Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his advocacy on the north.
The impacts of climate change are real. We see it across the country. P.E.I. is shrinking by an average of 43 centimetres a year. We have seen flooding and forest fires in the west. However, nowhere is the impact of climate change felt more than in the north. It does not have highways like we do. They are ice highways.
I heard a very compelling story yesterday from the president of the ITK organization, Natan Obed. He talked about one of the leading hunters in the north, an Inuit hunter, who fell through the ice and died. He left his family and the community grieving. Why? Because the changes in the climate are so extreme that someone who has lived off of the land and relied on hunting to provide for the community can no longer rely on traditional knowledge to assess when it is safe to go on the ice.
These impacts are real. It is not an inconvenience. It is changing ways of life and we need to take action now. We owe it to future generations.