Thank you so much, Chair.
I want to start by thanking all of the witnesses for their testimony and sharing.
My first question is for Gabrielle Fayant from Seven Generations.
You spoke about youth suicide.
In 2019, Greg Macdougall of the National Observer reported rates of suicide for first nations youth that were 6.2 times higher than the non-indigenous population in the same age range. He was talking about ages 15 to 24. For Inuit, the rate is 23.9 times higher. Rates of suicide among indigenous youth are being normalized.
You also spoke about murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, and the lack of action and the impacts it has. It's just part of the discussion for indigenous people who share this common history of violence.
In the face of this, I would argue that we see a lack of action to respond to this emergency. I'll give you a couple of examples. The federal government put down $724.1 million to address the calls for action in the national inquiry. In 2020, just a little over $12 million has been spent.
You spoke specifically in this session about call to action 66 in the TRC: We call upon the federal government to establish multi-year funding for community-based youth organizations to deliver programs on reconciliation, and establish a national network to share information and best practices.
On October 16, 2022, it's still in progress, yet we know high suicide rates continue.
I'm wondering how this kind of lackadaisical approach to this crisis is costing lives of young indigenous women and girls and diverse gender folks.