Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the witnesses for appearing in front of us today.
We've been talking about the issue of suicide for several months now as a committee. We've heard a lot of testimony, some of it very heartbreaking, as we're hearing today. A lot of the youth have also testified in front of us. They're going through some very difficult times, and this issue doesn't have a magical solution. There are many factors that we can point to. Some of those factors were raised earlier today: housing, lack of jobs, difficulty in getting a good education, physical and sexual abuse. All these things are ingredients of it.
We also heard from the youth who came in front of us about the loss of identity and the inability to be proud of who they are, and that really is of concern. I'm from the Northwest Territories, and this is discussed with the aboriginal people there. People always connect language, land, and culture as part of their identity. Many of our youth can't do that anymore because they've lost the ability to go out on the land or to speak the language, or they don't know their own culture or their history.
I think there are many things we can try to do, many recommendations we can make, but one of the main goals is to try to get people to be proud of who they are, especially our youth. Everybody should be proud, Inuk proud or proud if they're a Dene or a Métis.
I'm very curious to hear from all of you, if you were here holding the pen, what kind of recommendations we should be making as a committee and what you would say about recovering identity. I know we talked a bit about it, James, and I'm really curious to hear what you would say to help us formulate what we should say.
Thank you.