Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government is looking at the current residential treatment facility. It will look at the youth treatment and how we handle youth treatment across the territory. It will look at community-based addictions programming. We’re going to look at traditional healing. We’re going to look at current addictions programs and how effective they are. We’re going to look at best practices not only across the NWT but across the territories and across the country. We’re going to determine what needs exist to support those individuals with addictions and mental health. We’re also going to look at all of the reports that the Members speak of, the reports that apparently were done but were not actioned. We are going to look at those. Although some of them have been actioned, we will look at them to make sure that they’ve been actioned.

All of that work is going to be done by the addictions forum. That’s their mandate. That’s why they want to do what has been requested today.

We have the integrated service delivery model in health. That is not only health care, it’s also social services and what’s needed in each community. We’re going to look at that. We’re going to look at aftercare. We’re going to look at the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan. We tabled that. It’s clearly a three-year plan. We are at the very outset of this plan. At the beginning of this plan, we indicated that we are going to put a forum together. That is going to help us carry the plan out. We are open to suggestions. The MLAs have asked if the addictions forum could meet with them. I said yes, that’s not a problem. They are prepared to do that. So it’s going to be an opportunity to work with that forum.

We have gone through the business planning process. In the business planning process, the Standing Committee on Social Programs has made recommendations to this government. There is a dollar figure in there, as well, that says this is how much money Health and Social Services needs to move forward with prevention, addictions, mental health and addictions work. We are looking at that. We are still looking at that letter from that standing committee that asked.

But there are a lot of requests, all kinds of requests from that side of the floor and all over. There are pressures all over. We have to make decisions and we have to utilize the money for the best way that we think those dollars should be utilized. That’s why we’re looking at the letter from the Standing Committee on Social Programs, because that has given us an opportunity to sit back and look at the requests and say, how much of that is something that’s essential to what we need to do right now this year.

This $2 million request is not something that has gone through the business planning process. It could be a part of the request from the Standing Committee on Social Programs; it could very well be a part of that request. This is what our position on that is. We are looking at that through that process. We are following the business planning process. We are following the government’s process on how to get money into the budget.

Just a comment as an example, youth treatment. We talk about youth treatment. There is a request for a youth treatment, maybe even a youth treatment facility. I’ve tried to respond to that by saying we could probably have a youth treatment component within our residential treatment. It would be very difficult to ask the people of the Northwest Territories to pay for a full treatment facility for youth. We treat five youth per year. It’s very difficult. That’s a lot of money. We’ve done that before. We’ve seen that in the young offenders facility. A

young offenders facility was operating at an astronomical cost per person. This government recognized that and shut it down. We can’t afford that.

Our best bang for the buck, if we can’t put a program into our current residential facility for youth, is to send them south. We have no option. We cannot have a facility there, because treating youth is a little bit different. Treating youth means that the youth are going to identify that they have an addiction issue. There are not many people at 18 years old who are going to all of a sudden say, I have an addictions issue. At that point, being an addict is far, far from their mind. It is later on in life when they become adults and have work, responsibilities, and families that they realize that they may have addiction issues and then seek treatment at that point. It is very difficult for youth and very uncommon for youth to be standing up and saying they have addiction issues. That’s just one example.

We are doing wellness plans. We are going to be forging into some health plans across the territory, every community. We are hoping that this forum will give us some information. Considering what their mandate is, their research mandate, I feel that we can move to the next level through the regular business planning process.

As this is direction to the government, the government will be abstaining from the vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.