Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As my colleagues have indicated, addictions are a large concern for this government and for the country of Canada. As a strong advocate for economic development, increasing jobs, and the economy in the North, I believe that addictions are affecting us a great deal in this area as well.
This government will often ask where will we find the money, how can we afford to do this? How can we afford not to do this? What would the Northwest Territories gross domestic production be like if we didn’t have addictions? How many people have addictions that allow them not to stay at jobs? They are limited by the time they can work. They are often late for work. They often miss days of work. They are often fired from those jobs because of their addictions.
As the Government of the Northwest Territories works to develop more jobs in the North through economic development, we have to look at how we get those Northerners to these jobs. It’s true that some regions are seeing difficulties in economic development; however, even the areas where we are seeing good economic development, it’s difficult to get Northerners to their jobs. These addictions slow people down. People that should be working are not working.
The three diamond mines have been a godsend to this territory and I would hate to see what our economy would be without them. Even they have indicated to us that they have a large, long list of people who have failed the system mostly due to addictions. They have gone through the mines. They have been there once, twice, three times, and even now the mines have come back and given them fourth opportunities. These individuals are not able to work in these types of environments with their addictions. Our government needs to commit more dollars to it.
My point is today that Northerners with addictions need to get back into the workforce. We need to assist them where we can. This government needs to put more money into this program.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
