Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement again today will be regarding addictions and treatment options that need to happen here in the Northwest Territories. Yesterday I spoke at length in my Member’s statement, and as I said then and will say yet again, the Minister does like stats, so I need to remind him on a couple of them.
Eight-nine percent of people in our jails struggle with addictions, and from a hospital point of view, at least 350 people are hospitalized a year because of substance abuse. The problem with addictions is it preys on everybody in the context, it doesn’t require a specific face, a specific gender or colour. It doesn’t really care. Once it’s got its claws in you, it doesn’t want to let go.
Since my statement yesterday I have to say very little has changed in the perspective of how we’re going to treat people in a detox context and in a sad case, which is also a positive one, we all know that the free market principles apply here. If there are sellers, there are buyers. The sellers need to be attacked on all fronts by the RCMP, which I’d like to give credit for the recent announcement of their seizure. What they ended up pulling in was approximately $750,000 worth of material off our streets in an arrest: 7.5 kilograms in marijuana, two kilograms in cocaine and 500 grams in crack cocaine. I have to applaud their efforts because they’re really putting a dent in this particular problem.
As I said earlier, there are sellers and there are buyers. The buyers are the territorial government’s perspective, their responsibility. Our responsibility is to provide options for these people who need help. As I said earlier, it’s colourless, it’s faceless, it’s genderless. We need solutions in a detox context here in the Northwest Territories to help people. We need to start taking those positive steps providing that support.
Yesterday the Minister highlighted – and correctly, of course – we have the Nats’ejee K’eh centre which does provide a certain amount of relief, but it’s only a very small pillar of opportunity for certain styles of drugs, certain levels of capacity of addiction. A detox centre really gets at the source. Nats’ejee K’eh does not provide medical services for those people who have, say, a crack cocaine addiction or an ecstasy addiction or any other type of pill addiction. There are a lot of other solutions. His response being, well, we’ll create more on-the-land programs, I’m sorry to say, with all great and kind respect, that on-the-land programs do not solve the hard drug problems.
Today in question period I will be asking the Minister how we address this bigger problem.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
