Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m sure the Member wants me to be brief, so I’m going
to try to be brief. The Member is right that we spent $2 million at Nats’ejee K’eh but we also spent $6 million for the community counselling mental health program. That’s not to include the psychiatric unit and the heavy duty mental health work that goes on at the hospital. I understand the Member’s frustration, but what we are talking about is a huge demand. We have this huge need among a large portion of our population who needs mental health support, right up from psychiatric and most acute care that needs to be delivered in the hospital to what the community people want to do on the ground level and on-the-land programming.
The Member knows that we have provided funding for communities. We have provided funding for communities in the Sahtu as well. I know that the Sahtu Health Authority has provided funding for on-the-land programming. Granted, they’re not an established and consistent programming, but it is not the bureaucracy or the lack of will. It is that we are dealing with a massive, massive mental health and addictions challenge in the Northwest Territories.
I said we are reviewing the Mental Health Program, as I answered MLA Ramsay. We are going to come back to standing committee with the findings in April and May. In the meantime, I will be announcing the integration and some reorganizing of our mental health programming to improve the service in the interim. This is a huge challenge for us and there is just so much demand and stretching of the resources. This is the challenge.