Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we wind down this session, I would rather end it on a happy note, but I am afraid I have to speak to something much more sad. It has to do with the alcohol and drug problems of our people and how we are not doing enough to help them.
Mr. Speaker, late last night, along with all other Members of this House, I received a fax in my mailbox. The impact of the contents of this letter just began to sink in for me this morning. I have contacted the originator of this letter, Sandra Elliott, and she asked me that I share this with everyone here. I am sure that it is in the interests of the Minister and all Members to hear this story.
Mr. Speaker, the whole letter is too long to read and I will be tabling it later, but to set the stage, Ms. Elliott owns a company called Fibreglass North. She has hired people from the Yellowknife jail over many, many years. It appears that one of her employees has gone missing and is presumed dead and she is not able to find any information about this person. I will start with the section of the letter where it says,
A common sense fund should be set up by this government, the sooner and better. Although development is tremendous for the NWT, it costs money developing oil, gas and minerals, but we must use more money to get rid of the drug and alcohol problem. It will not go away without money being used to rid the problem. The government will be well paid when they sober NWT people up so that they can get a good education and think for themselves. As long as they are using drugs and alcohol, they will never get their life together.
Every day I go to the Yellowknife Post Office, I could cry to see the wrecked lives sleeping on the Post Office floor. We need more shelters for the homeless, not jails. Yellowknife is a very high problem area. I recently am aware of four suicides this year, all young people on drugs. The most recent two last Thursday; James Mungialuk, born February 19, 1966, one of our employees, was one of these. We were out of town when this happened. We have heard several stories that he was found frozen to death out in the bush near Boundary Creek.
Also, a truck driver from RTL found him on a highway out of Yellowknife with his head shot off...
