Thank you, Madam Chair. Before I continue on with this motion, I do want to put on the record that during the current sitting of this session the Minister of Health and Social Services did commit to implementing two detox beds in the north and two in the south. I would like to make sure that we do hold him to that commitment as the people of the Northwest Territories did hear that and are expecting that in this fiscal year.

Detox beds are something that are truly needed in the communities and hospitals. We do have a policy that anybody who wants treatment does, in fact, need to be sober for, I believe the policy states, or even if there is a policy, but what is known out there is 30 days. When people who do need the treatment and can’t be sober for the 30 days, and that when our emergency staff let these people back out into society or on the streets after sobering up after being in the emergency ward, that’s where our government starts failing and is not seeing the appropriate need and help for these individuals. It’s putting an added stress on emergency staff, it’s putting added stress on our RCMP staff who deal with a lot of these cases in terms of the jail cells, and we need to find a way to help the people that are recurring in the emergency rooms as well as recurring in the jails.

Speaking to nurses and RCMP officers, they say the same thing, they support the idea. We can free up some of our staff to do other important work rather than continuing to deal with an issue that has been not addressed and overlooked for so many years. I commend the committee and the hard work that the committee has done to support this idea, and I commend the Minister of Health and Social Services for committing to this, as well, during this fiscal year.