Debates of October 29, 2004 (day 31)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

WHEREAS addictions to drugs and alcohol continue to devastate many Northwest Territories individuals and families;

AND WHEREAS the use of crack cocaine, heroin and other drugs has increased substantially in Northwest Territories communities in recent years;

AND WHEREAS the numbers of youth addicted to alcohol and drugs is increasing;

AND WHEREAS having the support of family and friends makes the difference between success and failure for many people struggling to overcome addictions;

AND WHEREAS many individuals are forced to seek treatment in southern facilities away from their support networks due to the lack of treatment centres in the Northwest Territories;

AND WHEREAS the residential treatment programs in Inuvik and Yellowknife were discontinued in 1997 and 1999 respectively;

AND WHEREAS the only remaining residential treatment centre in the Northwest Territories is Nats’ejee K’eh on the Hay River Dene Reserve;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, that the government establish a centre in the NWT dedicated to treating addictions to drugs other than alcohol;

AND FURTHER that the government establish an addictions treatment centre specifically for youth;

AND FURTHERMORE the government re-open residential treatment centres in Yellowknife and Inuvik. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. A motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this motion is one I fully support. It’s been an issue I have supported. Earlier today, the Honourable David Krutko made reference to the challenges of our young people and it’s something I support 100 percent.

Mr. Speaker, since the time of the cavemen who stomped on the bridge and started howling at the moon, we have, as a society, wrestled with the effects of alcohol in our communities and as a whole.

We, as legislators and leaders, need to be educated on the devastating effects of alcohol abuse and the costs we pay either as a government, communities, families or personally with regard to the effects of alcohol and drugs.

Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with drugs such as crack cocaine, heroine and other drugs that are on the market in the communities. I would like to take a proactive approach in establishing a foundation where people can go to get their lives straightened out and be the person they are meant to be.

Mr. Speaker, it’s hard to see our young people deal with troubling times who deal with alcohol and that’s the best method they know in coping with life. Can we provide them with something better, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, we need to support our families who are dealing with addictions such as drugs and alcohol. There are major dollars spent in the Northwest Territories in sending clients down to treatment centres. I guess I question the government in terms of why they closed down these treatment centres in light of the potential of resource development happening in the Northwest Territories.

Now we are told that Nats’ejee K’eh will be reprofiled and readjusted to fit the current issues in the North. I wait to see that report.

Mr. Speaker, getting a drug centre with specific programs and services that only deals with drugs will help because one day our youth will be sitting in our chairs where we are sitting. It’s something we have to do for our youth today and this is the reason why I support this motion, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, too, support the motion that’s before us today. I can’t speak about the drug situation and the need for addiction treatment in Inuvik, but certainly I am supportive of that happening and I know the people of Inuvik would be in support of that happening. I am more in touch with what is happening here in Yellowknife, being a Yellowknife Member.

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to mention the fact that -- and Mr. Yakeleya referred to it as well -- when you start adding up what it costs to send people south, what it’s costing the Government of the Northwest Territories to send the people to the South, the impact it’s having on Stanton Territorial Hospital in terms of dealing with those who have addictions at the hospital and it’s taking away from valuable resources that should be dedicated to medical-type things, I don’t really understand why the treatment centre in Yellowknife closed to begin with in 1999. I understand it had some difficulties in the running of it or there were some underlying issues there, Mr. Speaker, but I am not sure why it happened the way it did.

As a government, we have to understand that there certainly will be a price to putting up a new treatment centre in Yellowknife. But if it doesn’t cost us now, it’s going to cost us later in terms of cost to corrections, justice, health care. If you start tallying up those costs, Mr. Speaker, the cost of getting a dedicated treatment facility here certainly will outweigh that.

I also don’t understand why it is -- and the Minister has spoken to it before -- about putting money into bricks and mortar. We have a facility on the Detah road, the Somba K’e Lodge, and I don’t understand why we can’t use that as a treatment facility. That is something I just can’t understand.

This is in reference to this motion and it goes back to addictions, but last week when I started talking about addictions, I was out in the community at a restaurant. A young fellow about the age of 16 was working behind the counter and he said, Mr. Ramsay, you are saying some good things in the Legislative Assembly. I want you to keep that up. He said my parents have been married for 19 years and they are breaking up right now because my father is addicted to cocaine. That really stuck with me, Mr. Speaker. The young fellow said there isn’t really anything here for my father. This is a run-of-the-mill, middle-class family living in Yellowknife. The impact that they are feeling as a result of an addiction to cocaine is really something that stuck with me then and will stay with me, Mr. Speaker.

Dealing with other constituents that are addicted to crack cocaine, there is really no place for them to turn here in Yellowknife. Having to go south, you have to be close to the support network, your friends, your family, to try to give you that encouragement to seek help and to get help.

I don’t know if other Members are aware of this, but right now in Yellowknife, there are more meetings for Narcotics Anonymous, Crack Busters, there are meetings seven nights a week to deal with just drug addictions. There are more meetings to deal with drug addictions than there are for alcohol. It never used to be the case, Mr. Speaker. Drugs are becoming much more prevalent in the city of Yellowknife. With the economic activity that’s happening north of the city, the proposed pipeline, there is going to be more disposable income here in the Northwest Territories and I really do support this motion.

I think it’s high time that the government look at re-establishing treatment centres. We can’t use band-aid solutions any longer, Mr. Speaker. We have to get some dedicated facilities to deal with what’s out there today and what’s going to be out there tomorrow. There are many folks out there who are suffering and who are falling through the cracks.

I am in full support of this motion, Mr. Speaker, as I am sure the rest of my colleagues will be as well. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. To the motion. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to speak in favour of the motion. There are some aspects of it that I would like to lend some ideas or some observations to.

First, as Mr. Ramsay has said, I think most of us have encountered some kind of contact, direct or indirect, with the situation that’s going on on the streets. I can relate at least to Yellowknife. In fact, just the other night, I was at an evening event at one of the highrise office buildings in downtown Yellowknife. As I left the building at about 8:30 or so, around the corner were four young people smoking up something and the bit of conversation I was able to catch, it looked like they were coaching or training one of their friends in how to use this particular drug. It’s there. This was not in some alley snuck behind a building in an old construction site. This was very much in the glare of the streetlights and the parking lamps around this building.

In Yellowknife, Mr. Speaker, we’ve also seen a really disturbing trend, this phenomenon called the house party where somewhere along the line, someone’s parents or family are out of town. Word gets around that there is a party in this house and, within minutes, thanks to the technology of cell phones, there can be over 100 people at this house. Mr. Speaker, this is not just a loud, noisy neighbourhood party, but what can we do to trash this house, to destroy it as quickly as we can. There is something remarkably disturbing and foreign to what we’ve come to know as peaceful communities.

Those are a couple of experiences that I know of late, Mr. Speaker, to the motion where it talks about establishing treatment centres. The Minister, Mr. Miltenberger, in response to some questioning over the last couple of days, has referred to the addictions and the Mental Health and Addictions Strategy that is in place. One of the fundamentals of this strategy is that we need to find solutions and approaches at the community level, in the environments in which the drug and alcohol culture exists and in which it is growing. As we have all talked about and worried about, the tendency that we seem to have here in the North when somebody comes forward for treatment is to ship them outside. Go to a southern institution for a dry-out program, a detox program or whatever. Then people come back into the community, probably more or less into the same environment that they came out of, where the influences of their friends, of crime, of life on the street are. How are they going to really be able to recover if this is the environment? We need to change things at the community and the street level, and this is where the motion -- and I entirely respect where my colleagues are going -- but the idea that we have to keep building facilities and keep putting up institutions, I hope that’s not fully the intent here.

In fact the Somba K'e Healing Centre was put up with that specific direction and hope that it would indeed be a healing facility. It has fallen on tough times for a number of reasons that we don’t need to go into and I don’t even know if I understand all of them. But there is a multimillion dollar facility that is closed and, from my understanding, has deteriorated to the point it might not even be useful to anybody anymore. This has been a story of building facilities in many parts of the North. We can build them, we can spend lots of money, it’s easy to go and cut a ribbon, but to run these places and really make them effective is where we seem to have our problems.

I guess if we are looking for the alternatives, it’s in the start and seemingly mushrooming response to organizations like Crack Busters here in Yellowknife, an initiative between community partners, including the Tree of Peace and the Salvation Army. This is something that I think really should be leading us to where we want to go. These are programs that started, if you will, at the street level with direct contact with the people involved, and the response to their initiatives seems to be remarkable. So this is where I really fundamentally believe the answers lie, at the community and the street level, and what can we do to initiate programs that will take hold in those environments, beyond what we might be able to do with creating new facilities.

Mr. Speaker, at the very least we should be acknowledging that our ability to cope has not kept pace with the very rapid transition in the economy up here. I think when we look back a decade or so and we saw the first indication that yes, there will be diamond mines, yes, they will have an enormous impact on our economy, I don’t think we could have anticipated the enormity of the social consequence of what that new wealth is bringing us; of what the wealth in the neighbouring province of Alberta, for instance, that has been a super-heated economy as well, and it’s no secret when that kind of thing happens, you are going to get these kinds of impacts.

Perhaps one thing that we should be considering is joining up with our counterparts in Alberta. It seems that we understand that the highway is one of the main supply routes for drugs. What can we do with the hundreds of kilometres in northern Alberta that is part of this traffic as well? Maybe there is part of our answer, as well.

Mr. Speaker, if there is one final thing that I have come to understand in my experience here with the Social Programs committee and talking to professionals and experts, it is that the range and the complexity of addictions is extraordinary. Alcoholism in itself is very diverse, the consequences can be extraordinarily diverse, but now with so much different chemical and drug material going around, the addictions are not simply a one-stop-shop kind of thing.

We probably in the North will always be challenged, extremely challenged, in being able to provide rehabilitation and detox services on a regional basis, on a youth or an age basis, as the motion suggests. These are all extraordinarily expensive and hard-to-design and hard-to-maintain programs. But the spirit of the motion is that we have got to realize that we haven’t kept up with the consequences and with the realities that are out there. We need to speed up our efforts to deliver programs that really are going to help, especially as my colleague, Mr. Ramsay, pointed out, when somebody is asking for help and we cannot put anything at their disposal. That is probably where we are failing most dramatically, is when people want help and we are not able to give it. That is where we should start. Thanks, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. To the motion. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a year ago during the election campaign, I heard loudly and clearly in the city of Yellowknife, not just my riding of Yellowknife Centre, but in the city of Yellowknife as a whole, about the need for a treatment centre. The people were screaming for it, Mr. Speaker. People were asking for it. MLAs have been asking about it for a long time. So this motion, I think, speaks to the intent of what folks have been asking for.

What better job than to serve our people of the Northwest Territories? Well, our people are asking us to serve them by doing their bidding. Mr. Speaker, we are asking for what they are asking for. We are asking for a treatment centre. So let’s listen to the people, let’s do what they are asking for. Supporting this motion is the only choice I think we have.

Mr. Speaker, jail or tolerance is not a way of dealing with this solution. By allowing people to destroy their lives, by turning a blind eye, is not a way of dealing with this situation. I don’t think that’s fair, I don’t think it’s fair for this Assembly to ignore that. Yes, we do offer programs, and I have spoken to the Minister of this problem. Yes, we do offer some programs and even in the city of Yellowknife, some in Hay River and other places, but we also send people down south.

We have a treatment centre rotting out on the road just outside of Yellowknife, so we need to take drastic action and we need to start dealing with these things. This impacts all of our communities, Mr. Speaker, big and small. It doesn’t really matter; we should be thinking of people as people, we shouldn’t be thinking about centres, we shouldn’t even be talking about size of communities, we should be talking about the personal problem of this. The fact is I think we could be taking a better charge.

Mr. Speaker, if I may, speaking, of course, directly to the motion, I can tell you that recently a father had told me about the lack of a treatment centre in Yellowknife and in the Northwest Territories to treat his son. He paid out of his own pocket to send his son to Toronto. He didn’t feel that he had time to go through the lengthy process to get his son into a treatment program who knows where and how, and he felt that the services weren’t offered here to meet his son’s needs locally. His son had an alcohol and drug addition and it was serious.

The father has paid between $15,000 and $20,000 to send his son to Toronto. He paid it out of his own pocket, as I’ve said. He had been recently asked to go down for family day in support of his son because the centre said he was doing great. Well, let me first say he didn’t go through the normal process, so the process says they can’t support this family in any way. But let me put it this way; he wouldn’t be still in Toronto and having good success if he didn’t have a problem. They wouldn’t keep him in the centre in Toronto if he shouldn’t have been there, so from the words of the father in this particular case, his son’s doing great, and he wanted to strike while the iron was hot. Because when his son wanted to be treated, why would a father wait?

Mr. Speaker, I say again, let’s start by giving people what they have asked for. Nobody is complaining about having too many treatment centres, people are asking for a treatment centre. So let’s give them, again, what they want. We can meet our stakeholder needs and I think we would do that through that process.

Mr. Speaker, when I worked at the Yellowknife Correctional Centre many years ago, as a guard there, without a statistical backing, I can tell you from my experience at that centre that 75 percent of those people were there due to some reason that was connected to drugs and alcohol. People were killing people because they were drunk or drugged or trying to get drugs or alcohol, people were doing nasty things to other people. These are terrible crimes. We need ways to deal with these folks before they end up taking drastic steps. We don’t need to wait until then.

Mr. Speaker, if the government needs to verify this, they can go to their own records. They could go to the courts and see how many people are here on crimes related to drugs and alcohol. It wouldn’t take long to find out that most of the people that are in the correction centre are there because of things like drugs and alcohol.

Do we need to sell you this problem? Well, I would like to say today, no, we don’t. I think we know what their problem is and we need to take action on this problem. Would I endorse a special committee on this? Goodness, no. I think that’s another waste of time. We know what the problem is. We need to support this motion to establish centres here in the Northwest Territories to take care of our people locally. I spoke to the Tree of Peace; they said in their experience that people treated locally come out at a much higher success rate than people sent south to Edmonton or wherever.

Mr. Speaker, alcohol and drugs is a legacy of abuse that I no longer want to allow to continue in the Northwest Territories. It’s time that we put that in the history books and we talk about a clean future for all of us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favour of this motion, just in particular to the aspect for treating addictions specifically for youth, Mr. Speaker. I have teenage daughters and it frightens me to think that there is no current system, should there be a need, and I’m sure that there is a need by many other parents in Yellowknife and throughout our Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker.

Throughout the last two-and-a-half weeks here we have been talking about development and some of the impacts coming from it and, of course, there were a lot of negative impacts that comes from it, and a lot of it will be just as the Members were speaking about today, of the drugs and alcohol. There is going to be an increase of supply just because there is a lot more money, and a lot of it does dwindle down to our children, Mr. Speaker. I have known some people that even in restricted communities will bring in alcohol and drugs, thinking they're only for themselves. I don’t know if they know it or not, but it does make its way down to our youth and to our children in the communities, Mr. Speaker. Just by it being there, they learn how to use it from the adults that are there. So I believe we are going to have to provide the facilities to help them unlearn it.

As also has been said, Mr. Speaker, it’s a northern problem and I believe that there should be a northern solution to it. That is why I am in favour of creating our own facility in the North and keeping it in the North, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. To the motion. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to also express my support for this motion, not just due to the fact the intent of the motion is to get an addictions treatment centre in the NWT, Mr. Speaker, but also, as I had stated in my Member's statement, that this is something that has become quite personal now as people who are close to me are being affected by this drug and the addiction that it carries along with it.

I know, Mr. Speaker, that the problem is predominant in our larger urban centres in the NWT, in Yellowknife, Hay River and Inuvik and such, but we also must consider the smaller communities, Mr. Speaker, because I know that these problems related to the lack of support programs and services available are trickling into the smaller communities around the larger centres, where mobility and accessibility are two of these, this type of heavy drug is getting a lot easier for people that have money in their pockets, now that we have development with mining and oil and gas and stuff. Just the fact that we should have something here in the NWT just makes it easier for people to go, it alleviates a lot of apprehension to being sent south, is what a lot of people refer to when going to seek some kind of treatment for their addiction. Just the words "being sent south" have a lot of connotations to it in the way that people will always consider you a lower form in our society because you are being sent south. Therefore, people have a lot of anxiety towards even going to seek support if it entails going to a southern institution. Having it anywhere up in the NWT, we have all our support networks at hand. Places like Stanton and the Tree of Peace and Salvation Army and others, the meetings that Mr. Ramsay was alluding to, that are being held every day, they would be really accessible to anybody around here if they were to be treated locally, and besides the reduction in the government costs, I’m sure, and keeping our dollars in the NWT, has always been a priority of this government.

Just to talk about the facilities that are currently available, we know that they are understaffed and overworked and underfunded and whatnot, and the whole process has become quite overwhelming for the people that are in that field of work. Mr. Speaker, I think once we have established the fact that yes, we will get something that is going to be a standalone facility and something that is going to be dealing strictly with this, what I like to refer to as an epidemic, but it could get a lot worse than that I’m sure. We do need some kind of a medical management unit that just strictly deals with this drug, crack cocaine addiction.

Therefore, I am totally supportive of the residential treatment programs, like here in Yellowknife. I can’t mention the Somba K'e centre any more than it has already been mentioned; I am sure the Minister has gotten the point. I hope that all the Members of Cabinet are supportive of this motion and that they hope to see some resolve in making what the people are demanding: immediate government action. I just don’t know why this government wouldn’t take what is basically the majority of the public demand, to have something local, into consideration. Again, I just want to establish that I am totally in support of this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. To the motion. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, am rising today to support the motion. I think it’s important, Mr. Speaker, that it needed to be considered; I’m glad it’s in there.

As you know, there is a lot of seismic and exploration activity going on right now in Inuvik and the Beaufort-Delta, so with that comes drugs and alcohol. So it’s important that the government open up a centre in Inuvik. With the coming of the pipeline now, down the road a lot of drugs will follow with it. I know of some cases in my community of Tuktoyaktuk, there are signs of drugs in there, so we have to find ways to tackle this problem.

A lot of my colleagues already said a lot of things about the treatment centre, and I just wanted to rise to say that I am totally in full support of the motion. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. To the motion. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, obviously I rise to speak in favour of this motion. Mr. Speaker, I guess I should preface it by saying that it seems to be that the Members on the other side are feeling a little bit under attack and maybe it appears as though we’re not saying they’re doing anything good at all. So let me say if I’m pointing out anything that they’re falling short on, it’s not to say that we’re saying that they’re not doing anything good at all. They’re otherwise perfect, I’m sure.

---Applause

Except for the issue I’m dealing with at the time. So, yes, I am willing to give them all the credit. But with respect to the addictions issue, Mr. Speaker, I really believe that the silence by this government with this issue is quite deafening. It is really out there and I’ve raised this question and raised this issue many times in the House and I could go back to Hansard and give you examples of at least 10 cases or as many times as I’ve asked the questions, the Minister of Health and Social Services will say we have a plan and we have to take careful, measured steps. We have to be strategic about this. The Minister has been studying and writing up a plan for two years in the last Assembly and at least a year here. I really don’t think he has the luxury of doing it for another three years in terms of a plan.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you about what the community is doing. Obviously everybody knows the urgency of this. There is a group called Yellowknife Coalition for Community Wellness that was set up three years ago or so. It is completely volunteer based. Within that they have what is called the COPS program. This is a community group in Yellowknife who has had enough with the violence and vandalism that is going on on the streets and people just wanted to pull up their boots and say they wanted to do something about it. They were able to find all of the equipment they need from the businesses and they patrol our streets at night. I was just talking to one of the organizers and they get no money from the government whatsoever. Not one cent. Now I would say that is one area this government could do something about.

The second thing, Mr. Speaker, I was walking my dogs in my riding of Range Lake. I live across from the school. In the summertime when I walk there I can smell drugs coming out of the backyard of the school. I can see the kids running from there. That has been an issue. I can tell you what the school boards are doing. Just the other day this car stopped by me and said he has been hired as a security…Maybe I shouldn’t say this to everybody, but anyway. There is a security that school boards have hired out of their own money to hire a security and his job is to watch all the schools in the city from 8:00 at night until 8:00 in the morning. I believe it’s a cost-sharing measure between the two school boards. Now, that is the money the school boards are paying, money that could have gone to the kids in the classrooms, because the communities are feeling they had to do something about it. I don’t think this government is going to come with a special warrant to look after that, Mr. Speaker.

I’m telling you, this is all coming from the increased level of drug problems that we have. I was completely shocked two years ago when I went to one of the launching meetings for the Yellowknife Coalition of Community Wellness and I got talking to two women that I grew up with. I used to party with them in my younger years.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, I was shocked to learn that they have spent the last 10 years dealing with their girls who got addicted to cocaine. I had no idea that this was going on in my own town. To tell me about how devastating it is to have their kids hooked up on cocaine, who are willing to do anything to get their next fix, who are willing to sell their mother, literally, to get their habit…I’m sorry, but they were engaged in prostitution. All the things that they would not otherwise do and they had to send their kids down south and pay out of their own pocket because they could not get the service they need for young kids in Yellowknife.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t mind giving credit to the government where credit is due and one of the things that the government has done lately is that concentration on drinking and driving area. We have almost zero tolerance against drinking and driving, but that is one very narrow area of addiction that we are dealing with. It’s even a very narrow area of alcohol addiction. There are a lot of other addictions for us to deal with, Mr. Speaker. I have to concentrate here.

---Laughter

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. I should also say that the Minister of Health and Social Services has done a good job in promoting almost zero tolerance against smoking addiction. We all now know that smoking is bad for us and there’s a very aggressive campaign going on to keep the kids from starting smoking because we know how hard that is. But let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, I don’t think there is anything more difficult to quit once they’ve started -- from the information that I’m getting -- than crack cocaine. I think we all understand young people are up to trying new things. In our day we had our own stuff that was not as harmful as crack cocaine. The worst thing about crack cocaine is that there is no real second chance. It’s really important that we make sure the kids don’t start in the first place. It’s really important to know that this crack cocaine is not just in downtown Yellowknife, but that it’s in the suburbs and in the living room of all the houses. It’s not discriminatory in any way. It’s not just in Yellowknife. It’s in Hay River, it’s in Inuvik, it’s in Norman Wells and it’s even in smaller communities like Deline or Fort Providence.

I tell you, if we let this stuff spread without any kind of aggressive campaign, we are going to pay for it. It’s going to cost us a lot. Our schools are going to be filled with kids that are being abandoned by their parents who are using drugs, or teenagers who are leaving school because they’re hooked on drugs. I think it will do us a lot more good to do something now than to have everybody get hooked on it and pay a lot harsher price for it years down the road.

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned earlier in my Member’s statement some of the things that we are already paying for. I don’t want the Minister and the government to get the idea that we are asking for a $10 million alcohol and drug treatment centre or something like that. I am willing to suggest that we could do better with what we are doing already. I’ve already indicated that the Somba K’e Centre, the government is paying bills to maintain that building. We’re paying a mortgage for that building. We can’t just wash our hands of it. I cannot tell you how many meetings we have had between the jurisdiction of Health and Social Services, Housing Corporation and whatever arms of the government that have been involved in just dealing with who owns it. I mean, it’s just ridiculous and we’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars just to keep that building standing when we could really be putting our heads together to see what we can do about that.

I have mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker, that government is already spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in sending people down south for treatment. I understand some of them have to go down south. But for all the problems we have and we are a small population and if we get 10,000 of our people or even 5,000 or even 2,000 people addicted to cocaine it could destroy our community. Honestly, I don’t think that is being alarmist. We are a very small community and drugs are going into regular people everywhere. If you’re going to accuse me of, I don’t mind crying wolf or being an alarmist or embellishing. I’d be happy to do that. I think really the time has come and there’s no time to plan for five, 10, 15, 20 years.

I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, I think we could turn this into an opportunity. Honestly, we should spend as much time talking about how we deal with our addiction problems as much as we’re dealing with how much money we can get out of the federal government. What good is getting all the money and power from Ottawa if our kids are not able to go to school, they are not being fed, and the men are abusing women? We just read in a newspaper article last week that courts are being filled with men who are abusing women because of alcohol addiction. The paper said that, Mr. Speaker. This man punched his wife outside of a house because she wanted to go home. She didn’t want to stay at the party and he punched her four times. That article said almost all of the charges that are being brought forward are because of abuse of alcohol. Alcohol used and abused, drugs used and abused, and gambling used and abused in our communities are killing our people and they are a bundle of slow motion, silent killers. I just want to be really serious about that.

I know this is in the papers and is getting highlighted, but I tell you, I have been raising this issue, and there are many Members in this House who have been raising this for many, many years; at least for five years. None of this is new; it’s that things are speeding up. Crack cocaine is not giving us the time to plan and talk about it like marijuana did or even hashish did. It’s not the kind of drug where you can do it when you’re young and you get over it and then you move on and become a fully functioning citizen. Crack cocaine is not forgiving and we have to stop it. The government has to put in extra money for RCMP. There are lots of things happening, but I’m telling you this is an opportunity for the NWT to set an example for all of Canada. We could be the kind of place where people from down south will send their people up here because we have such a great program, we’re on the ball, and we’re dealing with it. I’m not even asking for the government to set it up in Yellowknife; they could do it in Inuvik, Hay River, Norman Wells, Deline. There are buildings all around the communities that are sitting empty. I am just asking for the government and the Minister to make a public statement, make an admission that they are totally aware of this problem and that this is totally on the top of their agenda and they’re going to have a plan of action.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I mentioned earlier about the shortage of mental health and addictions workers. The Minister has said on many occasions that he’s doing something about it. He has a plan and I have already pointed out that we are really not paying attention in that area as much as government should be required to do if it is committed to delivering the program that they have set out to do. Mr. Speaker, crack cocaine is not only a drug problem, it’s not only a social problem, but it is a clinical problem. It needs clinical people who are qualified to deal with chemical addiction. They need people who can write the prescriptions so they are managed clinically by physicians who are qualified to do that. As I stand here, I am told that the recruitment and retention person who is in charge of recruiting and filling positions at the hospital, her contract was not renewed and we are falling behind in this area. I was saying that to indicate that as much as the Minister likes to say, I’m willing to give him credit in that he works hard and is doing a lot of good in a lot of areas. I’m not saying he’s not perfect. He’s almost perfect…

---Applause

…but in this area, honest to God, Mr. Speaker -- and I think everybody said this really, really well -- we are really running out of time and it’s about time that we got on top of it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Hear! Hear!

---Applause

Thank you, Ms. Lee. To the motion. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak to the motion today, as well. Mr. Speaker, I’m going to take a slightly different approach to this. I think everything we are talking about here today in this debate has to do with treating the symptoms of a much larger issue. I don’t stand or sit in judgment of anybody who finds themselves addicted to drugs of any kind. Mr. Speaker, when we talk about treatment and we talk about wholeness and we talk about wellness of our people, we as a government take some great amount of pride in always avoiding the subject of spirituality. We always want to talk about anything about our people. We’ll talk about their employability, their education, we’ll even debate their sexuality and what rights they should have in relation to that.

But you know one thing that we really, really don’t ever want to talk about is spirituality. I think, if I could be so bold as to say, northern people are very spiritual people. I think that when it comes right down to it, when you’re talking about the wellness of our people, it comes down to one person who is willing to put something into their bodies that is obviously, as we know, very destructive and they make a choice to do that. That leads me to wonder what kind of pain, what kind of grief, what kind of reality they are trying to detach themselves from. What is it that they think about themselves and what is it that they think about their circumstances in life that would make them do something to destroy themselves? I have to tell you, it’s unnatural. Again, I don’t say this in any condescending way, but I would not personally knowingly want to do something that would be destructive to my wellbeing or to my life and yet people are doing that in masses.

If this was an issue of public safety, we fine people for not wearing seatbelts. We charge people if they let somebody smoke on the premises of a workplace, in a trailer on a work site. I mean, as a government we have all these answers to everything and yet we don’t have the answers to the needs of our people. Far before they ever get addicted to drugs and alcohol and end up in a treatment centre they make a choice. They make a choice to partake in this kind of a thing which we know the outcome of is extremely destructive; not only for them, but on their families and on our communities and our society here in the North.

I would like to, I guess today, in light of this motion and in light of the problem which does seem to be growing in magnitude, and seemingly our inability as a government to respond to these people with compassion, I would like to encourage our government to take another look at why we -- and I say spirituality in the broadest context, I’m not saying it in a prescriptive manner, but everybody needs to be at peace with themselves and how they find that is their own choice as well. Mr. Speaker, I think we need to spend more time talking to people who have found their way out of addictions, who have found solutions, who have found answers. We need to listen to that. I don’t think we should discard it when it relates to people who find spiritual wholeness, however they find that; whether it’s through going to Alcoholics Anonymous and relating it as to what they might call a higher power or whatever. I think the people in the North have been exposed to numerous and a succession of very hurtful and harmful things and for whatever reason our statistics prove that we are more susceptible as northerners to these kinds of activities which are so destructive.

I would just challenge our government and encourage our government, when we talk about treatment let’s talk about a whole person. Let’s not just talk about their medical condition and detoxifying. Let’s get over this barrier and this hurdle. We have to talk about the issues of how they feel about themselves when they’re alone in the quietness of their own selves. How do they feel about themselves? What makes them want to destroy themselves? Mr. Speaker, I think that has to do with people’s spiritual wellbeing and with that I will be supporting the motion. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion. I’ll allow Mr. Yakeleya some closing comments on the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, fellow colleagues. In terms of supporting the motion that I put forward, Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is that in today’s reality there are drugs coming into our communities. It’s being shipped up either by the boats or the transportation trucks over the winter roads to our communities in the south here coming through various forms. Mr. Speaker, I know the power of addiction. I just took up a challenge by the honourable Member, Mr. Miltenberger, on Monday. I and the Member for Nahendeh gave up smoking. It’s very powerful. I’m a former smoker and it took me a long time to say I’m going to give it up. Finally, I did it.

---Applause

I can tell you, the power of addiction just wants to take it over. I have sympathy for people who are dealing with cocaine and crack and heroine and people dealing with other drugs in their lives. You know, we were born to have a good life. Having addictions in our life did something for us at that time and now I’m finding I don’t need it in my life anymore. There’s something else. Mrs. Groenewegen hit it on the button about spirituality

It’s very personal and I don’t want to get too much into it. However, that’s part of the process of dealing with the addiction and I believe that many of our young people are dealing with that. So, Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the youth program, also, and that we want to give our youth a chance. Give them a chance; let’s invest in them like we are investing into big issues of pipeline and airports and facilities such as the hospitals. Let’s invest in our children. Let’s put some real dollars on the table for our children.

---Applause

Take those dollars and put them to use. When we do that, I believe that the dividends are going to pay greatly amongst ourselves. One day, I say again, those youth are going to be sitting in our chairs and they are going to be running our government. So I think that’s a good way to go.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to say to the government to reconsider looking at the reopening of the facilities in Yellowknife and Inuvik and look at the impacts of the development that’s going to come down the valley and give some hope to the people in our communities that need to look at some of their issues in their life.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a closing comment that I heard on TV where someone said let’s treat the souls and not the drugs. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion.

Question.

Question is being called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

---Applause

Item 16, motions. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion I gave earlier today.