Masi, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, my statement will be regarding we're losing a lot of young people in the Northwest Territories and also in the Tlicho Nation. There is a lot of young people that we lost. Some of them, I may mention, but I might not mention all. Just recently, this person is our brother, our uncle. His name is Freddy Bishop from Whati. Not only him, Justin Tutcho, as well. He was living with someone from Behchoko. Lastly, they have passed on, but just recently a young person, David Sangris. His funeral is today. When we look at this situation, we also lost Kelly Washie, a young man, and just recently I lost my brother, as well.
Why I am mentioning all of this is because alcohol and drug use is related to that. We lose a lot of young people because of alcohol and drug addiction. We need a treatment centre. If we had a treatment centre, do you think these people would still be alive? We need an addiction centre where people can work on themselves and start healing themselves. There are a lot of people who work for Health and Social Services. They need to go out to the community to reach out to these people. Would we have all these people alive today if we had more people reaching out to the people?
As the Government of the Northwest Territories, we can make a powerful statement. All the time, we make these powerful statements, but when we look out the window here, we see a lot of people that we're losing that are passing on. I really disagree with that. When we talk, we need to walk our talk. As a government, I want to send them a message. We want to prevent these things for our young people. Let's reach out to these people. Let's make available any kind of addictions programs that they can use. There are many resources out there that they can use. We can't keep on talking. I don't want to stand here again and talk about who has just passed on because it's very difficult to do that. All these young people, we want to pray for them and pray for their families that are grieving. We want them to have a healing process. That is my Member's statement. Thank you. [Translation ends]