Okay. Thank you.
As the former minister of health and social services for the government of the Yukon, I was responsible for identifying the opioid crisis, as well as the COVID pandemic. At the same time, I worked as a lead negotiator for my first nation, a small, isolated aboriginal community in north Yukon. We signed our self-government agreement 30-some years ago. We exercise our inherent right to self-determination. We have responsibilities for the general welfare of all citizens, our community, the land and the resources. As an isolated community, we're a resilient people, resilient in that we are connected to our roots, our traditions. At the same time, we are deeply affected by the opioid crisis and the toxic drug overdoses in the Yukon and across this country.
The serious challenges that we face and the high cost of living.... Food security is huge. Fiscal capacity is limited in our communities, causing significant challenges in addressing mental health. Substance use challenges have arisen in our history due to colonialism, racism and intergenerational trauma. All of this is a priority for my community.
In April 2020 and 2023, we declared a state of emergency and substance use crisis in my community. The reason is that we've suffered significant loss due to opioid, alcohol and drug use and abuse. Over the last five years, we've lost 15 Vuntut Gwitchin citizens linked to substance use.
Because of the small community, this is very complex, and it affects everybody, with compound impacts and effects. Every person in my community has been affected in one way, shape or form. Because we're an isolated community, our citizens are required to travel out of the community for amenities and medical supports. Therefore, we tend to see impacts and effects when they get to the city. There's an urban centre effect on average on northern isolated people.
We have worked tirelessly to support our citizens the best we can with healing and wellness. Our approach has been comprehensive and non-judgmental. We commit to facilitating easier access to treatment services. We set aside, last year, almost a million dollars for supporting our citizens to access treatment programs. That comes out of our FTA base funding that we get for programs and services.
Ensuring consistent availability of counsellors both locally and remotely is a priority for me as a chief. We are developing aftercare programs that provide supports to our community.
What I'm saying here is that we are working hard to combat substance use in our communities. We are utilizing the Yukon's Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act to address and combat drug trafficking and bootlegging. We've asked for changes to the security designation for our northern airports so they can implement passenger baggage and freight screening for northbound routes, equivalent to what's seen southbound. In other words, the drug traffickers can come into our community without restrictions whatsoever because we're remote fly-in.
Our tools are limited, but we are making significant headway, and we have sent over 70 people to a treatment facility in the southern parts of B.C. because the Yukon is not equipped. Treatment options are not available to us in the Yukon; we have limited availability. We need more. My first nation needs support to implement programs and improve the wellness of my people.
As we are on the ground, we know what's happening. We have the flexibility, but we are also trying to address the crisis. Adequate and secure funding for life-saving interventions is not going to save us. It's not going to help us. We need more supports in addressing the illicit drug overdoses and for program services.
We looked at a piecemeal funding program available to us through the federal government and the territorial government, which is not sufficient. We just asked last year, at the Prime Minister's forum, for direct access to funding and support. Put it in our base, and let us provide services. We don't have that flexibility. There needs to be consideration of the political, social, economic and cultural pressures that we're facing.
I want to quickly say that we've just finished a coroner's inquest in the city of Whitehorse, Yukon, for four overdose deaths at the emergency shelter facility. Two of those individuals were residents of my community.
We are proud of our community, because we are resilient. We've done amazingly. We own an airline. We don't have a housing crisis. However, our people are directly affected. We have to make a meaningful difference in the services that are provided, and the only way forward is by working together and jointly addressing this. We have looked at options, like a safe exchange in our community. We've educated our citizens. We have looked at alternative options. We are looking at recovery withdrawal supports in our community. We also have to look at a distribution program.
Everything we need to do is about building on healthier families and healthier communities. For the first time, we are actually focusing on our young people now, and we have a youth wellness program. We're bringing our youth together, and facilitators are coming in—