Madam Speaker, I stood in the House a couple of months ago and asked the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs what she and her government planned to do to help the community of Wollaston Lake, which at the time was facing a challenge. Due to climate change and warm weather, an ice road in northern Saskatchewan was deemed unsafe to transport provisions. A community of 1,800 people were running out of fuel and supplies due to the unsafe winter road.
First nation chiefs in Saskatchewan said that the unusual mild weather had softened a northern Saskatchewan ice road leaving two reserves facing safety and access challenges: Hatchet Lake First Nation and Fond du Lac Denesuline First Nation. It is clear and undisputable that reliability of this road has been impaired. The danger imposed by soft winter roads is increasingly isolating Northern communities. This is rendering their lives more difficult as supplies are harder to transport to remote communities. This is without question, an urgent matter.
What does it mean when an ice road is unsafe for Northern remote communities in Saskatchewan?
This ice road represents a life line for those communities. It is a significant factor in the local cost of living, on the economic development in the communities, and on housing and infrastructure. Sporadic availability of truck transport imposes significant extra costs on the communities.
An expensive and uncertain transportation situation is a major barrier to all forms of development in northern communities. It brings food prices considerably up. It brings fuel prices up, fuel that is used for transportation and for heating on reserves. Medical supplies do not make it on reserves for the sick and health care workers who struggle to provide the care needed. Unsafe ice roads make it harder if not impossible for the RCMP and paramedics to reach those who require urgent help instantly.
As members can see, this is becoming a safety issue. There have been reports of trucks transporting provisions that have fell through the ice. Chiefs have also warned their communities to avoid the winter road as they are unsafe for travel.
This is not an issue that is exclusive to northern Saskatchewan. Northerners across the country have seen the roads they count on for provisions and for movement becoming more and more unsafe and unreliable for their livelihood due to climate change.
The current government promised an open nation-to-nation relationship throughout its election campaign. The Prime Minister pledged to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations. Despite that promise, we are still waiting.
The government still fails to act on issues that are of great concern for northern remote communities that often feel abandoned and that often feel that their issues are just not important enough in the eyes of the federal government. Like all Canadians, northerners count on an equitable treatment of their concerns.
This government had a chance to demonstrate goodwill in tackling this concern with its first budget. However, nowhere in the budget do we see allocation of specific funds for winter roads, and this, despite the continuous outcry and warnings from first nations chiefs and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations on this issue that is crippling communities.
Action is needed even more urgently than even before, and the problem will not disappear on its own. It will only increase. Specific funding and a comprehensive strategy for ice roads is required now. In the long run it is going to enhance and better the lives of the people in the north.
This is about lives. This is about safety. This is about economic development in northern remote communities.
What steps has the Prime Minister taken to work with isolated first nations to meet their needs for safer and reliable roads that will bring more prosperity to their communities?