Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To our witness, thank you for being here.
I come from northern Ontario, which Ms. Idlout always reminds me is not as north as the territories, but it's still pretty north. It features a number of similar challenges when it comes to food costs and remote communities and has a lot of resource opportunity. There is a lot of gold, lithium, critical minerals and chromite. Of course, we have the Ring of Fire, as everyone knows, in northern Ontario.
Despite all of that opportunity under our feet, a lot of the northern communities, particularly the remote communities, continue to live in poverty, quite frankly. Across the north, there are countless youth getting into drugs. They've died of overdoses. Many have taken their own lives. Quite frankly, it's a suicide crisis.
I was on the phone with a chief last week to, yet again, offer my condolences for another youth who had taken their life because they didn't believe there was any opportunity in the north. They had given up, and quite literally there was gold under their feet.
It pisses me off. I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, but it does. I get frustrated when we have people pushing an antidevelopment message without understanding the social cost of that.
I would like, sir, for you to speak to what the development of mines in the north would bring, far beyond just the economics. Of course, if you increase wages, people can afford more things. They can afford more food. Could you speak to the overall social well-being that would be lifted by increasing mineral exploration and mineral development in the territories?