Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re having a theme day. I would like to have a theme government. I would like the 16th Legislative

Assembly to be remembered as the government

that actually put their money where their mouth was in terms of addictions, and I would like to make that the theme of this government going forward. Will the Minister of Health and Social Services support that?

Yes, I believe that’s the direction we are going. I felt that at the very beginning of my term a year ago, that this is something we have to deal with first. Alcohol first and then the other things will fall in place.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask some questions, as well, of the Minister of Health and Social Services.

I heard the Minister in responding to Mrs. Groenewegen in answer to the question about money, that there needed to be support. I would suggest to the Minister that the support for additional funds in the department to deal with the problem of addictions, particularly alcohol, is already there. You’ve got 11 votes on this side of the House already.

I’d like to ask the Minister, knowing that he’s got support from the majority of the House, and I imagine he’s got support on the other side of the House as well, what is stopping the Minister from putting additional dollars into next year’s budget?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the outset this government had indicated that there were going to be two fiscal years where we’re going to take a look at our fiscal situation and then give us an opportunity to do some planning and where we could do some adjusting in the budget and moving some money around in health. That’s exactly what we’re intending on doing. We are holding the line on the budget without too many increases. We’re going to do some reshuffling and then put money where we think it would have the greatest positive impacts on the budget, and one of them is definitely alcohol addictions.

To the Minister, I accept that we have a fiscal policy that says that we weren’t going to do any new initiatives, but I have to also say to the Minister and to the House that we have put a huge amount of money over and above our steady fiscal policy into other initiatives. I have to say that some of our on-the-road initiatives are pretty heavy in terms of dollars. I think if there was a will, we would find the money to put into alcohol. It would save us money in the long run.

I said in my statement that I think it’s time to stop studying and it’s time to take action. I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not he could see that the $300,000 that’s intended to be spent on the Minister’s forum, whether or not there’s a better use for that right now?

No, I don’t think there is a better use for that right now. I think that this is the best use of the money, the $300,000, and that’s the reason we’re moving forward on it. I think we want to do the right thing in addictions. We don’t want to do the quick thing in addictions.

I have to disagree with the Minister. This would not be a quick fix. We’ve been studying this problem for a very long time, and I think the Minister, were he to look at the asks that the people in the communities have been making over many years, I think he would find that there were things that we could do right now. We need supports in our communities.

I’d like to ask the Minister – he was with me when we did the Child and Family Services Act review – did the Minister hear from the communities what I heard, that they need supports on the ground?

Yes, I heard that, but there’s always something new. When we put the forum together, the forum met last Friday and last Saturday, the addictions forum. It came as a surprise to me in the way they wanted to tackle the issues. There’s always something new and they’re the people on the ground. They basically know exactly what is happening at the community level, so this is why we’re reaching out to them. We think this cost is going to be more than recoverable. We want to do the proper upstream work so that we have positive impacts downstream.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My last question to the Minister has to do with the only treatment program that we have in the territory, the Nats'ejee K'eh. One of the things that was in the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan was that there was going to be an analysis and a revamping of the programs at Nats’ejee K’eh to increase the percentage of use there. Can I ask the Minister what revamping has been done? What’s the percentage of use of that facility right now?

No revamping yet. The percentage is about 46 percent capacity right now.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My grandfather was a very wise man who came from Europe many years ago. He passed away. With his wisdom, even with very little education, he always had these very famous sayings and those resonated even today. One of his famous sayings was, talk is cheap; whiskey costs money. I think it is only befitting that I bring that forward today. Not that whiskey costs money but addictions cost money. Talk is cheap; addictions cost money.

With that, I want to find out from the Minister of Health and Social Services, he mentioned earlier the spending of $300,000 towards addictions treatment. Can the Minister tell us what exactly are we getting today for that $300,000?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

The work of the addictions forum is laid out in their terms of reference and also a document that we’ve produced with the supports in there and everything. What we’re hoping to gain from that is a good plan on how we’re going to move forward on addressing the issue of addictions.

That’s a pretty large number for updating a plan. I think we’ve already got a mental addictions treatment plan, so now we’re going to have a plan with a plan. Again, talk is cheap; addictions cost money.

Can the Minister indicate to us what kind of plan we are going to have? I was very bold; I had a five-point plan today and brought it to the House here. We’ve only heard, really, to this date on this side of the House the Minister’s one-point plan, which I mentioned earlier.

Can the Minister allude to the House here, do we have more than just a one-point plan? Can the Minister allude to his multi-point plan that he wants to table for us in the House?

If I knew what the plan was I wouldn’t hire a bunch of people to go into the communities to check with the communities what they think the issues with addictions are, and how they think that the addiction issues should be addressed in the communities. The group, in my opinion, in a very short time period have to travel around to the communities. The plan is to come back to this government to what the communities think would be the most effective method in addressing addictions in their communities. That is what we want to move forward with.

I believe the plan is probably embedded in the archives of our Legislative library

here, and I’d be more than happy to give my library card to the Minister to go and use that.

Can we get an idea here how many of our citizens are we sending down south for addictions and detox treatment?

I don’t have that information with me. I think it’s a fair amount of people. We’ve come back for supps to the Legislative Assembly on an annual basis for southern placements and so on for addictions. It does go through the Territorial Southern Placement Committee, so the committee would then determine that an individual would go down. But the exact number, I don’t have with me today, but I can provide that to the Member if he wishes. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We recently enjoyed the budget dialogues with the Minister of Finance throughout the Territories. We were told in the House and we were told in many of these meetings that people are gravely concerned about addictions and money put towards it. In fact, sometimes, when people were doing the Lego exercise with the Minister of Finance, there were Legos left over. They said, we want to put it into addictions. Again, I am holding Legos in my hand for health and social services.

How much money are we going to be putting towards next year’s budget towards addictions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The amount of money we put towards addressing addictions issues is going to be determined by the House. We are going to go through a process, a business planning process. We will make a business case for what we find, our findings. We will have some findings as a result of this committee. Once the forum has done their work and we have our plan in place specific to that, then it will go through the business planning process. The number will be determined by the amount of work that needs to be done at the community level. Thank you.