Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, originally this was supposed to be my Member's statement. So good timing to address now at this Committee as a Whole to the AOG report. So I would like to start.
Mr. Chair, earlier this year the Auditor General of Canada published the 2022 Addictions, Prevention, and Recovery Services in the Northwest Territories Report. The audit focused on the Department of Health and Social Services addictions, prevention, and recovery services to Northwest Territories residents. The report says that the department, quote, "did not do enough to provide residents with accessible, coordinated, and culturally safe addictions services," end quote.
Given the high rates of alcohol and substance abuse in the territory, I was very disappointed to learn of these findings. The Department of Health and Social Services addictions recovery and mental health supports are inadequate and unacceptable.
Mr. Chair, I have reviewed the department's two-year work plan that is intended to respond to the Auditor General's finding. I do not see in this work plan a strong connection with Indigenous governments and communities to leverage community resources and strengthen a culturally safe approach from treatment to aftercare to evaluations.
I want to see the Department of Health and Social Services make major changes to the way programs and services are delivered in the Northwest Territories. Residents of the Northwest Territories need quality healthcare services in their communities provided in ways that respect their languages and culture now, not in five or ten years.
Mr. Chair, working towards cultural safety, by definition means having the critical consciousness to examine power dynamics and inequities within visits between healthcare providers and their patients as well as across organizations and systems. Only the client or community can tell us whether a service or system is culturally safe.
The report on mental health and addiction focuses on the need for more consultation with Indigenous governments. Consultation is a two-way street that requires people to listen to one another. A Greek philosopher once said, quote, "we have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak," end quote. This is the approach that the Government of the Northwest Territories needs to take when doing these consultations - speak less and listen more.
Mr. Chair, the Department of Health and Social Services need to listen and learn from the Indigenous governments.
Indigenous governments and communities will tell you what is culturally safe health and social services care. I cannot speak on behalf of Indigenous government but it is clear, in my region, the Tlicho government does not have faith in the Department of Health and Social Services' ability to support good mental health and addictions for Tlicho citizens.
For the last year, Tlicho government has been working on its own community-based mental health and addiction strategy - Tlicho Healing Path. The Tlicho government have also requested that the child and youth care counsellor mental health program be transferred to them. To date, this program has not been transferred, and their concerns about program delivery remain unresolved.
And finally, as we have discussed, despite concerns being brought before them, Government of the Northwest Territories is currently without an Indigenous-focused facility-based addiction treatment services having been unable to resolve its contract disputes with Poundmaker's Lodge. Thank you.