Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a good day to be back in the Assembly and welcome all my colleagues. Today I will be speaking, as well, on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, specifically focussing here on the Northwest Territories.
Last week, on October 9th, I had the honour to go to a talking circle here in Yellowknife. It was a sharing circle, so there was nobody that was really afraid to speak up. All the communities shared their concerns, what they have seen, and specifically I would like to recognize the members from Inuvik who came down and spoke from their hearts, who talked about what is happening in Inuvik right now and what they are seeing on the streets and in the hospitals, what they are seeing in the schools and the RCMP jail cells, and the fact that we don’t have a day shelter and a lot of our homeless people are out on the streets, and to the point where they get themselves in trouble and can’t go back into the homeless shelter at night, which causes a rippling effect throughout the community and the services that are provided. The services that are provided are good. We just need a final way to keep our homeless people in a shelter environment during the day.
I know it didn’t come from the participants, but on my last trip home I spoke with some of the Town of Inuvik council who did make some moves this summer with regard to the homelessness on the streets in Inuvik. I also spoke with the RCMP on some new policies that they’ve got to develop, because a lot of our RCMP staff are dealing with people that are homeless and getting themselves into trouble with addictions and taking up the jail cells, where they’re not able to work on other big issues such as other drug-related offenses, and specifically the emergency room, which is now being used as, I guess you could say, our detox centre, which we don’t have one in the Northwest Territories.
These are all very important issues that need to be dealt with. We need treatment centres and psychiatrists. I will have questions for the Minister of Health later on today, but just before I finish off, I’d like to bring to the attention of Members of the Assembly and to the public, a video that was just released on YouTube. It’s called, “A Cold Place to Live Outside: Homelessness in the Canadian Arctic.”
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Thank you. The YouTube video speaks to the realities that we see here, not only in the Beaufort-Delta region but throughout the Northwest Territories. Today and every day is a day that we should be fighting against homelessness, addictions and mental health issues. With the video also comes an interim report that deals with those topics.
Even though a lot of the stuff I’m saying is negative, this government for the last two years has done a good job with the Anti-Poverty Strategy and the collaborative work where the departments have been working together. The only question is we have to make sure that we hold government accountable to get that work done so we can have an impact on homelessness, mental health and addictions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
