Mr. Speaker, all across northern Canada are these isolated little Bantu-style homelands where people live on top of each other in mouldy shacks and where dying in slow motion is a way of life. The Minister of Aboriginal Affairs was not aware of any of this. He told the committee yesterday that he first became aware of Attawapiskat's cry for help on Thursday.
So now that he has deposed the elected council and blamed the community for years of chronic underfunding, where is his long-term plan to get this community out of this disgraceful level of poverty?