So let me understand; the Minister is not denying that there are many youth in the Northwest Territories that could benefit from treatment, but there are not youth that are coming forward, identifying themselves as candidates for treatment and the ones that we are
sending to the South are being forced into treatment because they’ve come in contact with the law or have been referred there kind of as a desperate measure. So we have a drug and alcohol problem amongst our youth and we don’t really have any way to get them into treatment. They don’t really want to go do treatment. So they’re coming out and looking for a facility in which to treat them. Wow! We’re deferring a problem. We’re deferring a problem until later.
I actually have the statistics right here, and I’ll table it later, on the number of youth in the Northwest Territories referred for treatment. In the last three years it’s like five, four and three. That is like a sad, low number.
Does the Minister have any idea of how we could encourage, any program that could encourage these young people that are addicted to drugs and alcohol to seek help and seek treatment at an earlier rather than later stage in their life? Thank you.