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.