Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my Member's statement on the drug addictions here, my question here is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. Can the Minister explain in short the types of funding available for addictions recovery. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker and I thank the Member for raising this concern. You know, the more and more we talk about this, the more and more it becomes normalized, and we're able to work together to try and find solutions.
The Department of Health and Social Services, two programs currently available. We have the community suicide prevention fund and the community wellness and addiction recovery fund, which is a fund that we actually, from recommendations last government, was asked to be put together and have less it's more flexible for Indigenous governments to access.
The community suicide prevention fund supports the delivery of culturally safe programs focusing on prevention of suicide and increasing community wellness, reducing stigma, and the development of implementation of suicide prevention strategy.
Within the community wellness and addiction recovery fund, prioritizes Indigenous governments and supports to the delivery of communitybased mental wellness and addiction recovery programs that meet the unique needs of the respective communities. And as currently right now, we are currently accepting applications for the 20242025 fiscal year. And so I encourage, like, Members of this House to reach out to their Indigenous governments and Indigenous NGOs to access these dollars. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I want to thank the Minister for making those funds known and available to support the problems we have. It's very still disturbs me today on the outcomes that I've seen on my last session in the Sahtu.
My next question is on the O and M side of operations and designing your efforts to bring resolution to the problem is, to me, in various parts. My next is there O and M funding to support the operations of an ontheland treatment centre? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, the funding through the community wellness and addiction recovery fund is to support Indigenous governments to deliver communitybased mental health and addiction recovery programs unique to their needs, and Indigenous governments may absolutely choose to use their funding for O and M and ontheland programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks for the response to the Minister. Now let's move on to another little issue of supports here, employees, staffing.
Can the Minister elaborate or respond on support availability and into a secondment of counselling positions to assist the Sahtu Secretariat in designing and delivering this recovery program to address the drug and addictions issues they're facing? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, right now I can't commit to a secondment but what I'm willing to do is work collaboratively with SSI and other Indigenous governments to implement programs to support mental wellness. I'm also committed to supporting Indigenous governments and communities advancing these wellness solutions that are grounded in cultural communities and their perspectives. I welcome the opportunity to learn more about the vision. And I know that the Member has got some work that they'll be doing next week in their region, and I look forward to hearing and seeing what's coming out of that. But I do want to say that this money under the community wellness addiction recovery fund, I said as I said, it was very flexible and so the if the SSI decided that they wanted to hire a counsellor with that money or they wanted to use it for on the land or they wanted to use it it's flexible for them to design their own way that they want it, and then the regional governments, and if they choose to, you know, there's even opportunities to go into multiyear funding agreements if they have a plan. But just to continue to work with our department, if you need more information. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.
