Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, will be supporting this motion. Growing up in Inuvik in the early '70s, we saw a lot of alcohol abuse going on. Everybody here probably has seen it at some point in their lives. Now we see some of these people who were abusing alcohol decide to seek treatment and they have done well for themselves, really well. I said before, I have the utmost respect for them.
On the other hand, we see other people who didn't know when to quit and most of them are no longer with us. That's sad. We send people to Poundmaker's or to the one in Hay River, and part of their teaching there is on the spirituality side of it, which might be good to them but it's not good and doesn't apply to the people in the Beaufort-Delta, just like ours wouldn't apply to them.
That's why you speak to a lot of experienced frontline workers up in the Beaufort-Delta and they know we need a treatment centre there in the Beaufort-Delta with a strong, strong family program, an on-the-land component of it. Sometimes we look across the floor here and you think we are asking you for buildings, just put up buildings. We are not asking you for buildings. We are asking you to build options for these people who want to get some help.
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One of these things is these people come back from these treatment centres, as Mr. Lafferty spoke to, and there is no follow-up. You bring them back into Inuvik or one of the Beaufort-Delta communities, they come back from Poundmaker's, you fly them down every so often for follow-up, I don't think so. If they have a residential treatment centre where if they feel like they may be slipping and they need to go and get a little extra push in the right direction, they have a place to go. That alone would make a difference and I know there are a lot of people up there who believe strongly in this, and they have said so publicly.
The government has programs on prevention and most of us in here will agree that a lot of it is personal choice and prevention is a big part of it. The government has some good programs on prevention. I know prevention is a high priority to them, but sometimes prevention doesn't always work.
Again, Mr. Speaker, if these people decide that they need to get some help, then the option has to be there for them to go and seek help close to their region instead of having to send them somewhere where there are strangers there, you send them down to the city, they go back into the small community after being in the city and they may have learned some new stuff.
So that's why we all, on this side, push for regional treatment centres and don't look as us asking you for money to build buildings. As I said before, some of these people want help, they need help and they want it closer to home, more in tune with their beliefs and their spirituality. So I am supporting this motion. I think it's a good one and hopefully, Mr. Speaker, next year we won't be coming back with the same motion.
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