Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I support this motion. The government is mandated to provide a men's healing program, and morally there is no question that we should be. Whether the funding for A New Day continues beyond next month is dependent as the Minister says, upon the findings of a third party evaluation.
Mr. Speaker, I understand that we are in difficult financial times, and I'm not against cutting costs, nor am I against ensuring that the programs we fund are effective, but I am worried that the government may just see this as a cost saving opportunity. I might not even advocate for the extension of the program if the department had something similar ready to go. But as it stands, if this program is cut, the territory will be without a men's healing program, with no guarantee they will get another one and no apparent plan from the department to implement something similar.
If the department is looking at this from a purely economic standpoint, it should consider the immense cost savings of preventing family violence. Keeping one person locked up in jail in the NWT costs over $100,000 a year, nearly half a year of funding of the A New Day program. What are the costs associated with multiple visits from the RCMP, or ambulance trips, emergency visits, nights in emergency shelters, removing children from their home, legal aid, time in court? If the program can help one individual to stop perpetrating family violence, cost savings in all these areas will be realized; and if the program stops the propagation of intergenerational trauma in one family, the cost savings are exponential.
The department also points out the number of graduates of the program, with the implication that the number may be too low to justify the cost. I know that some sort of metrics need to be used to assess programs, but I don't know if counselling for intergenerational trauma lends itself well to the idea of graduation. Over 300 men have accessed the counselling service, and just because they haven't all graduated from the program doesn't mean that there is no value in receiving counselling. What it does mean is that hundreds of men have reached out thousands of times. There is a clear and pressing need for these programs.
There is much more to be said about this motion, but I'll yield the floor and conclude by reminding all Members of this House that this motion simply asks to extend A New Day by one year. It's not a big ask. In fact, it offers a solution to the department's failure to prepare for this eventuality by not completing the review sooner or evaluating the program on an ongoing basis. I encourage all Members who believe that we need to address the issue of family violence to stand up in support of this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.