Thank you, Mr. Speaker. October 4th to 10th is Mental Illness Awareness Week, and the theme for this year is I am Stigma Free. It’s an opportunity to learn about and educate others on mental illness, but more importantly, it’s an opportunity to take action on mental health issues.
Taking action is exactly what this government has done. The Standing Committee on Social Programs, in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Services, over the course of the summer and this fall did a very strong review and consultations with people of the Northwest Territories. We travelled to nine communities and had about 17 written submissions. We had consulted with a lot of professional organizations on updating our Mental Health Act, which was outdated for about 30 years.
The families across the Northwest Territories, residents of the Northwest Territories told us how they felt, told us about experiences that they’ve been dealing with in terms of issues that they’ve been dealing with and the Mental Health Act, let us know what the gaps in services were and what was needed.
It was a great opportunity, and later today committee will be reading in a report from all those findings. I hope people in the Northwest Territories who gave information, who gave us direction to update this Mental Health Act will be listening in and will be seeing what we have to offer and what we have to bring to the table.
With that said, I just wanted to take this opportunity. We have two days left in the House. The Mental Health Act and addictions has been strong on my agenda. I’m really glad to see that the Mental Health Act has had its due course, has had its respect in this House and is getting updated for the first time in about 30 years.
I just want to thank everybody who contributed to what we are going to be passing here later on today in Committee of the Whole, and also who attended the meetings in the communities. I’d like to thank the Members whose communities we visited for setting up those meetings. We’d like to thank all the front-line staff as well as family and friends who have been affected by mental health illness, coming out and showing us your support, if not giving us information.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
I just want to take one final opportunity here to thank all members of the Standing Committee on Social Programs, who had a lot of late nights going through the reports, doing the follow-up; the staff who helped us along the way as well as getting up early mornings, putting on all those kilometres to ensure that we listened to as many residents as possible to update this Mental Health Act.
I just want to also let family, friends and people who have been affected know that today we represent all those who have been affected by mental illness, whether it’s acute to severe, or tragic or fatal, that it’s not going to happen again and that this government is taking the first steps to make sure that, in fact, is true. We’re going to start fighting to support, to get the services in your communities, to get the services for the front-line workers and the staff so that we can help people who are affected by mental illness.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Member for the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
