Mr. Speaker, during this sitting of the Legislature, the repeated message for many of the MLAs has been that we must deal with addictions. Mr. Speaker, I believe that I can say, as the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, that this is a problem that not only has a very high human cost, it also has a large cost in terms of government dollars.
Mr. Speaker, the question of where funding would be taken from to reprofile for addictions I think, at this point, may be somewhat premature. We need to sit down with Members and other people in the communities and look at the different things that could be put in place that have to do with addictions.
Mr. Speaker, I think Members would agree with me that programs need to be delivered in a way that deals with the root causes of much of the pain in the North that causes addictions in the first place. Models of addiction treatment that treat addiction as a symptom of underlying issues must begin to surface here in the North. Because I do not think that any amount of money could solve the addictions problems in the Northwest Territories.
I think it is going to take an effort on the part of this government and other community and aboriginal leaders, to recognize the magnitude of the problem, then begin to look at ways we might address it. The addictions issue is usually a manifestation of underlying causes. When you identify the underlying causes and people are ready to start talking about them and dealing with them, I think we will have something to begin with. Thank you.