Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, too many Northerners are falling through the cracks of the government's siloed approach to service delivery at the cost of residents' mental health, ability to survive and thrive, and the GNWT's bottom line. The government needs to provide wraparound clientfocused supports that meet residents where they are at. Our success relies on government departments working together. We hear over and over again that the answer is integrated service delivery. But we also hear from the GNWT that we are years away from actually implementing integrated service delivery. The pace to actually implement it is deeply frustrating, and it causes huge challenges for effective program delivery and difficulty accessing supports. The GNWT currently spends over $700 million annually on social programs through justice, health, housing, education, culture and employment. Each of these departments addresses a different aspect of a person's challenges but the siloed service delivery causes program duplication and the frequency and duration that the individual cycles through the public systems of care. It means residents are not receiving personcentered care, and the government is spending more down the road through cyclical costly use of resources, often emergency services, Madam Speaker. And this decreases the window of opportunity an individual will permanently or successfully exit the system.
Madam Speaker, you know I love a good high five, and I was desperately looking forward too celebrating progress in the life of this Assembly, but I am confident when I say that nothing has truly changed and integrated service delivery has not taken off. But that doesn't mean that there was nothing to learn. This government needs to be transparent about the successes and struggles of integrated service delivery so that more effective change can happen in the future. Too many people are reliant on the promise of wraparound clientfocused services to survive, grow, and thrive.
What I have learned this Assembly is that without integrated service delivery as a mandate priority, dictated by the Premier and outlined in all mandate letters, that this work will not happen, and Northerners will continue to not have access to these wraparound supports that they desperately need. This sitting, I hope to learn what lessons the government takes from its efforts toward integrated service delivery. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Member. Members' statements. Member for Frame Lake.
