Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted today to talk a bit about addictions treatment in the Northwest Territories. We know that most recently the Minister of Health commissioned a study that was recently made public, called A State of Emergency, Mr. Speaker, and it was done by Chalmers and Associates I believe out of Saskatchewan. It speaks to our current state of affairs and condemns, I guess, the current system that we have, so much so that it says we cannot simply add bits and pieces to what we have. We have to start at the ground level and rebuild the whole community addictions program system, and to simply add resources would be counter-productive.

I think intuitively all of us recognize this and I think that I have said over the past number of years that our legacy as a government and the last government has been that of closing addictions facilities. That has certainly not been an acceptable answer to what is indeed a state of emergency, Mr. Speaker. I think that we all know step one is to identify the problem but more importantly, Mr. Speaker, step two is to do something about it. We seem to feel the need to commission studies from consultants who are paid by the thousands and thousands of dollars and if we cannot put a price tag on something, Mr. Speaker, we seem to not take it seriously or devalue the kinds of things that the common people of the Northwest Territories have been telling us for some time.

Mr. Speaker, clearly we need to listen to the people who have been yelling at us over the last number of years to take action and to do something. Very recently, Mr. Speaker, there was an inquest in town at the Explorer Hotel to look at the suicide of a young woman in Yellowknife, a very tragic situation, and clearly I think, Mr. Speaker, preventable. Six very common sense local people got together to form a list of recommendations to bring forward to, among one of the parties at any rate was the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, as I go down these, and I will read them, they are very common sense and I think things that we should pay close attention to. They talking about widening the scope of services available through the existing treatment centres to include programs that focus on drug addictions. They also talk about funding the establishment of a medical detox facility...