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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A city council candidate's platform to send convicts released from the North Slave Correctional Centre to their home communities illustrates the need for society to be more sensitive to its troubled citizens, according to some of the main support organizations in the city.

Brian Birch, director of programs at the Salvation Army, said he understands what council candidate Beaton MacKenzie is attempting to bring the issue to the forefront, but that the real issue is about an obvious void in mental health and addictions resources.

And Lydia Bardak, the executive director of the John Howard Society and a candidate for re-election to city council, said although MacKenzie's platform might be founded in safety concerns, it is not an ex-offender issue.

Currently, under the NWT Corrections Act, the warden provides transportation for inmates to where they were convicted, and the director of corrections with the Department of Justice must approve applications from inmates if they seek to go somewhere else.

In 2011, according to Blair Van Metre, warden of the North Slave Correctional Centre in Yellowknife, about one per cent - or less than five - of releases from the centre were offenders from other communities requesting to stay in Yellowknife.

Bardak, who has been working in the disability field for about 30 years, said people on the streets of the city - some of whom are homeless - are where they are for a multitude of reasons: as victims of molestation or violence when young, as victims of substance abuse, or suffering from untreated mental illnesses such as depression or schizophrenia.

People are attracted to Yellowknife because it is much bigger than the territory's other communities and offers opportunities for medical help, counselling or treatment, jobs, or to pursue a relationship, said Bardak.

The support systems of family and community are no longer close at hand in the city, but other resources are available, said Birch.

"This is where all the people seem to come. We have the territorial hospital here. We have all the big industry here. This is where people flock to for jobs. This is where they come, this is where they fall into some of their problems and concerns and we'd certainly like to be here to help them."

Bardak said, through working at the John Howard Society, she has met many people who have had conflict with the law because of the mandate of the society - to support and assist individuals to find the help they need.

"The police cannot refuse a call. They must respond. There's no one else you can call when someone is having a psychotic break or having some kind of issues with severe depression. But those are not criminal matters, those are mental-health matters," said Bardak.

Both Birch and Bardak said through MacKenzie's election platform comes a conversation that is sorely needed. It's not the police alone who can ensure the streets are safe, or the politicians who can solve this. Everyone needs to come together to understand what the issues really are, said Bardak.

"When it's a lack of housing, well then let's address that. If it's a lack of supported housing, let's address that. If it's a lack of training opportunities and job opportunities, we have to identify what's the real problem because when we don't know it, then we can't find the right solution."

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