Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank my colleagues for their comments. I know the Cabinet is listening. I know people in our communities are listening, and I want to let my colleagues know that this issue has been a long-standing issue in our small communities, no different than the larger centres. They have the same issues in the regional centres and in the small communities.
I think if each Member stands up who has been affected in one way or another by an alcohol or drug issue, we’d all be standing up. We know family and friends, and this motion talks about believing in people. What do we believe in? When we became MLAs we believed in the people. Everybody that came and voted for us and talked to us, some were right down in the dumps, as the saying goes, and we talked to them. They honestly said they want to get sober or get away from drugs. That’s a powerful dependency they have. They told us. The sober people walked up to us and talked to us and said this is what a good life they had either through a 12-step program, through prayers, church groups, they talked about a good, sober life.
Then we’ve got the young people who learn the ways that it’s not okay, it’s not okay to walk around the communities sober, because everybody else is drinking and going out to party and they act tough and they joke about it.
I believe in my people. I believe that they can get well if we meet them halfway. This is about asking for money. It costs a lot of money to go on the land.
Mrs. Groenewegen is right; our land is out there, but somehow we have created a dependency in our people to say government help me with rope, because we’ve got so far away from that independent thinking, that strong thinking in our mind, that we depend on government for food, housing, everything, to clothe us and we’re running out of money. The Finance Minister keeps telling us where are we going to find the money. We’ve become so dependent in our minds that we want government to sober us up. We can’t even do that ourselves. That’s how far we’ve come. That is not right.
We have to do it now. We’ve got to do it right now as we speak, so people will hear us in the communities. It’s a very powerful addiction, alcohol or drugs. It’s very powerful. The people cry to be sober, but they cry in silence.
Why do it? Because our people depend on us as we depend on them, and there’s a lot of pain associated with it. I didn’t realize the amount of pain that alcohol brings until my stepfather got killed by alcohol – I was 19 years old – on January 1, 1980. I stood at the bed of the hospital health centre with my brothers and sisters and we asked my mom, can we take him home. Mom said he’s not coming home with us. The amount of pain that caused us, my brothers and sisters, we stood there, tears in our eyes and we didn’t say anything because men don’t cry. The amount of pain that we felt all those years.
We all have personal stories like this, and it’s cunning and baffling because we don’t know why. We have to do something, as leaders, for our children. I remember my grandmother telling me that. This has to stop. I said no, Granny, I like my drink, I’m not going to stop. Elders tell us and now we’re telling our children. I never would have thought that I could be in leadership like this if my Granny didn’t believe in me. Thank you for not stopping believing in me. I didn’t realize that. There’s hope in all of us, in our people. That’s what leaders do when we bring our issues to the table here in this Assembly. This is our government, and I think the Minister is doing something that’s going to cost us $300,000, and I hope the end result is priceless from what you’re going to get from the community.
We’re in a position to lead today, right now at this very moment. We’re leaders. People elected us to lead, to give them a better life, to inspire enough. To say nothing is a disservice to our people. We have to say some of the things that sometimes are not very popular, are not very comfortable, but we need to say these things. We’re all from the Northwest Territories and that’s what leaders do. We hear from Cabinet we have to make decisions. They might not be the ones you guys like over here, but we have to make them. This side of the table puts a motion here, you might not like it, but we have to do it. We’ve got 11 Members here.
So again, I hope this motion starts a new way of life, a new way of thinking, a new way to give hope to our people, a new way to deal with issues. This motion talks about giving life and respecting people in a way that they know what’s best for them. This motion talks about investing in people. Certainly, we have found money, like I said, for other infrastructure projects. We certainly can find money for this project. Put it into the education. Put it into the schools. Put it into healing. Put it into justice. We’ve got to do other things because of the sanity
of this alcohol that is brought to our community. It’s going to drive us to endless more amounts of high crime statistics and other things that we’re not very good at dealing with.
I would like a recorded vote. I thank my colleagues for speaking on this. I thank Mr. Hawkins for seconding the motion. I thank also the Minister for speaking to this motion.
