Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee for undertaking this important study.
Thank you to all the witnesses who spoke here today. It's a very, very difficult subject to talk about.
I represent the Northwest Territories. I was glad to hear from some people that we're talking about issues in the north. Human trafficking is not a highly visible problem in the north. It exists, but it's below the surface, for the most part. Most people have to come to the south to get trapped into this whole nightmare.
We have a lot of issues in our communities. My riding is over 50% indigenous, and a lot of our youth have real challenges because now they have to live in two societies. They have to try to live in an indigenous society and also the modern world. It really causes a lot of problems in the communities, so we've started to see outmigration. We've really noticed the numbers increase over the last while with our youth going into regional centres to get away from the challenges in our communities. We have many, and many were raised here today: housing, lack of opportunities, and abuse. We have a lot of abuse. We have a lot of sexual abuse. We have a lot of residential school fallout and cultural disconnect. All these things are compounding the stress that's placed on our youth.
We've had a lot of studies happen in the last while. We've had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which came out with a bunch of recommendations. I personally sat on the indigenous affairs committee which studied suicide in indigenous communities, and saw that many of the issues we're talking about here, which are causing despair in our communities, are resulting in suicide. In my riding, we had three suicides last week. One was one of my friend's sons. It's difficult. It's really a difficult issue to have ongoing, having to deal with this whole crisis that's happening.
We've had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report with recommendations and the suicide study that the committee did, and there were recommendations. The murdered and missing indigenous women and girls study will have recommendations, but there's starting to be a pattern. The recommendations are all becoming similar, and they are pointing to issues that are deep-rooted in our communities.
I know that maybe some of you don't deal with indigenous people, but I'm wondering if there are any of you who have recommendations that this committee should really consider that maybe are not part of what we're hearing with all the other studies, or if there's just something that is very important that you need to raise. I'm wondering, is there anything specific to indigenous people that you can recommend to try to deal with this issue?