The Minister is correct; he’s given me some numbers for Nats’ejee K’eh on the capacity and finishing and he’s very correct on the success rate. We can probably do it very bush league type and I can tell you how many people in the Sahtu went to Nats’ejee K’eh and how many stayed sober after six months, eight months, 12 months. I think what the Minister, I’m not too sure if I really want to know that, because that takes a lot of effort and energy and we want to do something that’s different, like prevention. Like you talked about before, how we can best use those resources, time, and effort. I’m not going to ask the Minister for that information. I just wanted to know if he had those stats. For me it’s an indication that we just have to know that we need to do some work in that area. There’s no use going too hard on that.
I guess what I want to know is where we go from here, the different programs that we have and different perspectives on how we want to deal with addictions in our communities. We certainly had some uptake to different programs and styles, how we go about doing it. For myself I think one area that needs to be looked at, and the Minister can take this as a suggestion, that the place where people can go for hard drugs is now in our communities. It’s really hard for our younger people who are getting into it and sometimes it’s very difficult to get out of because that’s a powerful thing. It’s nobody’s fault, but we need to look at someplace where, somewhere in Yellowknife or the North, that we can have a place like that.
I just want to offer that suggestion to the Minister. I wanted to see how it’s going with the child and family committees in our region. I know there was a strong push for that at the last Assembly. They had some discussions on that Child and Family Services Act.
I guess two things. The treatment itself and the success rate, and the different requirements that now regions are asking for and someplace where the younger people can go. I think Yellowknife is a good spot for the hard drugs. I know right now they’re going to Grande Prairie and things like that, but we have some places here that we could look
at. That’s going to be our challenge here: who goes first. That’s why we have to have that discussion. I’m hoping the Minister is looking in those areas that I just brought up. Those are my comments.