Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I stand in support of this motion also, Mr. Speaker, for all the reasons that all the Members have stated earlier in all our Members' statements and all the reasons here that are stated in the motion, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we all know that all our social ills here in the NWT have derived from alcohol and I just want to point what the Member from Range Lake did, that it is kind of a public enemy number one. But I'd more or less like to term it as the aboriginal enemy number one, Mr. Speaker, because it is the aboriginals that are in our jails, it is the aboriginals that are in our hospitals, it is the aboriginals that are in our small communities that are suffering from alcohol abuse, Mr. Speaker. I think that it's time that we, as a government, have to develop a campaign through a motion like this to inform and educate the aboriginal people, especially our aboriginal youth, Mr. Speaker, who are most at risk, that alcohol is not and should not be considered as normal behaviour, especially when you're consuming large amounts of alcohol in very short periods of time.

In all of our communities, all of our small centres here around the NWT are all challenged to keep the alcohol under control. We all have ways of dealing with it, but still we have to allow our own people to be in control of their own lives. That, Mr. Speaker, is a real fine balancing act for our community social workers, our community health workers and this government in trying to find where the balance is. I think a motion like this puts more emphasis on encouraging this government to work harder to find out where that balance might be and to assist all these people in the communities in how to deal with alcohol abuse in their own community, Mr. Speaker, because no one solution is going to work for all, I can tell you right now. Each community has its own circumstances and ways that they're dealing with it today and I think some of them are really good and some of them need some more work in it. I think that if we can successfully come forward with a campaign that addresses all these various positive things about how the communities are working toward addressing alcohol abuse in the large and small centres, we could come together to formulate a strategy that's territorial-wide that deals with this issue on a regional basis and in those regions they can deal with it specifically in each community.

With that, I fully endorse and support and I really hope that something like this we can measure with some success over the next couple of years in seeing a lot of youth and a lot of our working people between the ages of 24 and 35 years old that are in the mine right now making healthier choices, having sustainable lives and treating their families with respect and dignity that we all hope we can do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause