Mr. Speaker, increasing a living allowance by a tiny amount and then watching the food prices go through the roof is exactly what the government keeps trying to defend. It is defending the indefensible.
The fact on the ground is, before people could feed their families, and now they are hungry. This is serious. There is no housing up there. There are 12 people living in one house. It is the reason northerners wanted the long form census. They want people to know the dire straits in terms of housing needs that exist up there.
Frankly, for the government to have cancelled the very successful aboriginal skills and employment partnership, means that what we have described from the chambers of commerce out there, even Whitehorse, where first nations are there, the mining companies are there, it is a situation of jobs without people and people without jobs.
We actually need a federal government that is prepared to invest in the people so that they can be equipped to realize the potential of the north, but also be able to direct the priorities themselves by both education and training.