Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's going to be another long one today. Madam Speaker, Your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its Report on the Review of the 2022 Audit of Addictions Prevention and Recovery Services and commends it to the House.
Reviewing the Addictions Audit to improve the GNWT's Workplan Response
On May 31, 2022, the Speaker tabled an audit report entitled Addictions Prevention and Recovery Services in the Northwest Territories. This performance audit was conducted by the Auditor General of Canada, who is also the Auditor General for the Northwest Territories.
The performance audit looked at whether the Department of Health and Social Services, the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority, the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority, and the Tlicho Community Services Agency provided addictions services to meet the needs of Northerners. This audit matters because the NWT has a high rate of substance use and addictions have widespread impacts on the lives of individuals, families, and community members.
The audit found that the department and the three health authorities:
- Had not figured out how to achieve equitable access to addictions services;
- Did not do enough to ensure addictions services were culturally safe for Indigenous residents;
- Provided only limited aftercare services;
- Had gaps in coordinating addictions services; and
- Did not do enough to collect and analyze data to know whether their addictions services were effective in helping residents achieve their desired outcomes.
The audit made seven recommendations to improve addictions services. The department and health authorities accepted all seven recommendations. In response, they developed the Addictions Prevention and Recovery Services Workplan. The workplan highlights new actions the department and health authorities are taking to address the audit recommendations.
Committee is responsible for reviewing the audit and the department's response. The review ensures that government is accountable to correct deficiencies, implement recommendations, and execute policies and programs in line with the Legislative Assembly's intentions.
On October 6, 2022, committee held a public hearing on the report. Officials at the Office of the Auditor General and the department briefed committee. They explained key audit findings and the department's workplan.
In response, committee developed thirteen (13) recommendations. Our recommendations reinforce accountability and request additional actions to improve programs and services that help Northerners avoid and heal from addictions. If implemented, these recommendations will:
- Provide immediate supports to young men;
- Ensure healthcare services are culturally safe;
- Secure federal support to set up healing centres in the NWT; and
- Strengthen the follow-up process.
Committee is pleased to submit these recommendations and looks forward to their implementation.
Responding to suicide deaths
On October 3, 2022, the chief coroner took the unprecedented step of releasing data earlier than usual on suicide deaths. The data points to a health crisis: In the first nine months of 2022, 18 Northerners died of suicide, more than in any full year in the last two decades.
In releasing these statistics early, the the chief coroner hoped to spur the government to respond. Indeed, the Minister of Health and Social Services has indicated that "a whole-of-government response is needed."
Committee also sought to respond to the chief coroner's report in the context of this audit review. The chief coroner's report includes a statistic that potentially connects suicide deaths to addictions services - that is, the number of suicide deaths with alcohol as a contributing factor.
To get a better understanding, committee examined more than twenty years of data on suicide deaths. Committee found that.
- Since 2001, 212 Northerners have died by suicide
- Alcohol was a contributing factor in over one in every two deaths, 112 in total.
- Males under age 40 made up over one in every two deaths, 114 in total.
The age profile of the NWT's suicide deaths is younger than Canada's. Here, men in their twenties and thirties are most likely to die of suicide. Across Canada, men in their forties and fifties are most at-risk.
These statistics, and the loss of life that they quantify, are deeply upsetting. Each life lost is a tragedy that extends to families, friends, and communities.
The link between many suicide deaths and alcohol points to the urgency of the audit's focus: to provide addictions prevention and recovery services that meet the needs of Northerners.
The department's workplan commits to promising plans to improve addictions services. But many planned activities, even if implemented successfully and to the full, have timelines of a year or more. Process-driven activities, such as revising hiring practices by the end of 2023-24, will take longer still to influence service quality.
While committee supports all the department's planned activities and understands this work takes time, committee wants to see actions with immediate impacts. Incorporating these immediate actions into the work plan would enhance its relevance, effectiveness, and credibility. Committee's recommendations for immediate actions focus on the demographic group most at-risk of living with suicidal thoughts or behaviour: young men.
I will now turn it over to the MLA for Thebacha. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
