Thank you very much for a real question about a real challenge facing not just indigenous communities but communities across Canada with the advent of a warming climate and increasingly climate-related disasters. In fact, many of the visits when I've had the pleasure of meeting with first nations have been to communities that are working to rebuild homes and other infrastructure after a devastating climate-related incident. On the east coast they had torrential flooding. I know that MP Battiste would know all about the kinds of impacts that flooding is having on first nations communities, in particular around housing but other infrastructure as well. I mentioned Lytton First Nation and Skwlax nearby, which suffered tremendous infrastructure loss.
This is not only creating instability for first nations communities, it's also destroying functional infrastructure that costs, in some cases, millions of dollars to replace. Obviously, the more remote a community is, the harder it is to build. It's something that I think is really absent from the consideration of the questions I've been hearing from the official opposition. Getting equipment and people and infrastructure supplies to remote communities that are often not road accessible is an additional cost that has to be borne.
I will also say that it delays communities that oftentimes have a variety of things under way—economic development, projects of their own, infrastructure plans for investing in building up their communities—and when a climate-related disaster strikes, all of that is put on pause while the community responds to that crisis and evacuates its residents, sometimes for months and months, if not longer.
Lastly, I will say that some communities, such as Peguis First Nation, due to the historical location of their community—you would know this very well, MP Carr, and you've been an advocate for communities in Manitoba—will see repeated flooding. That really undermines the progress they have been able to regain inch by inch after significant flooding events.