Nunavut’s plan for treatment centres stalls

The hamlet of Cambridge Bay wants to see this former student hostel turned into a residential addictions treatment and healing centre for the Kitikmeot region, but that plan will have to wait for at least another year. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Nunavut residents who hoped to see two new addictions and treatment centres in the territory will likely have to wait longer.

That’s because the Government of Nunavut has put on hold its request for proposals for centres in Iqaluit and Cambridge Bay.

In Cambridge Bay, there’s already a plan to convert the former student hostel into a residential addictions treatment and healing centre and many people in the Kitikmeot region are eager to get help closer to home.

But after hamlet officials hadn’t received any news about their proposal, which they submitted this past February, they learned that the RFP was cancelled.

The hamlet had delivered a detailed 55-page proposal for a 28-day residential program, which included letters of support from the RCMP and the GN’s justice department.

A health department spokesman who responded to a request for more information said an interview with the new deputy minister, Peter Ma, can’t take place until April 8.

Keith Peterson, MLA for Cambridge Bay and Nunavut’s finance minister, did confirm that the RFP is “on hold.”

But he said the GN often cancels RFPs for one reason or another, either due to lack of response or a change in what the government wants.

“Every situation is different. A department can say we have go back to the drawing board here because obviously we didn’t do enough planning or thinking on this,” Peterson told Nunatsiaq News in an interview.

In this case, the health department may have “jumped the gun” in issuing the RFP, he said.

“I would say that the cart got ahead of the horse,” he said.

A new RFP could be issued next year, after more planning is done on the project.

“I don’t believe it’s dead in the water — I believe it’s a situation where the administration got out of hand on the planning,” Peterson said.

If the two new addictions treatment and healing centres end up going through regular planning cycles for capital and operating and management costs, the treatment centre project wouldn’t move ahead until 2013 at the earliest.

And the delay may be beneficial, Peterson said.

“I’m going to be patient on this. I’d like to see solid planning in something like this because it’s so important to so many people so that when it is set up, it will succeed,” he said. “Right across Nunavut we need facilities that will help people. We have to do some thinking about the root causes of why there’s binge drinking and alcohol and tackle those issues as well.”

But Nunavut was to have started work this year on the two centres.

Health minister Tagak Curley said Feb. 22 in the Nunavut legislature that about $1.6 million in startup funds would be included in the upcoming territorial budget for addictions treatment and healing centres, likely in Cambridge Bay and Iqaluit.

“Our people are hurting,” Curley told reporters. “It’s important to get something going.”

The 2011-12 business plan for the health and social services department said that one of its priorities was to be the development of addictions treatment programs and services.

The $1.6 million earmarked for the centres now stays within the health department, where it can be reallocated if the GN’s financial management board approves the change.

According to RFP 2011-1, the centres were to treat both adults and youth “who have significant mental health [problems] and/or addictions.”

Programming at the centres was to contain an emphasis on “culturally specific activities, including Inuit values, teaching from elders, and land program elements.”

According to the RFP, programming would also include talk therapy and stress abstinence from drugs or alcohol, if possible, and harm reduction, if not.

The centres were to teach people life skills such as budgeting, resume writing and cooking.

The last treatment centre to be located in Nunavut was the Inusiqsiuqvik treatment centre in Apex, which operated between 1991 and December 1998.

That centre fizzled because few clients used it, causing funding problems for the board that operated it.

The old Inusiqsiuqvik building now houses the Qimaavik women’s shelter.

As for the former student hostel in Cambridge Bay, it appears to be in fairly good shape — at least from the outside.

The GN’s 2004-05 capital budget included $500,000 to revamp and renovate the building into a patient residence.