Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is in line with the question posed by Mr. Roland from Inuvik. I have always felt this government depleted the area of alcohol and drug programming. Many of the social problems we see today are because of the restraints we have put in place and the cuts we have forced on the communities.
There were several initiatives taken. Mr. Roland touched on the Delta House. In my riding, there is the Tl'oondih Healing Centre. With the closure of many of these centres, we have seen the impact on the alcohol and drug programs in the communities. The minimal funds they receive today compared to what they used to receive is not sufficient.
I strongly feel this government has to do more. We can make a public statement that we like healthy people and healthy communities, but I think it is important that we as a government give them the tools to meet that goal.
In some cases, you are talking about addictions that have been there for many years, if not decades. The situation cannot resolve itself overnight, especially in areas like alcohol and drugs, and physical and mental abuse.
We are seeing that with all of the court cases that have come forward about hostels. I think this government has to take some responsibility for that. We were involved when the hostels were in place in many of our communities as part of the education system. Many of us, myself included, had to go away to Inuvik, Fort Smith, Fort Providence, Hay River or Yellowknife to acquire a high school diploma and move on to post-secondary education.
Communities are trying to deal with it, but they need the help of this government. Help does not mean you simply put a specialist in the region and the problem is going to go away. I think it is going to take a lot more than that. I think we have to deal with what was put in place regarding the Health and Social Services review on the recommendations that came forth in that report to this government. I think we have to put dollars in there to make the goals we are trying to sustain. This government, as far as I am concerned, is spending too much money on the social dependency of people in the communities. Through no fault of their own, they are finding themselves in that predicament because of the lifestyles they live. In order to change anybody's lifestyle, you have to give them some options. You have to give them the tools to realize they can change their lives and also they can do it in a way that will help not only themselves, but their family and the community.
On that, I find it hard to believe that this government is not really making that a priority and putting the resources in place to do that. I think one area that this government can probably seriously look at is to work with those organizations that have made the efforts to develop their own priorities. The Tl'oondih Healing Society or the half-way house in Inuvik are two places where organizations are trying to deal with a lot of the problems.
With that, I would just like to ask the Minister, what have they done to seriously sit down with these institutions and organizations and groups to see how this government can assist them by making available to them resources so that they can deliver that program on behalf of this government, instead of this government always trying to be the means of doing everything for everybody else? Maybe we should allow somebody else to do it who has a hands-on approach to what they want to do and has already made the attempts to get there. I think that we have to look at the resources that we spend and consider the cost of these specialists that we have in our regions and downsizing and what not. We have to allow the professionals to handle it and I think that who can deal with the problems best are the communities, so I would like to see what the Minister is doing to work with these groups and to see where they go. Thank you.