Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement today also is on mental health and addictions. In the Premier’s statement, he talked about reducing the people being held back by addictions and mental health issues. Like my colleague Mr. Moses, I do not agree. I don’t think this government is doing enough.
We were preparing for an Ebola epidemic, we were taking measures, but we have an epidemic in the Northwest Territories right now. All you have to do is read the newspaper every week and you will hear about one more person that’s been found dead as a result of falling through the cracks, the gaps.
Mr. Bouchard and I had a constituency meeting before returning to this House. We heard the Catholic priest from Hay River talking about the lack of emergency response to people in need. I know in Yellowknife…and kudos to the people in Yellowknife, the NGOs that have worked so hard and so many volunteer hours to get infrastructure in place for the residents of Yellowknife. But in our regional centres and in our communities there is a huge gap for emergency responses. If you need income support, you can go to an income support worker, but these are not quick and they’re more for long-term kind of planning. You can go to Housing and talk about social housing. You can go to family counseling and talking about needs. But we need
some emergency crisis type infrastructure on the ground in Hay River.
The gentleman who shared this need with us said that people look to the churches, even, in Hay River to try and meet this need. They have enough trouble keeping their lights on themselves. They don’t have infrastructure to take in people. People see the church as a haven of help and benevolence, but in fact they struggle themselves and that’s not the answer.
The priest also shared a story of a person who came knocking on his door. When this gentleman went to the hospital, they said sorry, you’re not sick enough. They went to the RCMP and they said sorry, you’re not drunk enough. But that person that night had no place to go and was in crisis and was obviously affected by things such as addictions and mental health issues.
So, Mr. Speaker, I also reminded the constituents at that meeting about our government’s effort a number of years ago to put a homeless shelter for men in Hay River, which met with great opposition from the neighbours who were going to be surrounding it.
Later today I’m going to have questions again to see if we could revisit that concept to help out with the people that are falling between the cracks.