WHEREAS alcohol and drug abuse is increasing throughout the Northwest Territories with devastating effects on family and community well-being and economic opportunity;
AND WHEREAS substance abuse and addictions issues cost the Government of the Northwest Territories millions of dollars in terms of health care and criminal just systems;
AND WHEREAS liquor is a luxury item and taxed, generating revenues for the Government of the Northwest Territories;
AND WHEREAS substance abuse treatment and prevention programs are limited and in need of additional resources;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Frame Lake, that the Government of the Northwest Territories devote 10 percent of the net revenues generated by the Northwest Territories Liquor Commission to an alcohol abuse prevention and education campaign in communities throughout the Northwest Territories;
AND FURTHER, that the Government of the Northwest Territories provide a comprehensive response to this motion within 120 days.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. When most people talk about the price of liquor, they mean the price of a bottle of something at the store. Some of them are even run by our own government.
When we talk about it as we do as MLAs every single day, we talk about the real price, the price of our people through lost opportunities and even suffering. It is the price to our health system, to our education, to the courts and corrections. We may be talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. I don’t think Finance has added that up for us. I want to have a final view of those costs, all us here and the public.
We may not think much about this. Let’s start with the Northwest Territories hospitalization report released in April. Overall we spend about $70 million to take care of 3,500 residents hospitalized each year; 40 percent of the middle-aged adults are admitted with mental health issues or injuries. In other cases alcohol abuse is a very common factor. It is also a common factor of many of the chronic conditions causing injuries to go to the hospital, mental health issues, diabetes, kidney disease and so on. It is up tens of millions of dollars of hospital care alone. You get the idea.
There are big monies spent on doctors’ and nurses’ appointments, specialist care and medical travel. I would like to remind everyone that, overall, we spend about $350 million on health and social services. We also know that alcohol is a factor in about 90 percent of the crimes in the Northwest Territories.
We have the highest rate of police reported crimes in Canada. How sad is that? Think about all the victims of these crimes. What does it cost to a woman who was assaulted? What is the cost of a broken family? What is the cost of bootlegging in our communities? What is the cost of culture being enveloped by booze? I can’t put numbers on those, but my heart aches when I see these things in our communities. I think about what I might be able to do as an MLA.
The cost of our justice system is another matter. I can put some numbers to that. Overall we spend $115 million here in Justice. Obviously, we can’t save 90 percent that is due to the alcohol abuse, but it is safe to say that alcohol abuse is the cause of producing a significant amount, and that is about $41 million a year. Alcohol is a factor in most of the crimes that result in jail time. The correction system costs us $38 million a year. I’m sure our judges are very sick of hearing about alcohol addiction in the cases they hear. Court services cost about $12 million a year with civil cases being some of that.
I made the point that alcohol abuse is a plague in our communities, and our government right now is dealing with it. I wouldn’t get into the cost of education. The reason students don’t show up in school and all that. We all know it is a very serious problem with huge consequences and it costs the whole Territories. Also, a lot of other costs are with the departments.
I do want to take a look at the liquor sales. Since this motion is about allocating some of the funds to the prevention of alcohol abuse, the Liquor Commission sells $46 million worth of hard liquor, beer and wine a year. That makes about 53 percent profit on it. By dollar value, our government sells more hard liquor than anything else. That’s $19.5 million per year, or 42 percent of the total sales of alcohol. I would bet it is hard liquor that is the most harmful to our people. I should ask that all the profits on the hard liquor be spent on prevention and education, but I am being modest here. The motion calls for 10 percent of the Liquor Commission’s profits be spent on the alcohol abuse prevention and education campaigns in our communities. Last year that would be $2.94 million, less than $3 million. That is not too much to ask. It is common sense that we do it.
I want to make one point, it is a Liquor Commission’s public reported mission to develop a healthy, responsible culture in our territory, but they are not doing it or it’s not working. That is why we should pass this motion and the government act on it. It might take 12 steps to solve our alcohol problems, but let’s take this crucial first step. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Ms. Bisaro, the seconder of the motion.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few remarks. I would like to thank Mr. Yakeleya for bringing this motion forward. I am happy to second it to get it to the floor for some debate.
In my time in the North, I think nothing is a bigger issue for us than alcohol and alcohol abuse, and the resulting effects of alcohol on our residents and on our society. I was thinking about this the other day. I think the word scourge applies best to alcohol. Alcohol is a scourge of the NWT and the North and our society. We have to do something to try and address it, something more concrete, something more deliberate than what we are doing now. I’m not saying we’re doing nothing. We certainly are doing things to try to address alcohol and alcohol abuse and the resulting ills that it creates for us.
We struggle every year it seems, when budget time comes around, to put an adequate amount of money into prevention, particularly for Health. Mr. Yakeleya mentioned a whole whack of numbers. The departments of Health and Justice particularly are really burdened by the cost of the results of alcohol amongst our residents. We have yet, I think from this side of the House, to see that we have put the correct amount of money into prevention. I know there’s difficulty with people feeling targeting funds to a specific program is not well received in many areas. I think if we have a specific campaign – and in this case it’s to deal with alcohol and alcohol abuse – I think it’s the right thing to do and I think we could do the same in other areas of the government with some discussion.
I guess the last thing I would like to say is, this motion references an education campaign, and education campaigns well done can be very positive and they can have a positive effect on people’s mentalities. I continually refer to drinking and driving. It used to be, however many years ago, depending on where you lived, I guess, quite acceptable for people to go drinking and then go driving. It is no longer acceptable to drink and drive and it’s taken a very long time for us to get to this point and to get to this mindset, both as individuals and as a society. We no longer accept it and we can do the same thing for the use of alcohol and the abuse of alcohol, the need for us to abstain from it for our health, for the health of our society, for the health of our families, for the health of our children.
This targeting of funds to an alcohol abuse campaign and an education campaign are justified. I would encourage my colleagues to vote for the motion. I would hope that Cabinet would see it that way, as well, but I suspect not. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, rise in support of this motion. I want to thank Member Yakeleya for his stewardship in this area. He’s been a strong crusader of alcohol-related issues in communities, and I think this is just one of those good missions that he’s on and I think he’s doing a great job in doing so. I would like to thank the seconder, Ms. Bisaro, for allowing us to discuss this today here.
The motion comes down to literally almost the last or the second last line where it talks about devoting 10 percent of net revenues generated by a product in itself that has potential abusive properties and putting it into what we call prevention or promotion or an education campaign.
This is a strong area that’s been championed by members of Social Programs in terms of putting more money back in. There’s always been debate about how much money this government is spending on prevention and promotion. That number could be a moving target, depending what lens or what eyeglass you are looking at. We aren’t hitting that mark right now, according to our calculations from the standing committee’s perspective.
So this motion does speak to looking at a targeted item. This item is really an item of putting the money back into the very product that’s causing damage to the moral fabric of our health care system. So really, in essence, it’s a prudent investment if you look at it from that point of view.
The way it’s generated right now, as we know on this side of the House, this is just general revenue. So again, when you have an opportunity of general revenues and not targeted revenues, we have less control on this side of the House to make sure we are targeting areas that need to be targeted for the Northwest Territories.
There is no denying that alcohol is tearing this territory apart and is causing our residents a lot of discord which then leads to a whole myriad of issues. So by this motion coming to light and the amount of debate we’re having here really proves the fact that we care. This is a caring motion. Yes, it has a financial implication, but that financial implication is one in which is a business case, as far as I’m concerned. It’s showing good stewardship from our side of the House and I’m hoping that Cabinet sees the same. I will be voting in support of this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You’ve heard my colleagues. They’ve all expressed reasons why we need to invest more dollars. Over our last couple of budgets, we’ve asked for those dollars, we fought for those dollars to be put into these areas. You’ve heard me in the House speaking in favour of the Mental Health Act, how we need to get more dollars for detox beds, treatment centres. This motion speaks to that. Plain and simple, we’ve heard it before over the 20 months.
Just for the record, I want to say I’m in support of this motion. I will support my colleagues moving forward and getting 10 percent of the revenue put back to help people who these sales are actually hurting. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate all my colleagues’ comments here and my colleagues who have brought this forward. I will be supporting this motion as well.
I frequently hear from constituents that we should be making this connection between dollars coming in from certain sources and issues that are related to that. That seems to be very problematic for government. I realize that. But here I think we are getting a common voice that reflects what we hear out on the street. So I’d really appreciate it if we can get this done. I will be supporting it. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The money from liquor revenues flow into general revenue. Out of general revenue, we do the budget. Out of that budget, we target about $350 million a year to Health and Social Services. That figure increases yearly at the highest rate of any department in government. That includes the cost related to addictions. So every Assembly I have been in – five now – they say, let’s have the symbolic gesture of taking some money that already goes into revenue and target it and have some special levy on alcohol that you can point to that we are doing work over and above $350 million. It comes up every year. So we will have that discussion. We’ll have the discussion on what’s adequate for prevention.
I do agree, first and foremost, with Ms. Bisaro that abuse of alcohol is without doubt a scourge. It is. I agree with her, as well, it’s probably the biggest social problem we do have. So we will look at that through the budgeting process.
On behalf of my colleague Minister Beaulieu, Health and Social Services, I’d also like to just put on the record a fact that he forgot to mention in his comments to the previous issue of organ and tissue donation, that he will be instructing and bringing forward a legislative proposal for committee redoing the bill. So I have that on record. I know there are press releases that have gone out already on this issue, so you might have to do a caveat on that, but the government is going to come forward with a legislative proposal.
With regard to this issue, this is direction to government, we will continue to flow significant amounts of money. In fact, the forced growth money we have this coming year, the majority goes to health right off the top. So that continued investment will be there. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just briefly, I will be supporting the motion. I think my colleagues have said it quite well, so there’s no need to continue on the process of reminding everyone. I think it’s already been said repeatedly. I don’t think I could say it better.
The only thing I would like to add is, it’s a shame to be known for number one and this is not a category anyone should be proud of about alcohol abuse. The fact is we should be known as the number one crusaders to stop this problem, the number one people to protect our folks. So it’s the wrong category to be known for and it’s nothing to be proud of.
This motion says let’s fight back with full vigor. So I will be supporting this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I will allow the mover to have final remarks.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be short. I do want to thank the Members here, and I thank Ms. Bisaro for seconding this motion and the Members for supporting the motion. I do also want to thank the honourable Members from across to have this in consideration, recognizing the amount of money that we do put into health programs and the amount of money it costs our government due to the abuse of alcohol or just dealing with that issue in our small communities and even in our larger centres here. It is no stranger to anyone what we’re dealing with.
I do want to say that what this motion is saying, is that we’re giving strong recommendation to the government that revenue sales of liquor in the Northwest Territories, 10 percent of it should be taken out and go directly into communities for on-the-land programs, for active campaigning programs, for prevention and awareness, along with the health programs. There was $2.24 million of profit made last year; $2.4 million should be going directly into the communities along with the other programs that we have with Health and Social Services, Justice, Education, just like we have the Butthead campaign that actively is discouraging people from taking up tobacco and smoking.
That has to have that discussion. It’s a strong, symbolic message to give the money to our people in our communities so they can use that money to do what they can do, take the people on the land and do some active campaigning. That is a very strong symbol that this government means serious business by taking money out of the revenue of the liquor sales.
