Mr. Chairman, on March 10th, the social envelope departments, including MACA at the time, agreed on three priority areas to direct community action fund resources. The projects dealing with family violence, early intervention for children and family and training for care givers will be given priority under the community action fund. There is going to be an evaluation of the existing drug and alcohol programs that exist in various communities. Where it is applicable, we will be looking at the wages and benefits of these front-line workers.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Madam Premier.

Mr. Chairman, I thought I had indicated that previously. It is our intention to address the inflationary requirements through the community action fund, as these centres fit into the three priority items.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, initially, I was going to make a few general comments, but I will try to roll them together under community programs and services. I have a comment with regard to social assistance. I know that social assistance is going over to Education, Culture and Employment to place together the training components. The initiative is good, however, I think we have to recognize the fact that there will be people on social assistance regardless of what areas you are going to try to get them funnelled into.

The concern I have as a Member -- and I express this many times over -- is the fact that as a jurisdiction, we are probably quite behind in our basic social assistance payments to meet basic needs. From the comments from some of my constituents, single people get anywhere up to $300 a month to meet the basic demands of social assistance. I find this to be very questionable whether it is a basic need we are attempting to meet without the amount of support we should be giving, particularly when you take into account individuals who possibly are getting $396 a month -- I think that is the figure -- of social assistance to provide their food and clothing expenses. On the other hand, you are giving housing allowance to civil servants of $450 a month just to live in the north. I think that causes a real inequity in the system and an unfairness for individuals who can't get jobs to try to survive in the north. I really believe that social assistance has to be looked at. I commend the Minister's department in attempting to assist the young people with the education and training component. For social assistance, we have recognized an escalating cost over the past few years. It would be safe to say the amount is probably comparable to southern jurisdictions.

I certainly would appreciate it if the Minister would look at this particular area to increase some of the basic demands. When individuals can't have their basic needs met, many times they will come to us, as MLAs, feeling that they aren't treated fairly and expressing the problems of not having their basic needs met. They do have valid concerns when you look at it. We need to find a method to ensure that the basic needs of individuals are met.

The other comment I wanted to make, Mr. Chairman, is with regard to addictions and suicide preventions. Years ago, and not even that long ago, about six years ago, we didn't even have any treatment centres in the north to deal with addictions. It seems when all the facilities were out of the north, the process was easier for an individual to access treatment centres. They were sent to Poundmakers, Henwood, Bellwood, Action North in High Level or different areas. Now, with treatment centres across the north, it appears that it is more difficult for an individual to access treatment. Many individuals have said they used to be able to go to the alcohol and drug treatment centre to ask for assistance to get into a treatment centre. Now, not only do you have to go to an alcohol and drug treatment counsellor, you also have to get an assessment done and that goes to the regional alcohol and drug specialist in the community to determine whether the support should be there to send you to a treatment centre. The more assessments you get on an individual who is wanting treatment is sometimes discouraging for an individual to get the treatment by the time the decision is made that they can go for treatment. It seems somewhat ironic because the intent of building all these treatment centres across the north was to tempt people to take treatment. The accessibility to these centres should have been a lot easier for individuals.

I will save some of my comments but would appreciate if those two points were noted by the Minister. I want to see what her comments are on those. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, on the issue of social assistance payments, I know it's an issue that comes up all the time -- whether a person can survive on social assistance. We have that responsibility and I'll take a look at that. I will talk to the Member about some of the things I see that we can do, person to person, on that issue.

Regarding the process of treatment for drugs and alcohol, if there's a centre in a community, people have to access that centre before they can go to the regional one. After the regional centre, if they want to go to something outside of the region, there's another process. We'll have to look at that because I know there have been several complaints where people have said they are not going to get the treatment in their community, that they know they won't get the treatment and they have to go to another place. Right now, because we put more regional responsibility in, they are the ones who are making the decision about whether people go from a community centre to a regional centre, from a regional centre to a territorial treatment centre. It's causing frustration.

I don't know exactly what we can do about it because we did say that the regions should try to look at what stage a person stays in a community and at what stage a person moves from A to B. I'm aware of the frustration that people are having. If there's another way we can take care of people's desire to seek treatment...I think the important part, if an individual is looking at repairing some of the problems they're having, is we should do as much as we can to get them to the right place. I'll look at that as well because it's an ongoing concern that we have.

I think maybe I could suggest to the Minister that what is happening now is if an individual wants treatment, they go to the alcohol and drug treatment centre and most communities have alcohol and drug treatment programs. But we know there are only treatment centres in Iqaluit, Yellowknife and Hay River. So what is happening is an individual goes to the alcohol and drug program and they're assessed to determine whether they should go for treatment and where they should go for treatment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What basically is happening is an individual is assessed and then the assessment goes to the alcohol and drug specialist in the regional areas. Therefore, they are getting an assessment twice. I'm not saying that it's not good but I think the alcohol and drug programs should still have the ability to say yes, this person is sincere, they do want treatment and I can tell that they are trying their best to address their alcoholism. I think they should have the ability to call the Yellowknife and Hay River treatment centres, or the Iqaluit treatment centre, for that matter, to see if they can find a time for that individual to take that program.

Right now, that's not happening. The assessment and the decision is at the alcohol and drug specialist level within the government. Sometimes, I think individuals even go to the alcohol and drug specialist to try to convince them they need treatment when their initial request went to the alcohol and drug worker. Instead of devolving the authority to the community level, which was the intent of these alcohol and drug programs, we're basically centralizing the authority in the government.

I think maybe if you can give that authority back to the programs, it would alleviate a lot of frustration on the part of clients and you would no doubt be able to fill up the treatment centres. It is my understanding that they're not at the full capacity we had hoped they would be. You would probably move a lot of people through the alcohol and drug program. That's something I would suggest to the Minister, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I think that's good advice and we'll follow through on that. The intention never was to have the specialist impede a person's access to treatment. We will look into that and try to follow the original intent of regional decision-making.

The other comment I wanted to make, Mr. Chairman, was with regard to the overall amalgamation of the departments of Health and Social Services. There are a few of my constituents who are, no doubt, disappointed with the amalgamation but, at the same time, when I advised them of the effort to make best use of dollars spent, it has certainly made them understand the need for amalgamation of services to be delivered.

I know my constituency was very supportive of the idea of amalgamation. The community got together in a couple of meetings to find out how we can do this amalgamation in the most effective, efficient and non-disruptive manner. I think that if there were concerns, the community was going to work with the department on them but it seems that the process is slowing down. I don't know if it's the Minister's department. Are your intentions to slow down the amalgamation because some were feeling that it was going too fast, or is it the intent to continue to support the communities that do want to see this amalgamation in an effective manner?

Mr. Chairman, there is no intention of slowing it down. I know we are slow in getting to it but we should be responding to the communities. If the communities have questions and concerns, we should be there dealing with them. If there has been a slowness to respond, it's because of our inability to respond as quickly as we should but the intention is not to slow it down.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Minister for acknowledging that and I certainly thank her for the departmental support given to my community in trying to address this amalgamation. It's an issue that is sensitive where the community is requesting that basic needs be met and I appreciate what support has been granted by the department. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.