Mr. Speaker, I am truly honoured to participate in the adjournment debate today to speak about the right to housing, and more specifically, access to quality housing in remote northern communities. This is relevant because it ties into something that I initiated several months ago.
In fact, some of my colleagues and I did a tour of different communities in Quebec. I started this series of visits with my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue. We visited the Algonquin communities, including Long Point in Abitibi, where there are some obvious shortcomings in terms of investment in infrastructure.
Just recently, I travelled with my colleague from Joliette to the community of Manawan, near Joliette. It is about 1 hour and 30 minutes from here by helicopter. You have to go by helicopter, which means you fly over the forests and can see the flora and fauna.
We arrived in Manawan about four days ago to meet with the people who live there. There are approximately 3,000 people in this community. We visited with Chief Paul-Émile Ottawa. We visited the various organizations in the community, including the elementary school.
Today, we are talking about quality of housing. However, I will focus on the quality of and significant problems with infrastructure in general in remote communities.
The community of Manawan is cut off from the rest of the world. The village has road access, but the road is a logging road. The community is several hours away from Joliette.
A visit to the elementary school revealed some serious problems with hygiene and the dilapidated state of the facility. The school was first built in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Construction happened in stages until recently.
My colleague and I and other stakeholders who were there noted the presence of mould, which we have also seen in homes in various places. There were also problems with access to toilets for the children. They had to take a card or a number to go to the toilet because there was a limited number of toilets available.
Today I would like to talk about the obvious infrastructure problems in these remote communities.
The community of Manawan went to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada offices last year. The community also demonstrated in front of offices in Quebec City. I feel that the demonstration was not well received. When we talked to community representatives, they told us that their education budget was slashed by $430,000 over the past year.
In my opinion, which is a well-informed one, these are repressive measures meant to punish communities that are a bit too feisty, that speak up in public.
This logical connection was brought to my attention and derives from my own observations over the past year. The Conservatives sometimes punish communities that do not support them, communities that are less docile, and they are generous toward communities that support their policies. That is what I have observed. I wanted to put that before the House today.