Mr. Chairman, I find the questioning rather interesting since the Member indicated it was difficult to separate addictions and mental health and that Nats’ejee K’eh has moved solidly into the area of counselling mental health patients, and that the councillors have a background in mental health.

Knowing that, we looked at the amount of the capacity, I should say, of the individuals, the capacity of the building as they are doing their intakes. The capacity is actually around 46 and dropped to 43 percent, so lower than 50 percent in the last two fiscal years that we’ve looked at.

I met with the board. I went down to Hay River and met with the board. The board asked me if they would be allowed to develop a plan on how they think the program should work.

It’s a rather interesting thing because this is a long story. The need for Nats’ejee K’eh could be an essential part of the overall recovery of people with addictions issues. What they had asked was… We went in there and were basically of the thought that there was not much capacity and low success rate. And that is true. But the more we work with the department, within addictions of all of the communities and so on, the more we’re seeing a possible role for Nats’ejee K’eh, an important role for Nats’ejee K’eh.

One of the things we are doing in addition to allowing the community, that group, the Nats’ejee K’eh to develop a plan to provide to the department, is we’re going to move Nats’ejee K’eh from Deh Cho Health and Social Services under Health and Social Services, the department. Right now we are looking at it as perhaps an opportunity for addicts to

go to Nats’ejee K’eh to get educated. We looked at it from that perspective.

I had discussions with other Members in here. They thought that might be an opportunity to use Nats’ejee K’eh to maximize Nats’ejee K’eh. Right now we’re thinking that we still come away with the understanding that addressing addiction issues is a personal responsibility, so that we can provide as many aids as possible to individuals, and Nats’ejee K’eh being one of those aids that we can provide to an individual to go through an intensive 28-day educational process on the harmful effects of alcohol and drugs.

Meanwhile, the whole spectrum, if we can call it that, of issues to address addictions is largely a personal responsibility. Nats’ejee K’eh is in there. How we are going to use Nats’ejee K’eh, we are not 100 percent sure at this time, but we are going to use Nats’ejee K’eh in a different way. We’re not sure that the right move would be just to shut Nats’ejee K’eh down, because there seems to be some utilization and there are still individuals that are saying that they would like to go to Nats’ejee K’eh for treatment.

Also, the Nats’ejee K’eh could be a complementary type of treatment to all of the other personal responsibilities, on the land treatment, supporting parents in the communities. Some of those ideas are initial ideas that we’re getting back from the Addictions Forum. Once we have that report, we’re going to be able to then, we think, slot Nats’ejee K’eh into the overall spectrum of addressing addictions.