Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. When most people talk about the price of liquor, they mean the price of a bottle of something at the store. Some of them are even run by our own government.
When we talk about it as we do as MLAs every single day, we talk about the real price, the price of our people through lost opportunities and even suffering. It is the price to our health system, to our education, to the courts and corrections. We may be talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. I don't think Finance has added that up for us. I want to have a final view of those costs, all us here and the public.
We may not think much about this. Let's start with the Northwest Territories hospitalization report released in April. Overall we spend about $70 million to take care of 3,500 residents hospitalized each year; 40 percent of the middle-aged adults are admitted with mental health issues or injuries. In other cases alcohol abuse is a very common factor. It is also a common factor of many of the chronic conditions causing injuries to go to the hospital, mental health issues, diabetes, kidney disease and so on. It is up tens of millions of dollars of hospital care alone. You get the idea.
There are big monies spent on doctors' and nurses' appointments, specialist care and medical travel. I would like to remind everyone that, overall, we spend about $350 million on health and social services. We also know that alcohol is a factor in about 90 percent of the crimes in the Northwest Territories.
We have the highest rate of police reported crimes in Canada. How sad is that? Think about all the victims of these crimes. What does it cost to a woman who was assaulted? What is the cost of a broken family? What is the cost of bootlegging in our communities? What is the cost of culture being enveloped by booze? I can't put numbers on those, but my heart aches when I see these things in our communities. I think about what I might be able to do as an MLA.
The cost of our justice system is another matter. I can put some numbers to that. Overall we spend $115 million here in Justice. Obviously, we can't save 90 percent that is due to the alcohol abuse, but it is safe to say that alcohol abuse is the cause of producing a significant amount, and that is about $41 million a year. Alcohol is a factor in most of the crimes that result in jail time. The correction system costs us $38 million a year. I'm sure our judges are very sick of hearing about alcohol addiction in the cases they hear. Court services cost about $12 million a year with civil cases being some of that.
I made the point that alcohol abuse is a plague in our communities, and our government right now is dealing with it. I wouldn't get into the cost of education. The reason students don't show up in school and all that. We all know it is a very serious problem with huge consequences and it costs the whole Territories. Also, a lot of other costs are with the departments.
I do want to take a look at the liquor sales. Since this motion is about allocating some of the funds to the prevention of alcohol abuse, the Liquor Commission sells $46 million worth of hard liquor, beer and wine a year. That makes about 53 percent profit on it. By dollar value, our government sells more hard liquor than anything else. That's $19.5 million per year, or 42 percent of the total sales of alcohol. I would bet it is hard liquor that is the most harmful to our people. I should ask that all the profits on the hard liquor be spent on prevention and education, but I am being modest here. The motion calls for 10 percent of the Liquor Commission's profits be spent on the alcohol abuse prevention and education campaigns in our communities. Last year that would be $2.94 million, less than $3 million. That is not too much to ask. It is common sense that we do it.
I want to make one point, it is a Liquor Commission's public reported mission to develop a healthy, responsible culture in our territory, but they are not doing it or it's not working. That is why we should pass this motion and the government act on it. It might take 12 steps to solve our alcohol problems, but let's take this crucial first step. Thank you.