Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, fellow colleagues. In terms of supporting the motion that I put forward, Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is that in today's reality there are drugs coming into our communities. It's being shipped up either by the boats or the transportation trucks over the winter roads to our communities in the south here coming through various forms. Mr. Speaker, I know the power of addiction. I just took up a challenge by the honourable Member, Mr. Miltenberger, on Monday. I and the Member for Nahendeh gave up smoking. It's very powerful. I'm a former smoker and it took me a long time to say I'm going to give it up. Finally, I did it.

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I can tell you, the power of addiction just wants to take it over. I have sympathy for people who are dealing with cocaine and crack and heroine and people dealing with other drugs in their lives. You know, we were born to have a good life. Having addictions in our life did something for us at that time and now I'm finding I don't need it in my life anymore. There's something else. Mrs. Groenewegen hit it on the button about spirituality

It's very personal and I don't want to get too much into it. However, that's part of the process of dealing with the addiction and I believe that many of our young people are dealing with that. So, Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the youth program, also, and that we want to give our youth a chance. Give them a chance; let's invest in them like we are investing into big issues of pipeline and airports and facilities such as the hospitals. Let's invest in our children. Let's put some real dollars on the table for our children.

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Take those dollars and put them to use. When we do that, I believe that the dividends are going to pay greatly amongst ourselves. One day, I say again, those youth are going to be sitting in our chairs and they are going to be running our government. So I think that's a good way to go.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to say to the government to reconsider looking at the reopening of the facilities in Yellowknife and Inuvik and look at the impacts of the development that's going to come down the valley and give some hope to the people in our communities that need to look at some of their issues in their life.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a closing comment that I heard on TV where someone said let's treat the souls and not the drugs. Thank you.

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