Yellowknife (Mar 11/05) - When Health Minister Michael Miltenberger was questioned in the legislature last week about reopening addiction treatment centres in Yellowknife and Inuvik, his response raised a few eyebrows around town.

"When we can demonstrate that we'll have facilities that would be fully used and we won't need any southern resources, then I'll be happy to move forward with a project," said Miltenberger.

Gwich'in Tribal Council Regional Wellness Manager Denise Kurszewski said Miltenberger doesn't have to look very hard.

"I was disturbed to hear his comments," she said.

"If he's looking for numbers, all he has to do is look at cases of fetal alcohol syndrome, family violence, suicide and homelessness."

Kurszewski, like many in her field, says incidents of those particular social problems are associated with substance abuse and addiction.

"Research has shown time and time again that we need to go to the root causes," she said.

Defending his comments in the legislature, Miltenberger said that since 1999, the department has pumped $14 million into the health field and created more than 100 jobs, many of which are geared to helping those with addictions.

"We've been putting resources into the communities to deal with the problem and people need to work at this level and utilize these services already on the ground, like the community wellness workers," said Miltenberger of the recently-created position designed to counsel and refer those with addiction problems.

Formerly called alcohol and drug counsellors, the health ministry brought these workers under its umbrella in March of last year.

Derek Lindsay is chair of the Inuvik Alcohol Committee, which directs the town's emergency shelter known as Turning Point. The new government policy caused the shelter to lose its alcohol and drug counsellor.

"Community wellness workers are a farce, more like textbook counsellors," he said. "When you can show me a local addict who'd sooner go and talk to a textbook counsellor rather than a frontline worker, I'll eat my words."

As for NWT residents who end up taking treatment in the south or at NatsejeeK'eh rehab facility in Hay River, Miltenberger says they referred 236 last year.

"If we built alcohol and drug treatment centres in communities, they might be at 20 per cent capacity," he said, adding that Hay River's rehab facility operated at 61 per cent capacity for 266 treatment days in 2004.

Alana Mero, chair of the Interagency Committee in Inuvik and proponent of building an alcohol and drug treatment centre in town, challenged Miltenberger's position.

"If sending people south was working, our numbers would have dropped," she said. "If you build (a treatment centre) they will come because a lot of the time people don't want to leave their communities and so continue along the same path without any help."