Qujannamiik.
I'm going to speak about some of the barriers I believe contribute to Nunavut's low voter turnout.
I'm going to start with the very first election that we were allowed to vote in. The first time the Innu had the right to vote dates back to 1953, the 22nd Parliament.
Then, in 1977, 10 years after the Toronto Maple Leafs won their last Stanley Cup, the first senator from the area that's now known as Nunavut was appointed. In 1977, in the 31st Parliament, the Innu had a representative in Parliament for the first time. I don't remember it, but that was not very long ago.
In 1993 Nunavut finally had a dedicated seat in the Senate, whereas before the Nunavut rep was one of the three NWT reps.
Since 1977, when Nunavut got its first representative, we've had two different senators and six different MPs. Since 2015, we haven't had a representative in Parliament who could speak Inuktitut. Nunavut makes up 21% of Canada's land mass.
It's 6:47 here and Nunavut stretches across three time zones. It's 5:47 in Arviat, 4:47 in Taloyoak, all in the same territory.
If you want to travel east or west in Nunavut, it will take you two days. You'll have to leave the territory. The Nunavut MP represents two million square kilometres. The MP from NWT represents 1.3 million square kilometres. The Yukon MP represents 483,000 square kilometres. St. John's, Newfoundland, has 446 square kilometres and has two MPs. Charlottetown has 44 square kilometres and an MP.
Other barriers I've observed are that many of the political platforms in campaigns include plans to address issues that have been challenging Nunavut for as long as I can remember. Anyone in their thirties would have lived in conditions or witnessed high levels of poverty and overcrowded housing. A lot of people suffer from PTSD, with little or no mental health services to deal with these...I hesitate to say “historical” traumas, because a lot of these traumas are from the 1950s and as early as the 1980s, and a lot of them continue today.
There is a lack of reconciliation between Canada and the Inuit. There has been no substantial investment in the people of the Arctic. The investment that we've seen historically in the Arctic often has been motivated by a military agenda. More recently it is related to resource extraction.
There's a continued denial of a devastating dog slaughter carried out by the RCMP from the 1950s. If MPs represent Canadians, MPs in the practical sense are represented by government departments, programs, and services, and our interactions with government often haven't very positive from the very early days.
We haven't done very much to adjust this. It took a lot from the Nunavut land claim organization, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, for the Government of Canada to invest some funds in an Inuit employment plan, which is in the agreement that the government signed.
Nunavut has three regions: the Kivalliq, the Kitikmeot, and the Qikiqtaaluk, more commonly known as Baffin. I believe that if we had three seats in the Senate in our current model, it would adjust some of the representational issues we suffer from in our great land mass. The reason I say this is that if we can have three guaranteed representatives in the Senate, that will ensure we have three MPs in Parliament under the current model that was adopted in 1985.
The reason I bring up things like overcrowded housing, poverty, and abuse is that if you're not sure where you're sleeping, or if you're sleeping in shifts, and if you're not sure what your next meal is going to be or when it's going to be, and if you're not sure when the next time you're going to be sexually abused or physically abused will be, who really cares when the next election is?
I hate to leave you on such a sad note, but that's the reality of the territory. I'm going to leave it at that.
Thank you.