Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Supportive mental health post-COVID-19.
Mr. Speaker, it's been a long two years in the Delta. Public health orders limit social gatherings, the activities in the Nunakput riding across the territory. My constituents are the most isolated communities in the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, following the health orders after the shutdown of bingos and down of sports activities for the kids shut down, you know, the six weeks of darkness that we put up with, it's been really tough on the communities. At the end of the day, the community hamlets have lost revenues in regards to the only way they get a chance to fundraise is through bingos and they stretch all their monies to host different gatherings and stuff like that, but we're putting them in a catch-22 now.
We're the ones that -- with COVID-19, we shut down everything. Now we have to try to reallocate money where there's no money there. We're shutting down community ice rinks. We're looking at community halls in my riding. Mr. Speaker, that's not right.
We have to look at more important and the shutdown of the people who stayed home with each other under COVID-19, we're now important to building back relationships we rely on and life as a whole, keep our children safe, our families, our elders, our youth, and the social circles that we keep using in the community.
It's been a tough two years. You know, in the Beaufort Delta, we have the highest rates of teen births, highest level of heavy drinkers in the NWT, highest number of people hospitalized in self-injury, highest rates of suicide in the NWT in the Beaufort Delta, Mr. Speaker.
We need help. Our people need help, our constituents. You know, we're all in a tough position. We live it every day because I know when I was in the pandemic, I was at home in Tuk. I see people suffering every day.
You know, and another big one was the stresses of people and the youth and everybody like that, and then it got to, you know, to become social media, the means of, you know, it ended up sometimes people being bullied. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Mr. Speaker, again, social media has become the means of lateral violence in our communities. That's got to stop. And that's right across the whole territory. Mr. Speaker, people are not mentally healthy. We need to help them. We have to provide, getting the health care system to bring people in to help people to get through it because the epidemic time is coming now. And, you know, our government is talking about the public health emergency pandemic to an endemic, the great deal of healing that needs to happen in our communities, Mr. Speaker. We can't just -- it's not just going to stop. We got to heal together as a whole, and that's our nine communities in the Beaufort Delta have to do that together. And we need help from this government and our Health Minister to not just give a 1-800 number to call. We have to have boots on the ground in the communities. Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the Health Minister at the appropriate time. Thank you.