Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The time most individuals spend in a southern residential treatment facility represents a small period of time when you compare the many years a person has taken to get themselves to the recovery stage. Going to a treatment facility is the biggest and most important step for many in their journey to recovery from addiction, but it is only one step that is part of their healing journey. When we look at our communities, we lack the supports required to help them remain in recovery. This creates endless cycles of homelessness, family violence, and trips to southern treatment facilities. The government's current approach to addiction treatment stops at step one. Sending people to receive treatment but does nothing to ensure people remain in recovery when they come home. This has been a longstanding barrier for as long as anyone can remember.
Mr. Speaker, this is an example of a poor investment, a one-off, fragmented, and unsustainable approach that demonstrates little progress. We are spending the money for people to go out to treatment, but we need to continue that investment in aftercare. If people have nowhere to live and there's no way they can maintain any type of sobriety, no amount of on-the-land programming or community counselling will help. NWT research on family violence, integrated case management, and people leaving correctional facilities all tell us the issue that is a lack of client-centred supports, a lack of suitable housing, and more resources to stay in housing are needed. Good investments that have seen progress focus on providing community-based recovery and support services. It moves the focus away from one-off crises and emergency management responses towards longer term community-based addiction prevention and support.
Mr. Speaker, we know lack of programming that combines client-centred services and housing is at the centre of the long-standing challenges. Focused investments into individuals that support them to remain addiction-free according to their needs has demonstrated longer term and better outcomes. Not addressing this issue is what's holding the NWT government and our residents back from progress in their addictions. This is evident in our NWT statistics related to addictions that demonstrate these issues are growing. They are not getting better. Recovery starts with support. Permanent housing is the most important aspect of recovery to address these addictions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.