Perhaps I could add something to the seriousness of the issue, to Mr. Desjarlais' comment.
I remember that as a former minister of aboriginal affairs in New Brunswick, I had, as you can imagine, 16 first nations all together, but I also had four in my current constituency.
I remember that the chief of one community called me and asked me if I could drive down and see something in his community.
When I got there, I got into the truck with the chief, who was about my own age. He had this picture in his truck. It was a picture of him at the age of about 10 or 11 with four other friends all the same age. They were all deceased except for him, at this point in time, many to suicide. We had a pretty heartfelt conversation about the community and some of the struggles.
Obviously, Jordan's principle is always topical, but in terms of the housing issues in that particular community, this is why the minister of any of these departments related to indigenous affairs should always agree to whatever invitation they're getting. That day I went to a house, and there was mould everywhere. There was mould all over the house. I have chronic asthma, so as soon as I walked into that, I started breathing terribly. You could visibly see that it was black mould. It was everywhere. What was more interesting was that in that household, it would have been suitable for a family of maybe four people, five max, and there were probably 16 or 17 people living in that house that I was aware of, as per the chief.
There were federal programs they were trying to access to fix the mould problem, but the band council couldn't afford it. Their money was stretched to other programs and projects. There was this huge pot of money in the federal government. I forget the exact name of the program, but they couldn't achieve it. The people in the house didn't have the know-how to get rid of all this mould and they had nowhere else to go. The community was already down probably 400 units. This was a big community in the Mi'kmaq territory of New Brunswick.
I just wanted to say that at those times, what I observed really changes everything for me. I think the minister should simply just agree to whatever we're inviting them to, because it's so important.
I just wanted to share that. Thank you.