Thanks, Gary.
I'll be real quick with my remarks. I'm getting feedback here.
Definitely, that $2.5 million was a result of Chief Margaret Bear of Ochapowace first nation and Chief Ronald Mitsuing in Makwa Sahgaiehcan—which is in your riding, Gary—declaring states of emergency. That happened right during the AGA that year in December. They had a number of suicides. These weren't just young people; these were also older men.
Committee members, right now in Saskatchewan region we are in a full-blown mental health crisis with addictions to crystal meth and fentanyl overdoses. It's really bad out here, as I'm sure it is in all the other regions. You're hearing reports of overdoses. There's an overdose every day. Maybe two or three times every day somebody is dying in Saskatchewan with an overdose of fentanyl or crystal meth. You have that exacerbated by the pandemic and isolation for two years. Addictions have risen and mental health issues have risen.
Gary, of that $2.5 million, $2 million flowed directly. We knew that $2 million wasn't enough. It was a drop in the bucket for what we needed in Saskatchewan. We didn't want to be the judge and jury like Solomon, dividing where which part should go or who should have it. We just decided to break it up. We have our funding formula that we use for SIGA. We busted it all up by population and got the money out the door. Some good work came out of that.
I'll give you an example. Peter Ballantyne, which is one of our largest bands—it is in your riding—put on an event for three or four days for their young people because they were experiencing a crisis. A 10-year-old girl killed herself in Southend, and it kind of spurred the chief and council of the first nation to bring their youth together. They were able to take $150,000, which was their allocation out of the $2 million, to put on a four-day event and bring their youth to Saskatoon to build them up and teach them coping mechanisms. They did the ASIST training. They were able to talk to one another on how to prevent people from taking their own lives.
Some good outcomes came out of that, but, Gary and committee members, we need more and not just in Saskatchewan. We have a comprehensive life promotion program ready to go, but we just need the funding. I can probably say the same for all the regions. We are in a full-blown mental health crisis. We need those investments and those resources across the board.
I'll keep it at that. Thank you very much.