Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker...(English not provided)

Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to endorse my full support for this motion that has been brought forward by Mrs. Groenewegen for Hay River South. This has been an issue in the communities for quite some time now. When I spoke in my language, I spoke about the importance of elders' wisdom in the past, where our elders spoke and kids were quiet around the table or even discussion periods. Nowadays when you go to communities, kids are all over the place. The parents are out somewhere and the kids are running loose.

Now is the time I see this as an enforcement on those little ones as well, focussing on them. Because what we're saying here is denormalizing means in our perspective would be it's not normal. But we are allowing it in the communities for little ones like eight, nine, 10 year olds -- I see in my community -- that are drinking alcohol, that are doing drugs. Let's do something before it's too late.

I'm glad this motion is in front of us. This motion will certainly deal with that matter, Mr. Speaker. Whether it be different logos or whatever, the bottleneck or whatever you want to call it, I think we need to do more in the communities saying booze is not good, these are the consequences. Like the cigarettes. The little ones in school, they don't know the consequences. They see the parents and, no fault of their own, they went to residential school and they suffered and they're hiding behind the booze; some of them, not all of them. So there's no fault of their own, so we, as government, need to do something. Work with the parents because they certainly cannot do it on their own as parents, because some of them cannot be role models, they have suffered enough. Let's step in and let's help them, all the communities, 33 communities we're faced with.

I'm totally focussed on the youth perspective, Mr. Speaker, because every time I go to a community I see little ones running around. They'll certainly be here around the table down the road. Think in long terms. It's time that we step in and fix the problem, work with it. Let's do something as we did with tobacco, now it's alcohol and substance abuse. It's a huge issue and we certainly would like to see those youngsters in this House one of these days. Mahsi.