Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
This is my first time being on this kind of panel, so I'll try to be quick and precise. I am from Nunavik, northern Quebec. I work for a school board, but I've been fighting for the rights of Inuit children and youth to have access to essential services such as water and waste water.
In our region, since we are under the Quebec government, many mornings and many days our students go without water in their homes because some communities do not have enough trucks to bring water or to collect waste water. It has become critical at some point since the pandemic because the Quebec government is neglecting Inuit in Nunavik.
We give a lot to.... We have given up our land. We have given up our water. Hydro-Québec makes money—it's a billion-dollar business—and provides from our land to the States, to Ontario and to other places. However, we, who are within the region, are not connected to the hydro facilities. Therefore, we depend on diesel to make sure our communities are functioning and have electricity.
Since the pandemic, we have seen that essential services have become more scarce or sometimes non-existent. Last winter, we had to close our schools because of no water, or no sewage available to pick up the waste water.
It affects the learning of children and youth. It also affects their health, their cleanliness and their drinking water as well. I don't know how Inuit can be neglected for so long. When children wake up in the morning, their parents have to go to work, and they have to go to school without having water in their homes. There are no flushing toilets, and there is no drinking water—nothing.
It has to be taken seriously because we have been neglected for far too long. The people who govern us or who are in administrations never have to live what we live. For them, it's so hard to understand how people in this day and age can live without drinking water or without access to a water or sewage system. This is something we would like to see investments in because it affects our whole community.
When there are blizzard days, it's normal to go without water, so we try to preserve our water and not use too much water to do laundry or other cleaning things in the house, but we should be able to live like the rest of.... I'll use Quebec as an example. Inuit of Nunavik should be able to live like the people of Montreal, having access to water all the time.
The governments have made it in such a way that, in the land claims agreements, we beg for it, when it's an essential service and a right. We need infrastructure to make sure we have water, drinking water, clean water 24-7, 365 days a year, for the children, the elders and everyone else in the community. We need to make sure that our communities are functioning properly and that we have access to healthy water and proper infrastructure so that our people are served properly.
Thank you.