Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I, too, stand to speak in favour of the motion. There are some aspects of it, though, that I would like to discuss briefly, Mr. Speaker. It concerns the suggestions or the demands that are outlined here for treatment centres that we have had very mixed success with in the Northwest Territories. For a number of reasons, various buildings and kinds of infrastructure that have been established have not been able to survive the tests and rigors of time, governance, funding and politics. I do not want to see this kind of thing repeated, Mr. Speaker.

A prime example of a very embarrassing failure for a lot of people and everyone concerned was the Sombe Ke facility just outside of Yellowknife, Mr. Speaker, which continued to sit empty but cost our government hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in mortgage and maintenance costs while we try to figure out what to do with it.

The literal demand within the motion, Mr. Speaker, from my point of view, is one that I would like to enlarge and expand to suggest that we not only need centres which can be recognized as places for people to go that can be nurtured into centres of excellence, care, attention and learning, but that these will be the centres by which

programs, services, support and outreach will be and can be delivered to our communities.

This is very much where the suggestions that are made in the Chalmers Report are what, I believe, will truly deliver the kinds of things that people who suffer from addictions need. It is not a bricks and mortar building that you can potentially walk into, sign yourself into for a few days or a few weeks and walk out of and everything is going to be okay. Perhaps those will be and certainly can be part of a continuum of care. But, Mr. Speaker, I really believe that the foundations for success must be far advanced of whether or not we have a building for somebody to walk into or a building for somebody to work out of. It needs to start in our schools, communities, our leadership and our government's levels to convince people that they can do something other than give into the power of an addiction that, if and when that happens, there is a way for them to get off that path and then a way to support them over what may be a lifetime of trying to deal with an addiction.

Mr. Speaker, where the motion talks about centres, I would like to be able to say that this can be looked at in a much broader area. We have, I think, the Minister has pointed out, since the last Chalmers Report on this, we have something like 77 wellness workers and counsellors employed around the territory. Achieving results from this is not done overnight. Where this workforce is in place, do we know what they have been able to do? Have we set the kind of bars, standards and thresholds by which to measure change and impact? Can we learn more about this and design our programs in a better way?

My colleague Mrs. Groenewegen, Mr. Speaker, has very eloquently and forcibly argued for redirecting the money that we now put into southern placements for return of these people to the North. I am 100 percent in favour of this, Mr. Speaker. I have toured some of the facilities in which our residents are housed, institutionalized at least in some places in Alberta. I know they are in other places in Canada. I would dearly love to have them back here on our own soil.

Mr. Speaker, this does not mean that what we need to do is go out and build more places and more institutions by which we simply transfer them. How can we enable them to go back at least into their own regions if not their own communities? We can't do that without the people, the programs, the sustainability, and the commitment by our government to enable this to happen.

Earlier today, I spoke about how far behind we are with non-government organizations and their ability to keep pace with pay and benefits that are offered through our own government, Mr. Speaker, and our own health and social services authorities. This is the kind of thing that will enable us to do the kind of things that are expected of us: to manage and treat addictions and help people turn that corner.

While I speak in favour of this motion, it is in the spirit that it is not taken so literally to say, well, let's just build a few more buildings and put signs on them that say addictions treatment and it will then be able to say, gosh, look at the wonderful job we've done. The job is going to be much more complex. It will take a lot more attention and more innovation than merely creating some more centres for this. It will take a much more progressive and inclusive attitude of different options.

I will close, Mr. Speaker, by asking again, or saying again, that if we can get ways by which we can measure our success, change and performance that are easily understood and then translated into actions, that will help us, as well, to grapple with this huge problem in our society. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.