Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Last week the Minister of Health and Social Services made a Minister’s statement on a forum on addictions that happened last Friday here in Yellowknife. In fact, he was quoted on CBC that he said that people say that government doesn’t listen to them. Well, on this side of the House we often get that same type of feeling that government doesn’t listen to what we have to offer.

I believe this is about the third or fourth time we’ve done a theme day here on mental health and addictions. If not one, it was the other. The Minister’s statement last week has sparked a lot of discussions, a lot of questions, and in fact when I did bring it into the House, we had a lot of questions on this side getting verification on a few different things.

I went home this weekend, and in the Yellowknife Airport, in the city here, and in the community of Inuvik a lot of people are asking why was the Minister making a statement, making the perception that this government is doing something good for the people when it’s not. I heard that from the community, I heard it from the residents, I heard it from the service providers. People who actually work in this field ask us why does the government says we’re doing good things like the detox centre, why are we sending people down south and not working with them here in the Northwest Territories.

It’s not only the residents, it’s not only the service providers, but it’s the coroner as well. There was a report that was just released that said all alcohol-related deaths were 49 percent; for suicides, 57 percent; accidental, 76 percent, or homicides. That’s no laughing matter. That’s serious and we have to come back here and do another theme day before we see action taken in this regard. I hope not.

There are service gaps. Obviously, there are service gaps, because there are people that are

going through the system right now where we need help. A lot of those service gaps are actually identified in the Shared Path Towards Wellness. How many reports, how many discussions, how many consultations do we have to do before we see what we had written down just last June or even a couple of years ago or the year before to actually put that plan into action?

The people of the Northwest Territories want action and they want it now. The sooner we start doing something about addictions and treatment programs and putting our plans into place rather than just discussing them, then we’ll have healthier people, healthier residents of the Northwest Territories who are going to benefit the economy, who are going to benefit our communities…

Mr. Moses, your time for Member’s statements… The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will talk today on the tragic consequences for young children and their lifelong health when we have inadequate addictions treatment and prevention programs.

The permanent harm of fetal alcohol disorders are the two common results of parental addiction. Drinking during pregnancy causes a variety of mental, physical and developmental disabilities in children. Mental and cognitive impairments include brain damage, leading to learning disabilities, poor school performance, poor impulse control, problems with memory, attention and judgment. Physical effects include malformations of the brain, the skeletal system and major organs. Small children exposed to repeated toxic stress may grow up to be adults who have difficulty coping with stress, anxiety and mood, and are far more vulnerable to develop substance abuse problems themselves.

Fetal alcohol affected babies grow into adults with poor employment capacity, much greater tendencies for criminal behaviour and fore-shortened lives. Human costs and suffering are untold. Program costs of ill health, corrections, income assistance, unemployment, low productivity and other factors are estimated up to $1.5 million per fetal alcohol affected person. NWT rates of substance abuse and all the negative indicators of social malaise rooted in addictions are among the highest in the country. Adequate and effective substance abuse prevention and treatment programs are essential to improving the health of our families, communities and economy.

Considering the long-term cost of inaction, failure to devote adequate funds now is the most false of economies. When we are aware of parents who clearly love their children yet place even young toddlers in the care of a TV remote control while they engage in their substance abuse, we know tragedy is in the works. As we know, proper loving care is so critical during the early years of a child’s life, even for children born in the very best of health.

Healthy parents and families free of substance abuse are the place to start. Approaches are proven and well suited to delivery through our community health centre service model, healthy baby programs, parenting skills, workshops, and mothers and tots programs provide the points of contacts for people to also seek addictions treatment and counselling.

Unless we start now with prevention and treatment, we can’t break this cycle. Let’s get it done.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise, also, to join my colleagues in talking about an issue that’s been on my agenda for the last nine years of being an MLA and even before that. We have all the resources in our communities to help somebody who wants to help themselves. It takes a lot of commitment from the person to say enough is enough. Mrs. Groenewegen hit it right on the head. She said, this is not normal.

Growing up we didn’t know about alcohol in our communities. We saw it, we felt it, but we didn’t know about what was happening in our communities when there were parties going on. People were fighting. Kids were running around. We didn’t know the power of alcohol. Now, we said, well, because of the person’s characteristics, the defects, but we didn’t know about the spirit of alcohol and how powerful it is. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, once it gets you, it’s very, very tough to leave. Growing up, one of our saving graces was to go out in the bush, on the land. We were happy because it got us out of the community and to the bush and to live like a family. Over the years, as we remained in the community, the alcohol took us over.

A lot of good people in this room here have the answers. We can sit down and listen to each other. We know the tragic effects to people in our communities who are drinking at 11 and 12 years old. We need to create a place for them to say it’s okay to get help. We need to put our policies in place to say it’s okay to have this issue with alcohol and to get help. We need to create that. We need to

think beyond what our policy is saying. I hope this goes out to the people of the Northwest Territories. We are trying as MLAs to help the ones who need the help.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As my colleagues have indicated, addictions are a large concern for this government and for the country of Canada. As a strong advocate for economic development, increasing jobs, and the economy in the North, I believe that addictions are affecting us a great deal in this area as well.

This government will often ask where will we find the money, how can we afford to do this? How can we afford not to do this? What would the Northwest Territories gross domestic production be like if we didn’t have addictions? How many people have addictions that allow them not to stay at jobs? They are limited by the time they can work. They are often late for work. They often miss days of work. They are often fired from those jobs because of their addictions.

As the Government of the Northwest Territories works to develop more jobs in the North through economic development, we have to look at how we get those Northerners to these jobs. It’s true that some regions are seeing difficulties in economic development; however, even the areas where we are seeing good economic development, it’s difficult to get Northerners to their jobs. These addictions slow people down. People that should be working are not working.

The three diamond mines have been a godsend to this territory and I would hate to see what our economy would be without them. Even they have indicated to us that they have a large, long list of people who have failed the system mostly due to addictions. They have gone through the mines. They have been there once, twice, three times, and even now the mines have come back and given them fourth opportunities. These individuals are not able to work in these types of environments with their addictions. Our government needs to commit more dollars to it.

My point is today that Northerners with addictions need to get back into the workforce. We need to assist them where we can. This government needs to put more money into this program.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good afternoon. Fellow colleagues, as we gather this month with our families and friends, let’s thank each other for the support given on a daily basis and during the National Addictions Awareness Week, November 18th to 24th .

We acknowledge this week to recognize and overcome the addictions that we face on a daily basis. It’s through community support, community leaders and community wellness workers that we can enjoy this week without addictions in our lives. Our communities in the Northwest Territories are very unique. Our very own people have proven that we can live happy and healthy. Our elders have told us time and time again that we don’t need the alcohol and drugs, the gambling, smoking, and the list goes on.

We can prove to our people and ourselves that we will take a stand against addictions. So many of us struggle in our daily lives, but we must understand that there are many resources and people that care and are willing to assist us.

Family gatherings and feasts will be taking place during National Addictions Awareness Week. Let us join them and continue to support our leaders who are stepping forward to promote wellness.

Today I want to congratulate all the people who have overcome addictions, all the people who live a healthy lifestyle, and to all of us who are continuing to fight addictions. I wish you well and, again, mahsi cho for looking after each other.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Item 4 returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize Dr. Ewan Affleck, if he’s still in the House, and his wife, Susan Chatwood, and his father-in-law, Susan’s father, Andrew Chatwood, who are here to watch their daughter Anika work today as a Page.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also would like to recognize my constituents from Weledeh, Dr. Ewan Affleck, Susan Chatwood, their daughter Anika working for us today, and welcome Andrew Chatwood, also visiting and with a history in the Legislature of Newfoundland, if I remember correctly.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize some residents from Weledeh, but a former colleague of mine here in the medical profession world, Dr. Ewan Affleck, who is an ultra-marathon runner, the pioneer of electronic medical records and one heck of a gifted practitioner. Sitting next to him is the lovely Susan Chatwood, who is our scientific director for the Institute of Circumpolar Health Research. And as we found out, we have an esteemed colleague here with us, Mr. Andrew Chatwood, who is a former Member of the Parliament for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador riding and grandfather to one of our Pages here, Anika Affleck, who is here today in the 17th Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are, obviously, for the Minister of Health and Social Services. In preamble to my questions I want to say that the Minister of Health and Social Services is not the enemy, the Members on the other side of the House are not the enemy, the issue that we are dealing with is the enemy. I’m sorry. I am sure that there is not one person on that side of the House who does not agree with and relate to almost everything that was said on this side of the House today. This is a collective problem. We have to find a collective solution.

I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services how we as a government can actually get the money to put a higher priority on the issue of addressing addictions. How can we physically do that? Take us through it.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Probably the first step is to really determine what the actual cost would be for some of the work that we have to do. As I indicated earlier in the House in discussion about the addictions forum, that is going to be some of their work and is going to determine what needs to be done. From there I think we will be able to cost it out and return to this Assembly to get the money necessary to do the work.

Last week I said that the Minister has definitely assembled the A-Team on this Minister’s Forum on Addictions and I applaud him for that. He said that he wants the recommendations back by March 2013. Again, that

is good. We are interested in seeing those recommendations, too, but those recommendations without the resources to carry out those recommendations are not worth the paper they are written on. Unfortunately, as the Members have said here today, we have had too many studies, too many frameworks. We have spent millions of dollars on stuff like this. We need to start spending money on the actual solutions. We need a champion.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if he will be our champion who will be in that Cabinet room fighting for the funds needed to implement the recommendations of that forum.

As one MLA said today in the House, can we afford to do nothing about addictions? I think that was the reason I, as Health Minister, began the job. I could see that the first job that needed to be done that impacts everyone, that impacts every community, that impacts the economy as some MLAs said, we need to do this work. I will be a champion to make sure the work gets done on addictions.

I believe that. I have known this Minister and everyone on the other side of the House for a very long time and I do believe that, but it may involve necessarily setting something else that we do and spend money on aside in order to devote the resources that we need to this problem, because this is a pressing and critical problem which is absorbing so much of our resources. If we could curb it and stem it somehow, we could go back to doing those other things.

Will the Minister work with this side of the House to look at what things we now spend money on that are not as high a priority and could set aside in order to have the resources we need to address the addictions issue?

Alcohol abuse does impact most areas in health. It has a huge impact on the health of the individuals, an impact on hospital stays, individuals that are staying at the corrections facilities because of crimes they committed under addictions while they’re drinking, and so on. Really, for as far as the Department of Health goes, we’re simply looking within the communities and hospitals to recognize that if there was no drinking going on, or if the drinking was reduced immensely, then we would bring the costs down on hospital stays and even the nurses’ overtime in the communities, which a lot of it is spent on weekends dealing with alcohol issues.