Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank publicly MLA Yakeleya for bringing forward this motion. It is one that I believe strongly in and I want to thank him for his stewardship of getting it on the floor. I also want to thank the Members in advance of those who will be speaking in favour of it. Of course, I want to use the time now to shame and shun the government, who will not be voting on the motion, who will be abstaining, as we know in advance of this.

Addictions are a relentless problem. I do not have to tell anyone in this House how important action is required. Significant action keeps being called by Members and the public, and the government shows little interest or response. Yet again, they show shameless interest in studying the problem, one that they know well. We have many smart people, hardworking people in our public service that could write book after book on issues like this, yet we need to seek more public input.

There comes a time when public input has reached its peak and we have received more than enough to deal with this problem. Why? Because I can tell you I’ve been here nine years and it’s the same message over. Do something. What? Study again? Do something, please. More excuses. Status quo has become the norm on this particular issue. I call upon this government to say excuses no more, we will act.

There is always money for government projects. Members are asking for what really looks like 1.5 percent on our budget. Yet we hear them whining about balanced budgets, our books, yada, yada, yada. The reality is those books belong to Members, too, not just Ministers. Those books belong to the people of the Northwest Territories. This relentless fight must have this brought to the table and people will understand this in this House, in this business, in this ministry, in this Assembly, that the books belong to the people. The ones we talk about defending and balancing, we’re also putting greater people at risk.

It is our chance to leave this term, as we look forward to just under three years from now, with the sense of accomplishment. When are we going to

look back and say what did we do? Sure, fixing a policy line makes sense to some bureaucrat out there, but, quite frankly, I don’t care what they think on that point. I want the citizens to feel strongly when we leave this term that we’ve done something to improve their lives. I want them to be able to look at this last Assembly and say the 17th Assembly

pulled up their socks, they changed the ground, they heard our message and they did something. The average person doesn’t care about a little policy line buried in some sentence with commas and whatnot. They want to see action. That’s what this motion speaks to. That’s what Mr. Yakeleya just said a few minutes ago.

There are hundreds and hundreds of pages. There are shelves and shelves of binders. What do they all say? No to this issue. I’d say, finally, let’s get this government behind a yes once in a while. This government could do it. If it was a shiny project that the government thought they’d get some excitement behind, they would have built this years ago.

There are many aspects to this particular motion that need to be further highlighted, one being youth treatment. There is a huge gap in our territorial system. The second one which has come across my desk many times over the years is couples treatment. What do we do?

It’s time the Minister and it’s time the government understand what the people are saying. The people have been leading on this issue far too long. They’ve been calling upon their Ministers to lead on this issue for a change. They are getting tired, as I am getting tired, but I will never miss an opportunity to tell this government to do something. The excuses are over. Let’s get to work.