Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member has raised a very good point and we as a government need to refocus on what we are doing. We have been doing some work in prevention. We have worked with some groups, for example, one group out of Yellowknife with FAE/FAS and trying to target that in information and educational side. Along with the Minister of Education, the Department of Health and Social Services, we have been working at trying to come up with initiatives that could see us cooperating to try and develop a program that we could reach more people. Something that we are looking at is to try and come up with more ideas on prevention and preventing it because, as governments have shown that we have dealt with things at a crisis level. When we get to that level the costs go through the roof so to speak. We are trying to refocus that and hopefully as the health forum gets underway and starts to visit communities they will get suggestions on how some of that can be done as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the obvious ways in the past that has been used in some communities to address the issue of alcohol addiction has been a community initiative to have, I guess, prohibition or have the community be a dry community. Out of the 33 communities in the Western Territory right now, does the Minister know how many are by choice and by referendum, dry communities?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, maybe the Minister would know, do we as a government offer any incentives or any promotion to communities pursuing this as an avenue to address prevention of alcohol addiction?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the Member asking if we provide any support or funding for communities who want to become dry communities? If that is the question, then right now as a department we do not have funding available to allow communities or the process, I guess, to vote to become to dry. That is a community initiative that is voted on by their population and they require, I believe, a majority vote to declare their community is dry. Right now I am unaware and I do not believe we have any assistance through this department to go through that program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would be interested in knowing why this government does not have a program in place that would encourage communities to take this step and also, I would be interested in knowing what statistics are available to the department as to the effectiveness, the effective reduction of alcohol consumption in communities that do vote to be dry. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there has been much debate in communities that have either tried to become dry when they go to their electorate to try and cause a motion to be successful or a plebiscite to be successful in declaring their communities dry. Some would argue the fact that by making a community dry, you only increase the events of bootlegging in a community, and there are some other negative side effects to that. I could not give you a very definite answer as to why we as a government do not support that, but I think it all comes down to an individual choice. A previous Member mentioned that there are thousands of people and seeing a lot of people on the streets that are under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Our programming is set up for those who would come and seek the service to try and repair the damage that has been done by the abuse that has been ongoing.

We do not openly recruit people from the streets. We know it has to be a decision of their own, and I think that would be the same for each community, a decision of the community to decide if they would like to go dry or not. I think myself personally that it would probably be a great thing, because we are as a government spending a lot of dollars, not only in the Department of Health and Social Services but in Justice and other areas, to try and deal with this issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.