Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know that I'm not committee, and once again I really appreciate the work they did. It was a pleasure and honour to travel with them to these facilities to see firsthand some of the things that are going on, and I really appreciate the comments I heard.

To the Member from Kam Lake's comment, the Member talked about local options and the lack of a treatment facility. We may get to the point sometime in the Northwest Territories where there is a treatment facility. We don't know where that will be necessarily, but what we heard clearly from people during the Ministers' Forum on Mental Health and Addictions is that people wanted options. People wanted more than just one program or one possibility for the treatment of mental health and addictions. They wanted on-the-land programming. They wanted better programs. They wanted programs that met a variety of their needs. The facilities that we have had in the past have been basically one program. We didn't have the uptake necessary to support them and continue to support them and provide high-quality services to our residents.

We have local options, Mr. Chair. In Yellowknife, we have community counsellors. We have mental health and addictions counsellors. We have NGOs that are doing incredible work. We have the ability to do detox at Stanton, medical detox at Stanton. We have the ability to do medical detox in Inuvik. We can do social detox in our communities with assistance from community mental health and addictions workers.

We are trying to bring more options. We have supported on-the-land programming, which we heard during the Mental Health and Addictions Forum was the thing that people wanted the most in the Northwest Territories, particularly people outside Yellowknife. We fund on-the-land programming. We actually have worked with other partners to create an on-the-land collaborative that creates even more options for people who are seeking a healing journey.

We have also put in a program called Matrix. It's a really interesting program. It's an out-patient program that can be done at a community level, so people can receive the supports they need, but they will stay in their homes in the evenings, and those types of things.

Fort Smith, the Salt River First Nation did an amazing job of piloting a mobile treatment option. We have been working with them to see if we can encourage other Indigenous partners to pursue the same type of program to create more options. At the end of the day, when it comes to treatment facilities, on average we have about 18 people in the Northwest Territories who are identifying as ready to go to treatment facilities, 18 people on average. That has gone up, and I think it's good that it's gone up. It means that more people are ready and more people are getting the support they need to go to facilities. When we move to the program we have in place now, we were averaging about 12, so I think it's great that the numbers are going up. It means that people are ready. We have put in an expedited referral process to get people into these treatment facilities as quickly as possible, because sometimes now is the right time.

I hear people when they talk about a treatment facility. We need a treatment facility. Bricks and mortar aren't going to solve the problem. High-quality programs that meet the needs of our residents and provide options are going to help us solve the problem, but it's going to take more than that. It's going to take us addressing poverty. It's going to take us addressing, you know, creating opportunities, meaningful work for people to do. It's about getting housing in place to make sure people have appropriate housing. Addictions is going to take work on all of our fronts, every one of our fronts, and a treatment facility of bricks and mortar isn't going to give us the solutions by itself.

I have heard people say to me, "If you build it, they will come." If past predicts future, we know that isn't true when it comes to a treatment facility. We have done four treatment facilities, and the enrolment and the number of people going to them was low. We are providing more support to people today than we did yesterday. Now, I say that with a qualifier. Absolutely we need to do more. We have the recommendations from committee. We are moving forward with an addictions recovery action plan to help us build upon the things we are learning and also acknowledge and recognize that there is new science there and there are new concepts, new theories, new ideas. There is harm reduction. There are things like managed alcohol. There are all sorts of things that we could do better on.

In Yellowknife, we have also put in a sobering centre. This is a huge opportunity to help get people who need support and the information they need and help build them up, at least in the first step so that they are ready to pursue other treatment options.

I hear the Member. I hear the people. We never say never, but right now, our best choice is to do what the Ministers' Forum on Addiction and the people of the Northwest Territories have told us to do, which is to create the best options and the best programming possible. More options don't limit us to one model, and that is what we're trying to do. Thank you, Mr. Chair.