Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Far too many people are hurt or killed every year in accidents related to alcohol abuse. About half of the drinkers in the Northwest Territories drink heavily, at least once a month. Heavy drinking often leads to dangerous behaviour. More than half the NWT population experiences harm from someone else’s drinking. In 2009 about one in four of those accidents were assaults. This is going on every year. Thousands of people are harmed due to somebody else’s drinking, even if they don’t drink themselves. Of course, many drinkers are harmed too.
Alcohol was a factor in 22 percent of all injuries and 55 percent of all deaths relating from motor vehicle accidents between 1996 and 2004. About one-third of all motor vehicle accident-related deaths were young people.
There’s a link between alcohol abuse and violence. About 85 percent of homicidal deaths are alcohol related. Alcohol was a factor in about half the suicides in the years from 2000 to 2009. Drunkenness was a factor in almost half the accidental deaths in those years, and chronic alcohol abuse was 37 percent amongst those victims. Injury is the third leading cause of death in the Northwest Territories.
The Sahtu region has the third highest rate of accidental deaths in our territory, after the Beaufort-Delta and the Deh Cho. In recent months, a young girl died of exposure in Fort Good Hope. On Christmas Eve, a 27-year-old man was medevaced from my hometown of Tulita to Alberta, after a serious snowmobile accident. He’s lucky to be alive. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and he was drinking.
The government should do more to educate people about the risk of death and terrible injuries when they drink. Our government says it promotes safety, but at the same time allows unlimited purchase at our liquor stores, now including the one in Norman Wells. A few people there look forward to end the restrictions and everyone in the region has to live with it.
Bootlegging is like a plague in many of our communities, but I don’t see much being done to stop it. Our government makes millions by selling alcohol, and alcohol abuse is killing our citizens and putting pressures on the health system.
I’ll be asking questions to the Minister of Health on this issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
