Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join the colleagues here and second this very important motion. Mr. Speaker, I speak not only as a Member of this Legislature, but also as someone who has experienced the negative effects of alcohol abuse and what that can do to a family, and also as someone who has supported someone to a very successful road to recovery from alcoholism. Also, I speak as somebody who, like the Member for Hay River South and everyone else here, has suffered from the negative impacts of alcohol on our people.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is useful to show that we are not the only place in Canada that is suffering from alcohol abuse. In fact, this is a national epidemic. In a recent article in the media on the website, it says that, in 2005, Canadians down the equivalent of 7.9 litres of pure alcohol for every drinker and teetotaller over age 15. I am told by Mr. Miltenberger that a teetotaller means a non-drinker. Mr. Speaker, Canadians consume 30 percent more alcohol than the world average. All I know is somebody is drinking my 7.9 litres because I don't drink that.
Mr. Speaker, the social cost of our lifestyle and drinking is becoming more popular in the recent years is staggering. The social cost in Canada is $14.6 billion in 2002. The healthcare bill alone is $3.3 billion, higher than the price tag to treat cancer. Mr. Speaker, we spend 1.6 million days in the hospital because of illnesses and accidents caused by people under the influence of alcohol. For the first time, more people died from liver sclerosis, regarded as a benchmark of a country's problem drinking, than on the road in drunken car crashes, Mr. Speaker. Yet governments all over treat alcohol like a gold mine, with policies that encourage us to drink and even handicap the struggle for sobriety once people become addicted.
Mr. Speaker, in 2005, 79.3 percent of Canadians confessed to drinking which, contrary to our growing obsession with fitness and diet, is a nearly 10 percent jump from a decade ago. But the fact is this only amounts to 30 percent of alcohol sold, so we are not even telling the truth about what we are drinking.
Mr. Speaker, we always think that drinking heavily is a response to problems, but the studies show, in fact, we drink in hard times and we drink in good times. In the province of Alberta where it is topping all of the economic indicators, drinking and alcohol consumption has gone up by 13 percent. This reports that alcohol is near and dear to people's hearts. It is Canada's drug of choice, without a question. It is legal and promoted. We are inculcated to use it. People defend their use of it. Mr. Speaker, that is why we need to denormalize use and abuse of alcohol. It is a lot more difficult to do that with alcohol because alcohol is not illegal. It is not the same thing as smoking, which we were able to say just cut it out 100 percent and no compromise. With alcohol, we know that some people are able to do that more responsibly, but I think we all think that we could do it responsibly and we don't understand the problems associated with that.
Mr. Speaker, also, the latest studies show that even breast cancer and colorectal cancer are contributed by alcohol abuse. It is not just liver sclerosis, throat cancer and some of the more clear items. A casual drink of two a day for women would increase chances of getting breast cancer by 13 percent. But Ottawa and provinces, and probably this territory too, is addicted to getting taxes from liquor sales.
Mr. Speaker, it has become a practice for us and it is very normal now that we don't tolerate smoking, but we glorify alcohol. Mr. Miltenberger earlier mentioned the fact that we just accept it as a daily practice. There are a lot more positive connotations to it than negative impacts.
Mr. Speaker, I just, once again, want to say that this motion and the important part of it is that we have to do something to denormalize it. We need an effective campaign from the government. We are not just asking for a slogan, but a slogan is something that we can all get behind.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister has indicated earlier that there are lots of community empowerment going on. That is an important aspect of that, too. We know that we cannot address alcohol abuse issues without having all of the communities involved. We need to spend more resources and more time figuring out how we could strengthen the entire spectrum of alcohol and drug issues. Treatment is one of them. Prevention is in the front of that and then aftercare. You have to live with yourself after addiction. That requires a lot of support from the families. We need to create a healthy culture. We need to denormalize alcohol. We need everybody in the communities to be able to tell whoever is engaged in unruly and criminal activity, whether they are older or younger people, women and men, that we don't condone that.
We don't accept it and we will not take it anymore and we do not condone alcohol abuse in our communities. Mr. Speaker, another I thing I think why we need to have a strategy and a clear slogan is people out there do not understand what this government is doing. Working within, we know about all of the studies and the increased number of positions on mental health and alcohol and drug issues, but people do not know that; people don't understand why the government cannot have alcohol and drug treatment centres in Yellowknife and Inuvik; on top of
Hay River. If it is the government's decision that it is better for us to have one treatment centre and send those who are in need of special care down south, we need to see that there's a lot of work being done in between. Mr. Speaker, for those who are willing to look, there are a lot going on in our communities. Tree of Peace, Salvation Army, there's Aurora House where it's a transition house for men in Yellowknife, but people do not see that and what people see is all these horrible situations in the downtown area or in our communities, our youth being affected by alcohol abuse, and the government just seems to sit back and do nothing. I know the government is not sitting back and doing nothing. We need to let the people know what we are doing, we need to have a slogan like "Don't Be a Butthead" or "Get Active" that we did today and get on a massive campaign to say we do not accept negative behaviour from alcohol abuse.
Mr. Speaker, on the question of enforcement, I would like to see an RCMP officer in every community in the Northwest Territories. When we were in Colville Lake, I tell you, a 1-800 number in Yellowknife to call for enforcement is not what's going to work. In most of the communities, they want an RCMP presence in every community and if that is not possible, I believe we should figure out a way to have an alcohol and drug control officer in every community. We need the enforcement there to stop bootlegging and stop the ability for people to just call a larger centre, have boxes and boxes of alcohol get packed up in the airplane and just land and nobody has to account for who is responsible for that alcohol. The laws are already in place; we're not enforcing it. If we can't afford to have an RCMP in every community, why can't we have an alcohol and drug officer in every community so that we show that we take the negative impact of alcohol and drug abuse seriously? That it is a number one public enemy. It is killing our adults, our youth, it's keeping our people in hospital, sending people to jail, keeping them out of school and we're not allowing our people to be the best that they can be.