Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Cultural disaffiliation, substance dependency, family violence, neglected and abused children, sexual victimization, feelings of youth hopelessness and depression have been dark and unwanted features of our northern homeland for too long. There is no denying, Mr. Speaker, that these are symptoms of a deeper underlying need in our society, As we find new ways to address the shortcomings in economic development, housing, employment and retention of traditional values, the social pressures which boil inside northern communities and households will become progressively more manageable. I believe we have already begun to make some progress in resolving the root causes of our social problems.
However, we simply cannot overlook the fact, while we are doing this, that people are hurting. We can see in every community throughout the North, children wandering around and turning to solvents, alcohol and, perhaps more dangerously, drugs. Youths, who feel separated from their culture and from their grandparents, are unprepared to cope with the stress of independent living. Men who batter women: families that communicate only through the expression of violence and pain; elders who suffer alone -we must do something to stop this pain. There must be a renewed effort to place effective and culturally aware counselling services within regional and community settings. Our current system of providing clinical expertise through a series of fly-in and fly
out circuit services is simply not working. We need to ensure that these resources are placed within the regions and communities in the Northwest Territories.
The Government Leader's New Directions initiatives states that cabinet did everything it could to protect programs in the social services field. I appreciate that, Mr. Speaker; however, we must now extend the same principle that we have applied to the regional transfer of other government programs to the Department of Social Services. We simply have to look at decentralization as a process through which we can bring mental health counselling, clinical treatment and family-based healing closer to the people who are suffering. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
-Applause