Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I would like to acknowledge and thank the constituents of Inuvik Twin Lakes for their ongoing support, and I'm very honoured to be here to represent you all for a second term. I'd like to thank my family, the elders that supported me through my campaign, that gave me good words and strength when I needed it, my team that was always there for me throughout the campaign.
And congratulations to all of my colleagues, and I look forward to working with you all over the next four years as we work for the people of the Northwest Territories.
During my election campaign in Inuvik, the voices of my community highlighted pressing issues that demand immediate attention, so I won't be focusing on what my three priorities are or what a small short list of is. I want to bring the voices of what my community has told me, and the reason for that is is that way we all get a picture of where everyone's coming from and then when we do get in that room and we do start to finalize our priorities, that we all know where we all are coming from.
In Inuvik, like many other communities, our community has been hit hard by drugs. We need to work together with the RCMP. We need them to have the tools that they need to be able to combat this issue. Our people are suffering. Our people are dying from this. This is not something that we can continue to talk about or do any reports or anything. We need to deal with this in many of our communities, and it's not just in the regional centres. It's in our small communities.
The need for a dedicated treatment centre for individuals struggling with alcohol and drugs addictions was a recurrent concern for many of my constituents -- or many of the members in Inuvik Twin Lakes. There is a strong community recognition of the importance of providing support and resources to address substance abuse issues. Constituents expressed a strong desire for aftercare programs, emphasizing the significance of sustained support beyond initial treatment. This also reflects a traditional -- that also reflects a traditional approach to wellness and recovery. Acknowledging that ongoing assistance is crucial for individuals rebuilding their lives after overcoming addiction, and many of the residents raised and expressed that we must work towards a regional residential treatment facility within our -- within all our regions because we are all so different. And we must be working with our Indigenous partners to achieve this.
The escalating cost of living emerged as a shared priority along most of our -- most of the doors that I went to, particularly amongst seniors and those on fixed incomes and single income homes. Those are usually our single mothers. And on occasion, I went to a couple doors that had a single -- couple single fathers so they expressed this as well.
When they have to choose between heating their homes, keeping the power on, and sacrificing the amount of food that they can buy at the end of a month, this is not acceptable when you live in the Northwest Territories. We should be able to pay our bills when we go to work, go home, feed our families, and then maybe even have a little extra dollars to provide some sense of happiness. If we don't have that, then what are we doing?
Some of the people said that they can't afford to stay in the Northwest Territories because there's no other option for them. They can't remain in their homes. They can't pay their bills. And where are they going to go? There's no other housing options for them. And they look to the south because that's where the options are. The strain on household budgets call for strategic interventions by our government to help find creative solutions to the financial burdens our people face and to ensure that essential needs remain within reach of all our residents.
Childcare availability is vital for our families. If people don't have childcare, then they can't work. So we as legislators need to work with organizations and people who provide this service to ensure that we are supporting them. We need to make sure that our universal childcare agreements are accurately getting what is needed for the Northwest Territories for our daycares, our day homes, so that they can be successful in providing this service to our residents.
Dental care has emerged as a focal point. If you live in Yellowknife, as it's the only place right now with a dentist at this time, you wouldn't understand how not having access to dental care year after year impacts people's health. Constituents expressing the need for more options and accessibility, strengthening the dental service is important to the overall well-being of our community, and its efforts should be made to expand these services to meet the diverse needs of our residents.
Changes were made in the last government to the legislation. Now it's time for this government to ensure those regulations are complete. This will help alleviate some of these concerns by allowing more services in small and remote communities. Many of our Indigenous populations are covered by non-insured health benefits. And with this, it includes dental services. GNWT needs to be working with NIHB on streamlining access to dentists for our residents. There needs to be a clear -- there needs to be clear public information for people to know how to access these services. There needs to be training for our frontline staff. And we heard about locum staff. Well, we can't train every locum staff on what we provide, what we can and what all of the people of Northwest Territories have access to, so people get turned away when they go to access services because our locum staff do not know that the service is available. So training is very important.
Medical travel was also identified as an area needing urgent improvement. When people are aware, any one of us in this room has ever had medical travel, we know when our next appointment is if we have ongoing appointments. We know when the doctor has told us to follow up and return to an appointment. We pass that on to medical travel. Well, once it gets to medical travel, you know, this could be months, weeks, days before their need to travel. They should not be missing appointments because of a delay in approval to book their travel. And then when they do get the late approval, in our region good luck if you can get a seat on the plane. This is unacceptable. We shouldn't be missing appointments because we're waiting for somebody somewhere else to approve this.
People said to me that the necessity of streamlining the process to ensure they have easy access to medical travel and health care service is another important issue. Addressing these challenges will contribute to the overall health and well-being of our community members. People utilizing medical travel are already going through stressful situations. We should not be adding to their stress. We should be ensuring that there are service standards that can ease this process.
The lack of affordable housing has emerged as a critical issue. With new housing costs out of reach for many young families, they don't even dream of owning their own homes, because it's a dream. It's not a reality as they couldn't even afford a down payment. The rental market with very limited vacancies and high costs many people cannot afford. Even if they could find a place, they can't afford it. Inuvik housing authority has a long waitlist. And this goes through every single community in the Northwest Territories. There is a waitlist. There is no community that I can't say that doesn't have a waitlist. Many people -- this is causing many families overcrowding, moving into parents' homes, moving into cousins' homes or being homeless. We've heard of people in the community in the last -- Member from Nunakput from the last time had families living in tents in the Northwest Territories with newborn children. This is unacceptable. Tackling this housing crisis requires collaborative efforts to explore innovative solutions making housing more accessible and affordable for residents across different income brackets.
The availability of land in Inuvik was raised to me by the Town of Inuvik. The town would like to see the lands owned by the GNWT within municipal boundaries transferred to them. They can develop those plans with the Indigenous governments within our municipality. That's where we work together collaboratively, so that these lands could be utilized for public sectors to build much needed housing that we need in our communities. This is not just in my community, and I think this in every community. If we are truly working with our Indigenous partners, we can do this. There's also a strong call to continue the efforts to build the Mackenzie Valley Highway to help reduce the cost of living and open up new economic [audio interruption] and the bask cager. My children were able to do this. Our children can't do this anymore because the cost to fly is astronomical. And this is putting an impact on our youth who come from low -- and more so from those youth that come from low income families. Having healthy options in all our communities, when it comes to sports and recreation, is a must. We need to be looking and expanding opportunities for our youth and teams over this term.
I will go on. I could go on. I'll talk. I'll highlight regional decision-making is very important, but I just want to stress that the voices of Inuvik want action on multiple fronts. And I know all these are issues that we collectively have as a territory. We have lots of work to do. I am only one MLA, and I want to work with all of you to try to make a better Northwest Territories for our residents. Thank you.