Matna, Mr. Speaker, for letting me continue.
Just like suicide and death, losing children to foster care is becoming the norm for Inuit families. This is a direct outcome of basic human rights being violated. Put that on top of injustices from history.
Before the 1950s, Inuit lived the way we have lived for thousands of years: no housing crisis, no suicide epidemic. Then, the Canadian government increased its presence in the north, not to support Inuit but because Canada wanted to develop natural resources and, most importantly, demonstrate its sovereignty in the region. It wanted the land; it did not care for the people in it.
What happened? Inuit were forced into settlements and lived in what they called matchbox houses. Clearly, from this time onward Inuit have never had adequate or safe housing. Inuit sled dogs, or qimmiq, were slaughtered by the RCMP as a means to keep Inuit in the settlements and prevent them from traditional hunting to feed themselves. This meant that Inuit were forced to rely on the government, much as we continue to see today.
Inuit were ripped from the settlements and sent on boats to southern Canada to be treated for tuberculosis. Often there were helicopters that scouted the area to take away Inuit who were in hiding and did not want to go. At hospitals and sanatoriums in the south there were a wide variety of things that happened. Inuit were forbidden from speaking Inuktitut. They were beaten, sexually assaulted and belittled, and many children never made it home. We have also heard about experiments being done on people in these sanatoriums.
Along with this, Canada had residential schools in the north. Inuit children were forced to go to church-sponsored school for months or years at a time to be assimilated. Their hair was cut and their clothes were changed, and they were forced to do hard labour. Their language was beaten out of them often.
Of course, people today are stressed, depressed and anxious. This is not ancient history. Children who went through this horror now have children my age. We are barely surviving. Privileged Inuit like me are those who are not fighting for basic human rights every single day and who see how unfair this all is. We stand up for other Inuit.
This is why I am here. I am here in an institution that has tried to eliminate my people for the last 70 years, standing up to say that the federal government is responsible for the ongoing colonization that is happening. The residential schools and genocide waged against us have evolved into the foster care system and the suicide epidemic we see today.
Residential schools and indigenous genocide are a 21st-century problem. Acting is in the hands of the government. The Liberals can choose to support efforts toward real change, like the motion we proposed today, or they can join governments of the past in perpetuating violence against indigenous peoples. Do not tell me they cannot afford to honour the promises made during colonization about housing. Provide all Nunavummiut with decent homes. Canadian billionaires added $78 billion to their wealth in just the last year and we are not taxing them. This is about priorities. Do not tell me the government cannot afford to provide safe spaces for Inuit.
The inaction of successive Liberal and Conservative governments is a direct reason for Nunavut's deaths, violence and turmoil. I demand that the government treat us like human beings, fulfill its promises and give us basic human rights.