Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  --but I have no problem speaking about sustainable development.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay. I think it can all stem back to education. We have Inuit who would greatly benefit from proper education and training dollars in order to be able to take on these managerial positions and day-to-day decision-making roles in our institutions of public government. That's pretty much the--

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Let's hope the funding that was slated for the University of the Arctic, as it has been, in fact is going to be rerouted towards the implementation of our strategy. That's what we're hoping for. It's not clear to us at this point in time. We have yet to hear back on our proposal to the federal government for the implementation of our strategy.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, it is one of our longer-term recommendations. At this point in time, we are very much concentrating on just getting our kids to school and having them graduate. That's not to say it's not an important initiative, but the very limited and scarce resources we have to go towards education will be used in developing a curriculum that's Inuit-centred and bilingual.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. I'm not quite sure I understand your question--

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, we have other tools that Inuit can use, one of them being the impact and benefit agreements negotiated with our regional Inuit organizations. They provide for training dollars as well. We also have the recently released circumpolar Inuit declaration on resource development principles.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's a huge issue. We already have overcrowded jails. We already have a lot of our youth and Inuit in the system. We have also instituted community justice committees to look at ways to help these people in the system. The proposed crime bill is actually working in the other direction.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. Yes, it is definitely a huge challenge in many different aspects. Our elders are finding it very difficult to hand down knowledge when it seems to be changing every day in terms of how and when to continue traditional hunts. “Traditional hunt” isn't even the correct term because contemporary, modern-day...every day is a hunting day in our Arctic regions, our Inuit regions.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll make it very quick. One of the recommendations in the strategy, in the long term, is to eventually build a university in the north. We have colleges right across the north that Inuit have access to and we also have a new school in Nunavut in trades training. But there's also an opportunity under devolution agreements to develop a strategy specific to mining so that our Inuit can take advantage of that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, please. The food mail program, Nutrition North, is obviously a very important program that helps alleviate a much bigger concern of ours at ITK, and that's food insecurity. As I mentioned in my presentation, it's a real concern. Of our children, 70% live in food insecure homes in Nunavut alone.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much for your question. Education is most definitely a priority of ITK, and this strategy was released on the Hill in June of this year. Mary released it, and I think a number of you were actually at that release. It's a national strategy, meaning that each Inuit region has come together at the committee level to determine what they would like to see in education in our regions.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  What's important to remember when we're talking about housing is that there are four different Inuit regions. I think a lot of time the focus goes toward Nunavut, and that may be the case in terms of no new housing for Nunavut, but there are other housing investments being made in other territories.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. I've had the fortunate experience of working for the Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated land claims organization. We have John Merritt here who works for Nunavut Tunngavik as well. I hope I do this answer some justice. I'm glad you bring up land claims because, as I stated, they are a tool, but as with everything else, you can't get the job done with just tools; you obviously need materials and supplies.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  At the board level, yes, because each of these governance structures is governed by boards. In terms of contributions, if Inuit were representative at the employment levels with the federal government and the territorial government, which is what these land claims agreements were intended to do as well, then I think we would be in a better position to use them as tools.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As I mentioned with these land claims agreements, there are two different classifications, and I'm really simplifying it. I apologize to the lawyers in the room. We classify the lands as Inuit-owned land or crown lands. So in terms of Inuit-owned lands, the land claims agreements specifically outlined how Inuit were to benefit from resource extraction if it's done on Inuit-owned land.