Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last night I, along with a number of my colleagues, had a chance to attend a Community Wellness Coalition meeting. This is a group of concerned citizens who have decided to band together to do something to change the state of alcohol and drug abuse, specifically in our community, Mr. Speaker. It's not just a Yellowknife problem clearly. A lot of the people who are in need are from surrounding communities, because I think as we all know, as many gaps as there are in these services in Yellowknife, the problem is even further exacerbated in the communities which have even fewer services.
Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about something that I found very interesting around this recently. The RCMP have become obviously very involved in trying to combat the problem, and it's no secret when you look to their motivation, Mr. Speaker, when you find that 90 percent of their calls and 90 percent of their work is alcohol related, when it speaks to callouts in the city of Yellowknife. That's amazing, Mr. Speaker, especially when you consider that we don't think of people who are drunk in public as criminals. They really are people in need. But 90 percent of the RCMP workload on callouts is alcohol related. It's simply amazing.
They sent a number of members of this detachment to Anchorage, Alaska, to study a program and a way of coping and dealing with the problem in that city, and they invited a member of our local media, Ms. Jennifer McPhee, from the local newspaper to tag along. I'm glad they did that. It was an amazing and great way to use the media to their advantage. We know that the media has such reach and has played an amazing role here in galvanizing public support for this cause. I've had a number of people stop to talk to me about the innovative Anchorage approach, and ask me if this was something that we were considering and discussing. I can reassure the House and reassure the public, that after the Community Wellness Coalition meeting, this is certainly on the radar of the coalition, it is something they are discussing, and I think we can give full marks and full credit to the RCMP for looking to find solutions and do something about this. We know they are under-resourced. That's a challenge that we continue to grapple with, and something that this Assembly is going to have to find a solution for.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.