CONFUSION SURROUNDS FATE OF APEX TREATMENT CENTRE

RANKIN INLET- The fate of a residential drug and alcohol treatment
centre in Apex is still up in the air.

Although the Nunavut justice department's director of corrections and
community justice, Ron McCormick, told Nunatsiaq News last fall that a
proposal to use the centre to treat BCC inmates for addictions had
gone to cabinet for approval, the government made no such move, Health
and Social Services Minister Ed Picco told the legislature this week.

"Nothing has been presented to cabinet for approval," said Picco
responding to repeated questions in the legislature from MLAs who were
wondering what had happened to the proposal and why it was never acted
upon.

Picco told MLAs that officials from his department and the Department
of Justice are talking about the idea, that a decision on it would be
made in one week.

However, last week, prior to Picco's statement, the health
department's Judy Watts told delegates at a meeting of the Baffin
Regional Health and Social Services Board that the Justice Department
would not be using the centre, and said that no reason had been given
as to why.

"I can't comment on what Judy Watts said. Judy Watts doesn't speak for
the government of Nunavut," Picco said.

Picco said that he is considering a number of options for using the
centre ,including a plan championed by Iqaluit residents Dr. Sam Law
and Bill Ridell that would see the Iqaluit Women's Shelter move into
the treatment centre in Apex, the Iqaluit Homeless Shelter move into
the old women's shelter building, and the coast guard building in
Iqaluit used as a space to train community addictions workers, said
Picco.

Picco said that although no one had complained about the idea of
having inmates use the treatment centre in Apex, he still had to take
into consideration possible safety concerns.

Justice Minister Jack Anawak said that his department had not come up
with an alternative space for treating BCC inmates for substance abuse.

"It's just a proposal. We, the health minister and myself, are just
talking," Anawak said. Some of the confusion over the status of the
project may have arisen because the proposal had gone to the minister
of justice and minister of health for discussion, and both positions
are "cabinet posts."

The treatment centre was originally constructed to be a detox facility
for the entire Baffin region. It was closed by the Baffin health board
in Dec. 1998 because it was not getting enough patients referred to
it.

Picco said the treatment facility has been used since to train
community addictions councilors.

Last fall McCormick said BCC had no capacity to run treatment programs
for offenders.