Thank you, Mr. Speaker. WHEREAS investing in prevention, education and awareness, and enhancing addictions treatment programs are priorities of the 17th Legislative Assembly;
AND WHEREAS the Department of Health and Social Services has recently released its Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan 2012-2015, which identifies service gaps including needs for a medical detoxification program, more on-the-land programs, more community follow-up and aftercare following residential treatment, supported independent living programs for individuals with chronic mental illness, stronger integrated service management, more programs targeted towards children and youth, programs to address specialized addiction treatment such as for crack cocaine and prescription drug abuse, programs addressing mental health and addictions issues among the elderly, and more individualized mental health and addictions programs;
AND WHEREAS Northwest Territories rates of substance abuse remain among the highest in Canada and substance abuse is a factor in more than 90 percent of complaints to police in the NWT;
AND WHEREAS the Northwest Territories coroner recently reported a total of 84 suicide deaths between 2001 and 2010, accounting for 10 percent of all deaths during that 10-year period and a trend of between seven and 10 deaths by suicide each year;
AND WHEREAS countless individuals and organizations across the Northwest Territories have for decades been calling for additional investments in mental health and addictions treatment programs, most recently during the pre-budget consultations conducted by the Minister of Finance;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, that this Legislative Assembly strongly urges the Government of the Northwest Territories to include sufficient new funding, of at minimum $2 million, in the Health and Social Services 2013-14 Main Estimates for the department to substantially enhance addictions and mental health services;
AND FURTHER, that these funds be added to the department’s base for future years and be directed at program delivery to address service gaps identified in the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, 2012-2015, rather than further evaluation and studies, with the ultimate objective of creating a seamless, integrated system of addictions and mental health programs delivered within the Northwest Territories;
AND FURTHER, that the government provides to the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning, before the February-March 2013 sitting of the Legislative Assembly, a list of the proposed new addictions and Mental Health Program delivery investments to be implemented in 2013-14;
AND FURTHERMORE, that the government provides a comprehensive response to this motion within 120 days.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, colleagues. We bring again another motion in regard to this issue. We had two other motions in the 16th. So these motions we bring forward as MLAs because this is a very powerful issue that we’re dealing with.
When we all sat down 13 months ago as MLAs, we talked about our priorities. Our priorities talked about this very issue about having healthy people, independent people and healthy families, and addiction was one of the biggest issues that we talked about. So this motion speaks to our priorities of the 17th Assembly.
This motion talks about recognizing gaps – and the government also recognizes there are gaps – and how do we help people. We want to look at ways that we can create a place where people who want to get help… Sometimes it becomes very difficult for someone to look for help and even ask for help. So we need to create place, a policy within our government that welcomes them to get help without any shame, without any guilt.
So this motion speaks about the strong abuses that are happening in our communities, it talks about the complaints that we get from the RCMP, 95 to 90 percent of the complaints come from our communities. They RCMP say if we did not have alcohol abuse or substance abuse, we know we would be a pretty good community, but most of the complaints deal with that. This motion talks about how we deal with issues of great importance to our people in our communities. Even the coroner’s report talks about people dying with a high rate of alcoholic-related deaths in our communities, and we know them personally.
The people in the North are calling for help. People in the North are looking to us to help our own people. We have been saying this over time, over time, and that we seem yet to be, I don’t know if it’s stuck or stubborn not to find ways how to help them. This motion talks about some specific actions, investing some money into a program that would help them.
Government may say that’s another $2 million, and where do we find that $2 million. Government will say that. We know that. We ask this help for the 16th, same thing. The Minister has embarked on a journey with the addictions forum. I think the Minister is on a path that people will tell him what we’re already saying here. We need programs in our communities. If we could find money for the Deh Cho Bridge, we certainly can find money for this here.
I think once and for all – we’re at the early start of this Assembly – this Assembly could be known for attacking the alcohol abuse and drugs in our community. If anything, we can be known for stepping up and fighting the alcoholism in our communities. When we first became MLAs, people looked to us for hope. They looked for us to lead and stand up and say no longer is this the norm in our communities. No longer is it normal to drink weekend after weekend after weekend. They look to us when we ask them to put their X on our names and they ask us to help them.
There are a lot of good people in our communities who have stopped using alcohol altogether. I know a lot. There are a lot of good people who also want to stop. They have a hard time because of their own personal reasons. This motion talks about creating that place for them. I don’t know what it is but I know people want help.
This motion talks about investing in people. Investing in the hope just as much as we invest in the Deh Cho Bridge, just as much as we invested in the fibre optic line, just as much as we invested money in the Tuk-Inuvik highway. We found money for those infrastructures; certainly we can find money to invest into our people. I ask the Members to speak on this motion and support this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I’ll allow the seconder on the motion to speak. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank publicly MLA Yakeleya for bringing forward this motion. It is one that I believe strongly in and I want to thank him for his stewardship of getting it on the floor. I also want to thank the Members in advance of those who will be speaking in favour of it. Of course, I want to use the time now to shame and shun the government, who will not be voting on the motion, who will be abstaining, as we know in advance of this.
Addictions are a relentless problem. I do not have to tell anyone in this House how important action is required. Significant action keeps being called by Members and the public, and the government shows little interest or response. Yet again, they show shameless interest in studying the problem, one that they know well. We have many smart people, hardworking people in our public service that could write book after book on issues like this, yet we need to seek more public input.
There comes a time when public input has reached its peak and we have received more than enough to deal with this problem. Why? Because I can tell you I’ve been here nine years and it’s the same message over. Do something. What? Study again? Do something, please. More excuses. Status quo has become the norm on this particular issue. I call upon this government to say excuses no more, we will act.
There is always money for government projects. Members are asking for what really looks like 1.5 percent on our budget. Yet we hear them whining about balanced budgets, our books, yada, yada, yada. The reality is those books belong to Members, too, not just Ministers. Those books belong to the people of the Northwest Territories. This relentless fight must have this brought to the table and people will understand this in this House, in this business, in this ministry, in this Assembly, that the books belong to the people. The ones we talk about defending and balancing, we’re also putting greater people at risk.
It is our chance to leave this term, as we look forward to just under three years from now, with the sense of accomplishment. When are we going to look back and say what did we do? Sure, fixing a policy line makes sense to some bureaucrat out there, but, quite frankly, I don’t care what they think on that point. I want the citizens to feel strongly when we leave this term that we’ve done something to improve their lives. I want them to be able to look at this last Assembly and say the 17th Assembly pulled up their socks, they changed the ground, they heard our message and they did something. The average person doesn’t care about a little policy line buried in some sentence with commas and whatnot. They want to see action. That’s what this motion speaks to. That’s what Mr. Yakeleya just said a few minutes ago.
There are hundreds and hundreds of pages. There are shelves and shelves of binders. What do they all say? No to this issue. I’d say, finally, let’s get this government behind a yes once in a while. This government could do it. If it was a shiny project that the government thought they’d get some excitement behind, they would have built this years ago.
There are many aspects to this particular motion that need to be further highlighted, one being youth treatment. There is a huge gap in our territorial system. The second one which has come across my desk many times over the years is couples treatment. What do we do?
It’s time the Minister and it’s time the government understand what the people are saying. The people have been leading on this issue far too long. They’ve been calling upon their Ministers to lead on this issue for a change. They are getting tired, as I am getting tired, but I will never miss an opportunity to tell this government to do something. The excuses are over. Let’s get to work.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this motion. As I referenced in my statement, it’s time to put the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan to work. It is not time for further studying.
There are lots of actions that are planned for in the document, but the department needs the resources to get the job done. That’s what is asked for in this motion: resources.
This Assembly should have a priority focus on prevention and addictions. We said so in our Caucus priorities. The Assembly should put money into those priorities if we really believe what we said over a year ago. There’s no point in having priorities if we don’t focus our resources on them, and we are focusing a lot of our resources on the economic development priority, also in our Caucus priority, but we are forgetting to fund the social priorities effectively.
The Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan identifies 10 service gaps, identifies them thoroughly, and I agree with the department’s analysis on those gaps. But I have to say, again, that there is no need to continue to study or to start another study on the issue of addictions.
Follow the recommendations of this motion, it calls for funding and it calls for action. The Minister has been heard to say that the communities feel ignored, not listened to. I don’t doubt that they feel that way, but I believe it is because we as a government continue to ignore their requests, their need for resources at the community level. We know the problem, we just refuse to provide the supports that our people are asking for, and it’s been said that the people closest to the problem often best understand it and know how to fix it. Our communities have been asking for resources for a long time. We should hear them and act on their asks.
The Community Wellness Plan currently being developed is a good step, but we need to put lots of other financial resources, as well, into the communities. We need mental health workers and programs at the community level for prevention, for detox, for aftercare, just as an example, and the programs must be targeted for youth, for adults, for older adults, for families, for males, for females. The needs for each are slightly different, and each should have programs and supports adjusted to fit their group. I think we – and by “we” I mean MLAs, residents, communities, staff – have a pretty good idea of what is needed.
To the government I say, put money into the Health and Social Services budget and begin to attack the Mental Health and Addictions Program where it’s most needed: at the community level. With adequate supports, our people will start to turn around and become successful contributing members of our NWT society.
I fully support this motion. Addictions are the scourge which underlies our northern society, and it keeps us from a healthy life and a healthy society. This motion can start us on that long, difficult path to success, but we have to take the first step down that path. I urge all Members to support this motion.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have all heard our Members’ statements, questions, the motion brought to the floor about how big of an issue this is to the people of the Northwest Territories. It goes way beyond the walls of the Legislative Assembly and the decisions that are made here. If I’m going to say one thing, and as we keep our fiscal responsibility in place and the status quo for programs and services, what else is going to be put in place for the status quo is the alcohol-related deaths: 49 percent suicides, 57 percent accidental, 76 percent homicides, which today, if actions were taken, could all be decreased. Those are big statistics that are way above the national averages. The decision has to be made in this House today, and I’m hoping that our Minister of Health and Social Services is looking at those stats and looking at making a decision on them. When these things happen in our families it doesn’t only affect the families, but it affects our communities and even territorial-wide. We are a small population in the Northwest Territories. When something happens in a community it affects us all, and it affects us very deeply and strongly.
Like I said, if I can leave one thing, if we’re going to keep the fiscal strategy as the status quo, then all our health status reports are going to stay the status quo as well. All the jails, all the crime-related people going to jail for alcohol-related crimes are going to stay status quo unless we do something about it. More importantly, the tragic deaths that happen in our communities are going to stay the same, as well, unless we act on it today.
I am in support of this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this motion. It’s about this side of the House identifying an issue and providing some solutions. I like what Mr. Moses said about performance measures. If those indicators of homicides and deaths, if we make them indicators and in one year’s time when we’re standing here we see a decrease in that, that’s action. The only way we can do it is by recommending to government to invest more resources by adding $2 million. I know the government is going to play poor as a pauper, but it’s okay when they invest in infrastructure. They’ve got millions from out of… They’ve got magic money and we want some of that magic money to invest in our people.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This isn’t the first time that my colleagues have called on the government to take some real action on this issue. I have to admit that I have been very disappointed to the response to previous calls for action, and particularly I wanted to mention a treatment system that had been developed in the Yukon and was written off, as we heard in the response from Cabinet, apparently because it wasn’t fully carried out. They didn’t have firm evidence that it worked, yet it was based on common sense and it was a comprehensive approach. It was full of common sense and yet our Cabinet chose to, again, ignore this when they had an opportunity to put it in place even on a pilot basis.
What were some of the bits of common sense that it proposed or brought? It was community-based. It involved strong preparation and support of people who were putting themselves forward for treatment in preparation to ensure that they achieved the best benefits from the actual treatment itself. It ensures community peers went forward together so that they could always have that support. It provided for follow-up and aftercare once people returned to the communities. All elements of this study and yet nonchalantly, apparently written off in favour of more study.
We’ve heard over and over again from people across the Territories what needs to be done. I can be walking down the street and be pulled over by a staff person from the Tree of Peace, and I’m sure that this phenomenon is true for all of us in all of our communities. There are people that know what needs to be done, and surely we’ve listened to them over the past decades.
Of course, in terms of the economies of investment here, this has the potential for a big return. We know that we are losing our people and what they can contribute to society and our economy. There’s a big cost to procrastination here. Again, as has been mentioned, the biggest cost is people. We are talking about community members, friends, relatives. We’re talking about our families, individuals in our families, and when we lose them or see the suffering that they cause or experience or bring to others, it’s a major cost that we need to be addressing.
The motion calls for – and I thank my colleagues for this – creating a seamless, integrated system of addictions and mental health programs. A seamless, integrated system of addictions and mental health programs. To me, this means we need to, again, support a person through a period of sobriety prior to treatment, help prepare them for taking the best advantage of that treatment, help them through treatment and, of course, the aftercare, and all within the context of family, community, their personal history, counselling and so on.
A seamless, integrated system means that the policy is focused on families, children, community, education, health, corrections and so on. They all need to be cognizant of addictions and responsive to the opportunity to help address addictions and people who are suffering from them, fighting them or experiencing trauma because of people that have addictions.
I just want to say that I think a lot of strong points have been brought forward. I’m sure the message is clear. We can’t be procrastinating any further. The time is now. Let’s get it done.
I will be supporting this motion. I, again, would like to express appreciation to my colleagues for bringing this forward. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of the motion. I want to congratulate and thank Member Yakeleya for bringing it forward, Member Hawkins for seconding it, and for all our colleagues here today who have brought forward into this House very strong and compelling arguments for the need of not just addictions awareness, but now we’re putting some money behind that need.
We’ve heard today, and we’ve also heard over the last couple of weeks during this sitting, many different ways where money has been used frivolously or monies where we could have been reapplying it to proper programs such as this. We have the need and we’ve had the desire to finance money for another territory at huge cost to this government and huge cost to taxpayers that goes unnoticed, but there is a number quantifiable to that and a quantum.
We were able to find no problem to find monies and bonuses for $1.2 million for senior bureaucrats, and yet that goes without question. It seems to be common practice. We can afford to pay over $750,000 in WSCC penalties over the last two years. Again, with very little question with very little care in the world as to, really, the true cost to we, as taxpayers, and to the people who need it most. Yet, we hear many times the experts, the medical practitioners and how many more coroner’s requests and inquests we’re going to have to have in this House before we can do something proactive for the people who need it most.
We’ve heard from the other Minister, the Minister of Finance, on his Lego road show. This is a dialogue and budget dialogue talks that he took throughout the Northwest Territories, and in this Lego road show it was clear and evident that people came back to the table with Legos in hand saying we want to put these Legos, we want to put this money and infrastructure into addictions. We’ve heard it. We’ve heard it from everybody in the Northwest Territories. We’ve heard it from people here.
The question I have to ask not just the Minister of Health and Social Services but all of Cabinet: Are you listening to the people? Do you hear their voice? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion. Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, rise on this occasion to support the motion. I think we all can safely say that we have brothers and sisters that are going through some problems and, of course, in our communities we likely see it every day. It’s an affliction and that is something that gravely affects our society in this day and age, especially as we’re going towards the future as we take on challenges and also, at the same time trying to work with each other, it becomes a very big issue.
Although, perhaps in some instances alcohol and drug addiction is an individual decision that a person has to make, I think government still has the responsibility to provide programs and services. If there are treatment programs out there, they need to be enhanced. Is there a need for a detox centre? Well, it needs to be established. There’s no doubt it’s been acknowledged, perhaps, in the communities that we do need help. I think this government cannot deny that we have problems. This government has to accept the reality that, yes, we have to admit that we have problems, stop denying and start addressing the immediate problems.
I think there’s the support for people that is needed to try to maintain a healthy and wellness lifestyle. Some people have made the comment that it’s a real challenge in the communities when they try to stay sober and healthy. What kind of support mechanisms are there for them to try and maintain that healthy lifestyle? I acknowledge those challenges. At the same time, I think the challenge that we have is to not only try and work with the mainstream concepts of recovery in terms of treatment and addictions, but to try and infuse it with culturally appropriate ways so that, you know, perhaps it could be on-the-land-based programs that create thinking in terms of a person’s wellness, in terms of trying to give them support so that at least we make the attempt to try to make them succeed.
With those things, again, I support this motion. I’d like to thank the mover and the seconder for taking a leadership role and stepping up to say that, yes, indeed, we need to go down this path right now. We need to do something. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. To the motion. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government is looking at the current residential treatment facility. It will look at the youth treatment and how we handle youth treatment across the territory. It will look at community-based addictions programming. We’re going to look at traditional healing. We’re going to look at current addictions programs and how effective they are. We’re going to look at best practices not only across the NWT but across the territories and across the country. We’re going to determine what needs exist to support those individuals with addictions and mental health. We’re also going to look at all of the reports that the Members speak of, the reports that apparently were done but were not actioned. We are going to look at those. Although some of them have been actioned, we will look at them to make sure that they’ve been actioned.
All of that work is going to be done by the addictions forum. That’s their mandate. That’s why they want to do what has been requested today.
We have the integrated service delivery model in health. That is not only health care, it’s also social services and what’s needed in each community. We’re going to look at that. We’re going to look at aftercare. We’re going to look at the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan. We tabled that. It’s clearly a three-year plan. We are at the very outset of this plan. At the beginning of this plan, we indicated that we are going to put a forum together. That is going to help us carry the plan out. We are open to suggestions. The MLAs have asked if the addictions forum could meet with them. I said yes, that’s not a problem. They are prepared to do that. So it’s going to be an opportunity to work with that forum.
We have gone through the business planning process. In the business planning process, the Standing Committee on Social Programs has made recommendations to this government. There is a dollar figure in there, as well, that says this is how much money Health and Social Services needs to move forward with prevention, addictions, mental health and addictions work. We are looking at that. We are still looking at that letter from that standing committee that asked.
But there are a lot of requests, all kinds of requests from that side of the floor and all over. There are pressures all over. We have to make decisions and we have to utilize the money for the best way that we think those dollars should be utilized. That’s why we’re looking at the letter from the Standing Committee on Social Programs, because that has given us an opportunity to sit back and look at the requests and say, how much of that is something that’s essential to what we need to do right now this year.
This $2 million request is not something that has gone through the business planning process. It could be a part of the request from the Standing Committee on Social Programs; it could very well be a part of that request. This is what our position on that is. We are looking at that through that process. We are following the business planning process. We are following the government’s process on how to get money into the budget.
Just a comment as an example, youth treatment. We talk about youth treatment. There is a request for a youth treatment, maybe even a youth treatment facility. I’ve tried to respond to that by saying we could probably have a youth treatment component within our residential treatment. It would be very difficult to ask the people of the Northwest Territories to pay for a full treatment facility for youth. We treat five youth per year. It’s very difficult. That’s a lot of money. We’ve done that before. We’ve seen that in the young offenders facility. A young offenders facility was operating at an astronomical cost per person. This government recognized that and shut it down. We can’t afford that.
Our best bang for the buck, if we can’t put a program into our current residential facility for youth, is to send them south. We have no option. We cannot have a facility there, because treating youth is a little bit different. Treating youth means that the youth are going to identify that they have an addiction issue. There are not many people at 18 years old who are going to all of a sudden say, I have an addictions issue. At that point, being an addict is far, far from their mind. It is later on in life when they become adults and have work, responsibilities, and families that they realize that they may have addiction issues and then seek treatment at that point. It is very difficult for youth and very uncommon for youth to be standing up and saying they have addiction issues. That’s just one example.
We are doing wellness plans. We are going to be forging into some health plans across the territory, every community. We are hoping that this forum will give us some information. Considering what their mandate is, their research mandate, I feel that we can move to the next level through the regular business planning process.
As this is direction to the government, the government will be abstaining from the vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. To the motion. Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to try to be concise and measured in my comments here. First of all, let me say that I do support the motion. I think that we as a government do need to do more to address a very prevalent and a very large problem in the Northwest Territories. However, there is no amount of money that this government could acquire or could spend that could address this situation in and of itself.
We have to meet people halfway. I do like the fact that this ministerial forum is going out to talk to people in the communities. We as a government have done a disservice to our people and we are deceiving them if they look at us and think that we have all the answers to this problem of addictions in the Northwest Territories, because we don’t now, we never will have. We have to put that out there. But what we have to do as a government is we have to be ready to respond to the aspirations of communities and of people who do want to be sober. We have to also go even further and encourage them. I think we need to denormalize. The Minister said you can hardly find a teenager that is going to say I have an addictions problem and I need help. Somehow we have to denormalize that after a Friday or a Saturday night out on the town that the whole talk the next day is bragging about how drunk they got. We heard the binging statistics there provided by Mr. Yakeleya today. We have to tell people that isn’t funny and that isn’t normal. And you know what? That’s nothing to be celebrated. Can we say that? That is nothing to be celebrated, people going out and getting that silly, crazy drunk. As I said in my statement today, it’s not normal.
Myself, I tend to avoid things that make me sick, I don’t eat food that makes me sick. I don’t put things in my mind that make me sick in my mind, and I don’t ingest things into my body that make me sick. That’s not normal behaviour. We have to somehow instill that in our young people, that self-respect, self-preservation… People say oh, that’s just a rite of passage, that’s just the young. You know, they think that they’re indestructible. No, I don’t buy that. We have to start, I believe, with the young. Somebody said, how early of a curriculum, at what age would it be okay to start teaching little children? I think any time. I think you wouldn’t believe the ability that children have to absorb and understand these sorts of issues.
As a government, I think we have to do our part, but there are many, many paths to sobriety. For as many people who have become sober who had addictions that were prevalent in their life, you will find a different story of how they got there, through mentorship, through sponsorship, through AA programs, through meditation, through prayer, through recognition of their need to be spiritually well as well as physically and emotionally well. I think if you interviewed people that have crossed over and become well, you will find many, many paths. I think we have to hold all of them as possible prospects for… Then it has to be celebrated.
I remember during National Addictions Week over on the K’atlodeeche First Nation, there was one year in their gymnasium at their school where they actually posted all the names of the people in their community that were sober. Yay! I mean, that’s great. That is something to be celebrated. That was a progression. That was a celebration for their community and I think we need to really support that kind of thing.
Let’s not lead people to think that we as a government have all the answers, that we have enough money. It is a multi-pronged problem. It is complex and out of control. We have to do our part, but people also have to meet us. We have to respect the ways that they come forward with, as well, on how they see accomplishing a healthy lifestyle.
I hear my friend Mr. Yakeleya – just to show you how far we as a government have taken away people’s autonomy and people’s self-determination – talking about on-the-land programs. Nobody has to ask, no community has to ask our permission as a government to go on the land and remove themselves from whatever the temptations of community living are. The land is there and if you know how to survive on the land, go on the land. Like, where do people get the idea they need our permission to go do that? They surely don’t. So it’s a balancing act. We have to do our part, people have to do their part and we have to support them in doing their part. I will be supporting the motion. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. I’ll allow closing remarks to the motion. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank my colleagues for their comments. I know the Cabinet is listening. I know people in our communities are listening, and I want to let my colleagues know that this issue has been a long-standing issue in our small communities, no different than the larger centres. They have the same issues in the regional centres and in the small communities.
I think if each Member stands up who has been affected in one way or another by an alcohol or drug issue, we’d all be standing up. We know family and friends, and this motion talks about believing in people. What do we believe in? When we became MLAs we believed in the people. Everybody that came and voted for us and talked to us, some were right down in the dumps, as the saying goes, and we talked to them. They honestly said they want to get sober or get away from drugs. That’s a powerful dependency they have. They told us. The sober people walked up to us and talked to us and said this is what a good life they had either through a 12-step program, through prayers, church groups, they talked about a good, sober life.
Then we’ve got the young people who learn the ways that it’s not okay, it’s not okay to walk around the communities sober, because everybody else is drinking and going out to party and they act tough and they joke about it.
I believe in my people. I believe that they can get well if we meet them halfway. This is about asking for money. It costs a lot of money to go on the land.
Mrs. Groenewegen is right; our land is out there, but somehow we have created a dependency in our people to say government help me with rope, because we’ve got so far away from that independent thinking, that strong thinking in our mind, that we depend on government for food, housing, everything, to clothe us and we’re running out of money. The Finance Minister keeps telling us where are we going to find the money. We’ve become so dependent in our minds that we want government to sober us up. We can’t even do that ourselves. That’s how far we’ve come. That is not right.
We have to do it now. We’ve got to do it right now as we speak, so people will hear us in the communities. It’s a very powerful addiction, alcohol or drugs. It’s very powerful. The people cry to be sober, but they cry in silence.
Why do it? Because our people depend on us as we depend on them, and there’s a lot of pain associated with it. I didn’t realize the amount of pain that alcohol brings until my stepfather got killed by alcohol – I was 19 years old – on January 1, 1980. I stood at the bed of the hospital health centre with my brothers and sisters and we asked my mom, can we take him home. Mom said he’s not coming home with us. The amount of pain that caused us, my brothers and sisters, we stood there, tears in our eyes and we didn’t say anything because men don’t cry. The amount of pain that we felt all those years.
We all have personal stories like this, and it’s cunning and baffling because we don’t know why. We have to do something, as leaders, for our children. I remember my grandmother telling me that. This has to stop. I said no, Granny, I like my drink, I’m not going to stop. Elders tell us and now we’re telling our children. I never would have thought that I could be in leadership like this if my Granny didn’t believe in me. Thank you for not stopping believing in me. I didn’t realize that. There’s hope in all of us, in our people. That’s what leaders do when we bring our issues to the table here in this Assembly. This is our government, and I think the Minister is doing something that’s going to cost us $300,000, and I hope the end result is priceless from what you’re going to get from the community.
We’re in a position to lead today, right now at this very moment. We’re leaders. People elected us to lead, to give them a better life, to inspire enough. To say nothing is a disservice to our people. We have to say some of the things that sometimes are not very popular, are not very comfortable, but we need to say these things. We’re all from the Northwest Territories and that’s what leaders do. We hear from Cabinet we have to make decisions. They might not be the ones you guys like over here, but we have to make them. This side of the table puts a motion here, you might not like it, but we have to do it. We’ve got 11 Members here.
So again, I hope this motion starts a new way of life, a new way of thinking, a new way to give hope to our people, a new way to deal with issues. This motion talks about giving life and respecting people in a way that they know what’s best for them. This motion talks about investing in people. Certainly, we have found money, like I said, for other infrastructure projects. We certainly can find money for this project. Put it into the education. Put it into the schools. Put it into healing. Put it into justice. We’ve got to do other things because of the sanity of this alcohol that is brought to our community. It’s going to drive us to endless more amounts of high crime statistics and other things that we’re not very good at dealing with.
