Qujannamiik. Thank you very much.
My name is Maatalii Aneraq Okalik, and I sit, as Elizabeth May has indicated, as the president of the National Inuit Youth Council within Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, so I represent Inuit youth across Canada.
I have the opportunity now to share a bit about who Inuit youth are and what their priorities are in relation to your standing committee as you review electoral reform.
As you are aware, there are 60,000 Inuit who live across Canada, and the majority of our population is made up of Inuit youth. It's very different from the realities of the southern Canadian population.
We are situated across four Inuit regions, and that is reflected in four provinces and territories. Definitely, representation is one of the highest issues with respect to elections and federal representation.
As Elizabeth May indicated, I testified before some of your counterparts on the standing committee on aboriginal affairs, specifically on suicide prevention, and at that time, I indicated the social inequities that Inuit face in Canada. I think that as we address the question on electoral reform, these inequities should be taken into consideration.
Inuit Canadians do not have the same quality of life as the majority of our fellow citizens: 39% of Inuit and Inuit Nunangat live in crowded homes, versus 4% of all Canadians; 29% of Inuit aged 25 to 64 successfully complete a high school diploma, versus 85% of all Canadians; 70% of Inuit households in Nunavut alone do not have enough food to eat, versus 8.3% of all Canadian households. The number of positions per 100,000 people in Nunavut is 30 in terms of access, versus 119 in urban health authorities across Canada, and 70.8 years is the average life expectancy for Inuit, versus 80.6 years for all Canadians.
Not only are we dying younger due to the aforementioned social inequities, but the leading cause of death is suicide. Across regions, we have a five to 25 times higher rate than the rest of Canada.
These are really important social inequities that we face on a daily basis. They have implications on our day-to-day lives, our quality of life, and they have a significant impact on how we are engaging in elections and how we're engaging with the federal government as a whole.
Compared to other jurisdictions with representation in the House of Commons or in the Senate, we are not represented accordingly. In relation to the Nunavut legislature, a lot of you, I noted, had a number of questions with respect to how the consensus-style government works, as well as representation. We are aware that there are 26 communities in Nunavut, with 22 representatives. Some of the communities that we have in Nunavut are multi-constituency communities by virtue of the unique needs and realities within smaller communities compared to some of your respective ridings.
There are 30 standing committees in the House of Commons alone, in contrast to those that sit in the Senate. When you have one MP for a region that is facing a number of social inequities that would be discussed on the standing committees, how are we to ensure that the basic needs of the population, who are supposed to be represented as equal Canadians, are being addressed effectively and are reflective of our realities and our culture?
When you make formal recommendations to the House, as well as ensuring accountability in spending, legislation, and issues related to departments and their respective mandates, how are we being represented when we have one MP trying to sit on all 30 of these committees when faced with these issues on a daily basis?
I sit on the board of directors for an Inuit organization and I lead the youth contingent. Inuit organizations like this one are required to work and lobby with a number of the departments that you work with through your standing committee to deal with these social inequities and the lack of an Inuit-to-crown relationship. In order to attack some of these issues, we need more representation.
A lot of you have indicated interest in the youth perspective on voting. In my position, I had the experience of helping create awareness and excitement about the last federal election, and I'd like to share some of my findings with you.
As a volunteer president with a day job working with the National Inuit Youth Council, I felt the responsibility to create basic awareness among Inuit youth, as Canadians, about the process of voting. They need to be aware of the way in which they can vote by having identification, as well as the locations where they have to show up in person to vote if they are students. Nunavut and the other Inuit regions don't have a university setting in southern Canada where they can vote outside their constituency and know that their voice is being heard. Actually, that's not my responsibility.
Inuit youth don't necessarily see themselves reflected in the materials that are being disseminated. Some of our regions have legislation in place, because we have the Inuit language here in Canada. We have official languages acts, as well as protection acts, but when the material reflective of that reality isn't being disseminated, Inuit youth don't see themselves in the process and don't have the appropriate information to be able to make their vote count. However, because of the composition of our population, Inuit youth can essentially decide the vote.
People are able to vote by going to an Elections Canada office. Are there many offices in our 53 communities in Canada? How many Service Canada offices are available for individuals to be able to attain the identification required to exercise their suffrage?
I made a call on behalf of an Inuit youth interested in attaining a social insurance number in order to get a passport. This was in Pangnirtung. This youth was told to go to the Gatineau office. That's a $3,000 cost for airfare, which is not an essential service in Canada. Our communities are fly-in only, and it's a two-day trek.
When only 1% of the Canadian population has been to our homeland and the issues that we're facing on a daily basis are not reflected in the House of Commons, I worry that the social inequities we face in this developed country will not be addressed accordingly.
Qujannamiik. Thank you very much for affording me the time to share my reflections.