Toronto Star – Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, MP for Nunavut criticized the federal government for its ongoing failure to address the worst living conditions in the country in the Inuit homeland:
• Highest suicide rates in the world
• Housing cots beyond the reach of Inuit
• Mouldy and overcrowded public housing
• Lack of clean water year-round
• Food insecurity and exorbitant food costs
“The structures of the federal institutions create huge barriers for any MP from Nunavut…the largest single-member electoral district in the world cannot be adequately served with an office budget that is less than some urban ridings in the south, where constituent outreach can happen by subway or streetcar instead of expensive flights.” Her biggest and loudest criticism is levelled at the federal politicians – liberal and conservative – whose rhetoric about “reconciliation” or “transformational change” never comes close to matching the reality of their actions that for the most part merely pay lip service.
“Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI), the Inuit organization that is officially mandated to represent our interests with the Crown, made a formal request for a $500-million emergency housing investment. Nunavut got a $25-million “down payment” for the territorial government to apply for more funding… Government members have told me over and over that they know action on housing is needed, but in two years they have done almost nothing to address the crisis. The Minister for Indigenous Services, Marc Miller, told me he hadn’t even bothered to read my report.
The frustration has led MP Qaqqaq to call on non-Indigenous Canadians to bombard their elected politicians “with emails, phone calls and meetings” to do something since “federal institutions certainly won’t”.