in from one of the communities so he could get his hands on a Texas mickey. Being a youth, to realize that someone would charter a plane to fly into Simpson to get a Texas mickey, that's control and that control has to be broken, Mr. Speaker. That wasn't a choice; that's some type of control that the alcohol has on them.

Mr. Speaker, I remember growing up and I remember a particular father. He was a drunk and he used to beat his kids regularly, and that wasn't really fun to watch. I was very thankful that wasn't happening at my house, I can tell you that. I remember he used to beat his kids down the street, beat them on the way home. It wasn't just sort of pay attention; it was like he really laid it to his kids. This guy was controlled by alcohol.

I remember one of the best things about summertime -- and I lived right close to it but, then again, you live to close to almost everything -- but we used to look forward to spring this time of year because we used to go to the aboveground swimming pool, and anyone who has been to an aboveground swimming pool will know that it's not really deeper than your waist. One of my buddies growing up, one of my best friends, Mr. Speaker, he never swam but he was always at the pool with us and he tormented us all the same as we did to everybody else at the pool, and we all did those fun things there. I can tell you a story about one time he went and got drunk, and he decided to swim across the Snye. But to tie the story together, he couldn't swim. So he was controlled by alcohol and it gave him courage to do something that he couldn't do.

Mr. Speaker, I know of another person growing up. He liked to drink and sometimes he was motivated to drive afterwards. I'm not going to say encouraged to drive, but I'd say the people who got in the vehicle obviously had some type of courage because I can tell you one person didn't make it out. They're now on full-time dependent care for the rest of their life because they were in that vehicle with him. It wasn't the first accident that they had, but you kind of wish they would have caught on to the first one, but the second one was even more devastating.

Mr. Speaker, my last little story on this particular case would be I remember this school friend of mine, growing up again in Fort Simpson. This friend of mine, it was a young lady, her favourite song -- this is when ABBA was really popular, so this will set you back a few years, obviously -- I remember her favourite song was I Dream of Angels. It sounds sort of nice when you hear that. Her two brothers got drunk, started shooting at each other. They missed themselves, but they didn't miss her. You look back and you kind of wonder, you know, did she know something? That was her favourite song. So every time I hear it today, when it comes up every once in a while, I do think of her and I wonder about that horrible situation. I wish they had choices.

This motion speaks to the issue of choices and we have people dependent and they can't make a choice in the sense of breaking away from this problem, but we forget about the people who are locked into this situation who don't have any choices. We forget about the kids that are locked in; we forget about the wives that are locked in; sometimes even the husbands, but we can't forget about those. This motion reminds me of that situation that a lot of folks are trapped. Although we're talking about denormalizing alcohol for the folks that are using it, but when I read the motion and I hear about the motion, I think about the folks that have become victims of the motion and I look at this.

Mr. Speaker, I don't have a lot more to add, but I can't help but think about the kids who live in that household, possibly neglected, who knows if they're abused or beaten, but I can tell you I have witnessed some of that stuff myself. I've seen kids that have gotten the rough ride when they shouldn't have. Precious years were lost on people because the kids became victims, and I'm sure many precious good years have been lost on spouses who become victims of those attached to alcohol.

Mr. Speaker, I thought I'd talk about this perspective because booze just doesn't affect the drinker; it has radiating effects to everybody else. I haven't even got into the community and things like that, which don't need to be talked about today, we've heard a lot from other Members. But I'm just sort of speaking about my perspective. So I'll say to the government -- and I know they're listening very closely because this is an important issue, and I know they support us in our endeavours, they support this side of the House, although they don't vote with us obviously on this particular issue -- but I'll say if you can't bring yourself to help those who are dependent on the alcohol, then maybe their focus and our spirit behind this motion can we look at the ones that are loved and fall through the systems, and the victims. So could we do it for maybe the loved ones if we can't do it for those who are dependent? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. Honourable Premier, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Alcohol abuse is probably one of the most devastating and most expensive, costly expenditures in our government's programs. If we were ever able to get control on this, then I think we'd be amazed at the amount of money that could be saved and the amount of devastation and disruption to lives.

Mr. Speaker, part of the challenge is to help people to control their own lives, not have alcohol controlling it for them. Part of it is having laws that are appropriate. Part of it is having policing and, certainly, treatment is part of it. But more than anything else, in my view, Mr. Speaker, it's helping people to become self-reliant, to become people who control themselves.

Mr. Speaker, Cabinet will look very, very seriously at the recommendations that are made. We have listened to the comments made by Members and we'll take a look at what can be done to get control over this very, very costly issue in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, we will not be voting on this motion because it is a recommendation to government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. I'll allow the mover of the motion to make closing remarks. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Members again for speaking to this motion and for, in many instances, sharing some very personal experiences and very personal knowledge of this particular matter. So I really think this is a good thing to send this message to the public and the people of the Northwest Territories and tell them how we, as leaders, feel about this subject of alcohol abuse.

Mr. Speaker, I've been looking at some of the young people even here serving as Pages in the House today. I hope the message gets out to our young people that you don't have to learn this lesson the hard way. You don’t need to take the long way around to find out, to get healthy. As young people that are empowered now and have access to good information, they can shortcut this whole long and devastating process that people have to go through and make healthy choices.

I really appreciate Mr. Yakeleya talking about people getting out on the land and getting in touch with their own spirit. There are so many distractions, I agree, in the communities. People are on their…What do you call those things? I don't even have one. Text messaging and they've got their iPod in their ear and they're just completely bombarded continually with some kind of stimulation. There's no quiet time; there's no time to reflect; there's no time to contemplate and I agree with that, people do need to get in touch with their spirit.

As a government, we do talk a lot about physical healing. Through our health care services, we talk a lot about emotional healing. But we do not, as a government, talk much about spiritual healing. We don't talk about that third part of a person that needs…and there are so many avenues out there where people do find that spiritual healing, and that can go some long ways toward dealing with this issue of alcohol abuse.

So to the issue of denormalizing alcohol abuse, make no mistake, it is not normal to forfeit possession of your judgement to alcohol. It is not normal to put yourself or your loved ones at risk for the sake of alcohol, and it is not normal to destroy your health or your peace of mind or your sense of well-being through the use of alcohol. It is normal to love yourself, to care for yourself, and our human instinct is for self-preservation and to care for ourselves and for those around us.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I will just seek a recorded vote on this motion. Thank you.