Yes, okay, thank you, Mr. Speaker. According to media reports, the total cost for the on-the-land camp outside of Yellowknife was more than $640,000 with most of the money coming from the federal government, save about $7,000 from the GNWT. Can the Minister confirm the total amount of funding the Department of Health and Social Services provided for this initiative. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from the Deh Cho. Minister of health and social services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, health provided zero dollars to this initiative. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Wow, okay. Is the department considering on-the-land camps as part of its transitional housing aftercare programming in other communities? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to just speak to the on-the-land camp a bit, I'm not going to delve into -- this falls under EIA so the -- although health didn't put money into it, there was federal dollars. This was all through -- for homelessness so that fell under EIA, to be clear.
As to the Member's question, there are currently -- health is not going to be putting any on-the-land camps anywhere in any of the communities. What we do do, though, is, we've heard loud and clear, and I've said this many times in the House, is that we are providing funding to Indigenous governments, to Indigenous groups who wish to provide aftercare, addictions, those types of programming in their community, in their regions, and therefore the community wellness and recovery funds that we do provide -- our addiction recovery fund that we do provide annually is about just over $3 million, and it's spread out amongst many of the regional governments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from the Deh Cho.
My next question is can the Minister commit to a feasibility study of cost of this type of on-the-land program as part of discharge from treatment planning for residents? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, health and social services is here as a partner to Indigenous governments, and that's why this funding is there. We as health and social services will provide mental health supports that are in -- within health and social services. We have created this fund so that way it's external to us as we -- and I've said it many times in this House, Mr. Speaker, that you don't want GNWT involved in on the land and any traditional programming. We will make it complicated. We will put standards in place. We will make it more expensive. These dollars can be used more efficiently in the communities by the Indigenous groups. We are here to support them to access these dollars. They can use the money to do a feasibility on what it's going to cost and do these types of things. This money is in there for their communities to do these things. So I will continue to stress to all of the MLAs that they reach out to their Indigenous governments and see how they're using these dollars. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
