Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services. The Minister tabled the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan 2012-2015 the other day in the House, and I’d like to ask him some questions regarding that report. One of the first actions that is intended to be done by the department in 2012-2013 is a Minister’s forum on addictions. The Minister has had Members looking for potential membership on that forum for the last little while. I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not this forum is intended to be a one-shot affair, of an ongoing forum that continues on from year to year, and what is the purpose of this particular Minister’s forum.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The intention of this forum initially was to have the forum around December, depending on how much information we are able to gather. Although we thought we had a structure in mind on the forum, now we’re considering the deliberations that have occurred during Committee of the Whole and we’re looking at maybe changing the structure of the forum at this time.
I’ll try the question again. Is this forum intended to be ongoing, is it a one-shot deal, or will it carry on for more than one year, and what is the purpose of the forum?
I’ll try to answer it again. December 12th is the time that we’re hoping to have the forum finalized. The purpose of the forum is to travel to the communities or have those individuals from the communities travel here. We still haven’t finalized that. We’ve had to start to rethink how we’re going to do it, but the purpose of it is to gather information on addictions. Thank you.
Within the report there are a number of service gaps that are identified. I can’t remember quite how many there are, but one of them that I think has been recognized by the department and has been recognized in the action plan is lack of detoxification facilities. It’s been mentioned many times by Members in the House in statements and in questions.
To the Minister, I’d like to know whether or not this action plan will address that gap specifically, that we do not have detoxification facilities, and if it does not, in the future, how does the Minister intend to address that gap. Thank you.
In the action plan, detoxification, I think, is the first gap that is identified in there. Our intention is to try to have people go through detoxification without necessarily building infrastructure for them to do it in. I think the intention would be to go to more programming than anything. Also, we have some confidence that if an individual wants to quit using drugs or quit using alcohol, that they will stop and go through their own personal detoxification. We have to have some confidence that people that wish to quit drinking, will quit drinking, and that at some point down the road they could be ready for treatment. Thank you.
Another thing that I noticed, in my quick perusal of the plan, is there’s no reference to extra funding, there’s no reference to an increase in personnel. I presume this plan is going to start in 2013-14. Will there be additional funding required in the next fiscal year for both to put the plan in place and to hire extra personnel, or is it all going to be funded from within? Thank you.
For this fiscal year, ’12-13, the intention was to look at the money that we have in the various programs now, the money that we have in on-the-land programs for healing, some of the money that we get from Health Canada for wellness, and also the $6 million. It’s a total of about $9 million when you look at treatment and everything in the system. We’re thinking of looking at that money through counselling and so on, to try for us to build on this plan and then make a decision whether or not we think that if we can’t fund everything internally, then we’ll go back through the business planning process to fund the areas which we don’t think we can handle internally. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for his response. What the Minister has outlined is a good solution, to look internally first and then see whether or not you can accomplish it.
The other thing that isn’t mentioned in the actions that I have read, I don’t see a specific mention of prevention. I’d like to know from the Minister if that is a focus of this particular action plan and it just happens to be a word that isn’t in there. Is it represented by the particular actions in this action plan? Thank you.
The whole plan is all about prevention. We are trying to help people to sober up so that they lessen their use of the health system. What we think is common knowledge is that sober people are healthier, and there are serious problems with alcohol and that it has a heavy price tag on the health system. Generally, the way we view this is that the nature of the whole action plan is going to be on prevention. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
