Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the presenters. This is a very serious, very important issue that's been around for a long time. I've sat in many meetings, many conferences where we've heard study after study, conferences after conferences, symposiums, all looking at this issue. We've heard today that 34 departments are involved in dealing with the conditions that aboriginal people are facing in the social and economic area.
Yet in my riding in the last 15 years, we've seen an increase in suicides. We're up to 123. You add Nunavut to that, there's another 500, well over 600 suicides in the last 15 years while we've been studying this.
Since this committee started this undertaking, I've had two suicides in my riding. This is a short period. It's a serious issue. I don't see who is taking ownership of it. I heard you talk and this department talks and another department is talking, but where is the strategy? Where is the combined effort to work together? Who is leading the strategy and where's the action plan?
Why aren't we involving aboriginal organizations in this? I work closely with aboriginal governments. I talk to them every day. I don't see aboriginal governments being included, except to be consulted when there's a study. There is no strategy for the friendship centres to be used. The aboriginal head start is sitting in hell. Why are they in hell? They're an aboriginal program. There is no strategy for aboriginal head start to do anything anymore, yet some of the solutions involve languages, education. That's not being inclusive.
Explain to me how we're moving forward in a unified position to deal with this issue.