Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was hoping to have a response to each of the recommendations as we are going through the motion, so I won't go into too much detail here, other than to sort of articulate as best I can what the process is today, not necessarily where we need to go.

If an individual in the Northwest Territories is seeking support through a facility-based treatment centre, we go through a referral process and expedite it. We get the person in there. Before they even go down, they are required to have a follow-up appointment booked in their community or wherever their referral came from. If the person is from X community, they have to have an appointment booked in their community as part of their aftercare.

Then, the person goes down, they go through their treatment process, they get the tools they need, and then their facilitator, their lead person, their clinical advisor, if you will, down there will then work with them on the development of a self-directed aftercare plan. That involves getting in touch with the local provider, following up on those appointments, and getting in contact with local resources that exist and other programs that might be appropriate.

In principle, on paper that sounds good, but what we know is it's not necessarily happening. People aren't following up when they come back to the communities. Some of these aftercare programs, as the Member for Yellowknife Centre described, aren't necessarily working because of the size of some of these communities and the size of some of these groups. Clearly, without question, we need to do better on aftercare.

It's not just about some of these counselling things. When we were on the trip, the Member for Yellowknife Centre said something that stuck with me, and I think she nailed it right on the head: we can't be releasing people to poverty or to homelessness, and sometimes that is the case. Some people who are in treatment have come from a couch-surfing lifestyle, and they have nowhere to go to when they return. There isn't really a defined plan on how to help those people come back to the communities and avoid going into that homelessness situation, the poverty situation, again. We have work to do.

I would like to speak to those when we are going through the recommendations, but I think we are on the right track. I think we are working together to find solutions. We have aftercare, but it needs to be strengthened, without question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.