Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services getting back to my statement that I made earlier today. In my statement I highlighted a Yellowknife scenario, but believe me, the situation where parents are losing their teenage sons and daughters to alcohol and drugs can happen in communities across the Northwest Territories; Inuvik, Fort Smith, Hay River, just to name a few.
Many families here in the Northwest Territories are being ripped apart with nowhere to turn when their children aged 15 to 18 take to the streets, are drinking, doing drugs and stealing. We need to make sure that as a government we have the resources to help the parents who find themselves in this nightmare scenario of not knowing where their son or daughter is and whether they are safe.
In the example I outlined in my Member’s statement where a mother goes into Social Services and absolutely lays all of her cards on the table, my first question is: why in cases where it is very apparent that the young person is obviously making bad decisions and bad choices does Social Services say that unless this person is willing to agree to help, they cannot make them do it? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.