Mr. Speaker, I remember these sunny days as a child. The anticipation of after school shenanigans, bike rides, and dock jumping in back bay and, of course, counting down the days to Raven Mad Daze. But Yellowknife streets have changed. Today the challenges that plague the halls of apartment buildings all winter have spilled into the streets for summer.
This isn't an easy issue to tackle in two minutes. It's layered in both history, root causes, tried bandaid solutions, and potential longterm solutions. This town has cycled through responses to escalated public intoxicationfueled violence from arrests to ambulance calls to illequipped underfunded organizations to relying on our ER staff. The RCMP has stopped what they call arrests for addiction. And where once people spent time sobering up in cells, they continue to use substance to numb pain in a town without easily accessible culturally appropriate supports. In turn, ambulances show up for callouts they don't have the resources to even bandaid, and nurses find themselves in unsafe workspaces being asked to solve longterm issues with shortterm solutions.
In my lifetime, our streets have reached a boiling point as they are speckled with alcoholfueled fights, very public crack use, and residents, including children, being caught in the middle. People are hurting themselves and others as their trauma reaches levels they cannot manage, and Yellowknife residents are concerned about the safety of streetinvolved people, the safety of children, and the safety of residents.
Mr. Speaker, removing bandaids, without the resources and supports to care for the wound, doesn't work. The state of our downtown and the absence of adequate shortterm supports is having a ripple effect, and this town needs support resources to hit the streets today:
Funded foot patrol teams that pair enforcement with health professionals bringing presence, resources, and relationships.
Relationships to our streets need to happen now.
Supports for business owners legally required to provide safe workplaces but are putting themselves between residents and violence on our streets needs to start now.
Situational tables to handle specific casebycase supports need to get back on track.
Mr. Speaker, people want to feel safe. Kids need to be able to walk home from school, women need to be able to walk without being harassed, touched, and threatened, and all residents deserve safety. I will have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Members' statements. Member for Monfwi.
