THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON ABORIGINAL PEOPLES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 11, 2016
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 6:45 p.m. to study best practices and on-going challenges relating to housing in First Nation and Inuit communities in Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut and the Northwest Territories.
Senator Lillian Eva Dyck (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Bonjour and good evening. I would like to welcome all honourable senators and members of the public who are watching this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, either here in the room or via CPAC or on the web.
In the spirit of reconciliation, I would like to note that we are meeting on the unceded land of the Algonquin peoples of Canada.
My name is Lillian Dyck from Saskatchewan, and I have the privilege and honour of chairing this committee. I now invite my fellow senators to introduce themselves, starting on my left.
Senator Moore: Thank you, chair. Wilfred Moore from Nova Scotia. Thank you both for making the effort to be here.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Welcome. Senator Lovelace Nicholas from New Brunswick.
Senator Beyak: Senator Lynn Beyak from Ontario. Welcome.
Senator Raine: Senator Nancy Green Raine from B.C. Good to see you again.
The Chair: Thank you, senators. The mandate of this committee is to examine legislation and matters relating to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada generally.
This evening, we are continuing to hear testimony on our northern housing study, with a mandate to study on best practices and ongoing challenges relating to housing in First Nation and Inuit communities in Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut and the Northwest Territories.
We are thrilled this evening to be hearing the youth perspective. We were delighted that we had a chance to speak with you two young leaders a few weeks ago when we were in Kuujjuaq. From the Qarjuit Youth Council, we have Louisa Yeates, Vice President; and Olivia Ikey, Ungava Representative.
Ladies, if you would proceed with your presentation, afterwards we will have questions from senators. You have the floor.
Olivia Ikey, Ungava Representative, Qarjuit Youth Council: Thanks for inviting us. We are very happy to be here, kind of nervous.
The Chair: Don't be nervous.
Ms. Ikey: I'm going to go over what we went through a couple of weeks ago again, since some of you weren't here. This is just a brief explanation of the housing situation in Nunavik.
Nunavik suffers from a shortage of housing for its locals. The housing shortage causes many problems within families, communities and the entire region. Inuit face many difficult obstacles when trying to receive housing for themselves. These obstacles are in forms of requirements in order to receive a type of housing. These different requirements promote different forms of discrimination and racism within our region.
With the growing number of Inuit within our region becoming more self-sufficient and capable of managing their affairs, these old requirements are hindering the chances of capable, independent, motivated and educated Inuit to receive different types of housing available within the region.
With a population of 13,000 Inuit living within our region of Nunavik, the youth population is a huge portion of eligible renters or homeowners. The youth population makes up more than 65 per cent of our entire population. Most of the youth are not eligible because of many different requirements that I will state below.
With the population growth so rapid, the housing situation is getting worse each and every year. The shortage of housing causes many problems within families and communities. With overcrowded houses, many problems occur, such as transmission of sickness — like TB and sexually transmitted diseases — and it causes mental health problems, sexual abuse and family violence.
The population of Nunavik right now is 13,168 and we are growing every day. Ninety per cent of the population is Inuit, and there are approximately 3,000 housing units in the region.
Each summer the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau and Makivik build houses for locals depending on the application lists in each community and given a certain amount of buildings they will build in each community.
The housing provided to Inuit is very old and not well maintained. Maintenance of housing units is very hard, and it is not taken care of on a yearly basis to prevent future damage.
This summer, 120 new houses are promised to be built within six communities by KMHB and Makivik.
I'm going to explain to you the three types of housing that are offered within our region. The first type of housing is social affordable housing. The social housing program is run by the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau and the Société d'habitation du Québec. This program runs by a point system and has many requirements each tenant must fall under, such as having low income, being in a crisis, whether it's mental problems or dealing with the law, having health problems or having children.
Our second type of housing is private home ownership. The private home ownership program is also run by KMHB and SHQ with funding from governments. This program helps Inuit by subsidizing the purchase or building of a new home within the region. This program has many different requirements and defaults, such as not being able to insure the home because no one is able to inspect it since we're too far up North.
The third type is company, organizational housing. Most companies and organizations within the region offer housing with a job, but not to local Inuit who reside in the community where the job is available. There is a requirement set to receive this type of housing, which is that one must live 50 kilometres away from the workplace in order to receive this housing. This requirement hinders young, independent, educated Inuit to receive this type of housing, even if they've been away from home for many years at college or university. Some organizations are working on this problem.
Social housing impacts on Inuit youth. Young Inuit tend to rethink their life choices in considering the requirements for social housing. Youth start to have children at a young age in order to receive more points to get this housing. Youth stop going to school in order to get a basic job to receive this type of low-rent housing. These requirements create a lack of opportunity for youth to have a good, sustainable life and choose to better themselves.
This reduces the motivation of youth to succeed in school, in work and in life generally. Inuit tend to have grave problems within their families and communities, and they receive assistance from social workers and doctors to create more points to get the social housing.
Inuit students who attend college cannot receive housing due to not creating enough points and not having seniority because they've been away from the community for so long. Inuit students who come back from college must move back in with their parents, and most do not want to do this, so they do not return home. Therefore, we're losing a lot of educated Inuit that are now moving to the cities.
Company organization housing requirements and the impacts they have on Inuit youth. Inuit employees are not eligible for this type of housing if they are residing in the community of the workplace. Young Inuit who come back from college are not permitted to use their southern address when applying for a job and therefore cannot receive housing and choose not to work for Inuit organizations within their communities. This creates tension within the communities between Inuit who reside in the community and southerners who come to Nunavik to work. Inuit feel discriminated against and then start to discriminate against others, and it creates a bad cycle within our communities and our workplaces.
Home ownership requirements and the impacts on youth. Inuit do not understand the many requirements to receive these subsidies, and the employees at KMHB need to provide better support throughout the entire process.
Potential homeowners have a hard time getting their homes insured due to not being able to send people from insurance companies up North to do inspections. Therefore, potential homeowners have a hard time receiving full subsidies. Youth stray away from this program because of the many complicated requirements and the long process.
Major issues caused by these three types of housing and their requirements: it creates unhealthy living, transmission of sickness, high risk of drug and alcohol abuse, high risk of sexual abuse, isolation within the community and the families, higher risk of violence, high dropout rates. There's no space to study, no space to do homework within their home, so students are not performing to their full capacity. It also creates low achievers, unmotivated youth, and it creates a lot of racism and neglect within the community.
I came up with some very brief housing recommendations. I'm not a government speaker.
The Chair: Go ahead. We would love to know what you would recommend.
Ms. Ikey: One of my first recommendations is to create safe houses within each community. Each community in Nunavik should have a safe house for their youth. This safe house would be a type of shelter for youth who need to have some space and need a safe environment. During the day, the safe house could offer different workshops on topics such as mental health, suicide prevention, leadership skills, parenting skills and family healing. At night, they can take in youth who need a safe place to sleep and a bite to eat.
This program could be in partnership with the Qarjuit Youth Council, the local CLSC, youth protection departments, local municipalities and the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services.
Each safe house would be staffed with community youth workers from local municipalities, such as elders, youth committees or wellness committee workers. There would also need to be a team of social and mental workers who would follow up with the youth and their families. This program could also help create volunteer work for youth in the communities by creating extracurricular activities, sports tournaments and other events.
The benefits and possible outcomes of a safe house: The safe house would provide youth a safe place from violence within their families or the community. The program would give youth a chance to learn new life skills and get counselling with or without their families. Youth would have a good space to do their homework or extra learning by joining in on extra activities during the day.
The safe house would help decrease family violence and help youth stay away from drug and alcohol abuse within their families. The program could help youth protection departments create better relationships with the youth in the communities. This program will better the next generation of future tenants and homeowners within our region.
Recommendation No. 2 is to create co-op housing for youth within the communities.
Create local housing co-op programs for successful, educated and motivated youth. This program could help challenge the social type of housing program. The program would aim to set high goals in order to receive the housing by having education, a good-paying job and being an involved citizen. This would help shape the minds of young children to aspire to live in co-op housing and not social housing. This program will also be a tool to help youth gain independence, help them better manage their affairs, work within a board and be responsible for their homes and their environments.
The program would create small apartment complexes for youth to rent at a subsidized, reasonable price, and each apartment would have a board of directors who are tenants of the complex, and the youth would manage the co-op affairs and make decisions.
Potential partners could be the local co-op stores, local municipalities, the youth council and local small business owners. These partners would have a major role, such as helping manage the financial affairs, help select tenants and board members and make the co-op run without deficit.
Possible benefits and outcomes: This program would create a different type of housing offered within the region. The program would be managed with the community and governed by the laws from the community and the board members. This program would encourage youth to better their lives and achieve their goals by getting educated and coming back home with great opportunities. The co-op program would also educate youth on how to manage a board of directors and how to be responsible for their homes.
Recommendation No. 3: Follow through with the rent-to-own program. From 1959 to 1965, INAC introduced two types of housing in the region. One type was offered to locals as a rent-to-own style, and tenants could pay their rent over 20 years with an interest rate of 4 per cent. Homeowners had to pay off their mortgage, as well as the cost of services. At the time, the costs were too high and this program failed. Now, in 2016, with many jobs available and more and more Inuit educating themselves, it may be the right time to restart this program with certain houses.
This program would allow Inuit to become homeowners and sustain themselves. With the help of KMHB, the SHQ and local municipalities, this program can be maintained within our communities.
Possible benefits and outcomes: Inuit would be proud homeowners and take better care of their homes. This program would encourage Inuit to pay their rent and create good neighbourhoods within their communities. The rent-to-own system would help Inuit become more involved with housing within the region and have better relationships with KMHB and SHQ, and this would also benefit local families.
Recommendation No. 4: Revisit the homeownership program and create more support systems. The homeownership programs need to be more adapted to the Inuit realities and the hardships faced when applying for subsidies and maintaining a steady relationship with KMHB, SHQ and the governments. Inuit need more information and guidance when applying for this program and need help throughout the entire process. Client service agents at the KMHB should be more trained and willing to help the future homeowners throughout the entire process.
Possible benefits and outcomes: Inuit would be more interested and feel more supported within this program. This program would ease the worries of families dealing with such heavy and complicated systems of homeownership. Families would better be able to understand the system and be able to stick with the program for the long run. Some interested homeowners fear the other steps that need to be taken to receive these subsidies are too complicated, and they begin to back out because there is not enough support throughout the program.
Client service workers would be the support and be knowledgeable about all steps, such as payments, insuring their houses, et cetera. The KMHB and the governments would create better relationships with Inuit homeowners and be a better support to their clients.
Recommendation No. 5: Revisit the company housing requirements. The company housing requirements were created by unions in the 1960s, and they need to be revisited and amended. Requirements need to be changed to include local, educated, successful Inuit to be eligible for company housing. Each organization should be able to tailor their requirements to their needs and to encourage Inuit to work for Inuit employers. Inuit organizations should be able to offer housing and other benefits to successful Inuit employees as much as Southern employees.
Possible benefits and outcomes: Inuit from the communities will be more encouraged to work for Inuit companies and organizations within their communities. The work atmosphere and the community atmosphere will be better between Inuit and Southern workers who live in the communities. Inuit will be more self-sustainable and proud employees.
That's what I have so far.
The Chair: Louisa, are you going to say some words as well?
Louisa Yeates, Vice President, Qarjuit Youth Council: I can just add in a little bit to what she said. First of all, I would like to say thank you. Thank you for welcoming us. This is really an amazing opportunity for Inuit that we don't really often get.
Olivia really did a great job, and I'd like to say thank you, Olivia.
Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.
Ms. Yeates: Olivia is speaking on behalf of all Inuit youth across Nunavik, and right now we're in a very fragile state. The Qarjuit Youth Council is a very new regional youth council. We started back in September, and ever since the last time that we met you guys we have suffered four more losses within our region. So it's unfortunate that we are at a high suicide rate right now. Since we started in September, we have had 13 deaths by suicide. That's just since September. So when we're coming here and lobbying on behalf of Inuit youth for better housing conditions within our region, it's really close to heart for us.
Olivia had mentioned that there's going to be 120 units that are going to be built in 2016.
Ms. Ikey: In six communities.
Ms. Yeates: Out of the 14 communities. I know that 50 per cent of this is going to be covered federally, and half of it is going to be covered provincially, but this isn't enough. It's really not enough.
She spoke about the high dropout rate. Our dropout rate right now is at 90 per cent. Ninety per cent of our students drop out, and within seven years, of these 90 per cent of students, 7 per cent of them will go back and complete their education through adult education.
A lot of the times I think we are dealing with a lot of self-value issues. Inuit are often stuck in these really tough conditions, and it devalues them, so we are at a point where we need to figure out how we need to add value back into Inuit and how to build their self-esteem, because right now it's really not doing well.
And again, I'm going to come back and say we're really at a fragile state right now, and our housing conditions aren't helping out at all.
So again, I would like to say thank you, Olivia. You did a really great job, and I would like to say thank you, again, to the Senate committee for inviting us here and hearing us out.
The Chair: Thank you very much, ladies. You have done an amazing job for us. We're very pleased that you're here tonight.
I'll start off with just one short question. Do you have any estimation of the number of Inuit youth who have returned with post-secondary qualifications to your region?
Ms. Yeates: Not off the top of my head, but I can tell you it's not a high number.
The Chair: Could that be found out, or is there a way we could find out?
Ms. Yeates: I'm sure that there is. Tthe Kativik school board, I'm sure, would have numbers like this.
The Chair: It would be interesting to get a number so that we could sort of then relate that to the number of houses or how big an apartment building would be needed by the different communities. Thank you. We'll start with our deputy chair, Senator Patterson.
Senator Patterson: Thank you, Madam Chair.
[The senator spoke in Inuktitut.]
Olivia, I congratulate you on your presentation. We had the pleasure of hearing from you in Kuujjuaq, but that was what we called a fact-finding session, which is, as you know, kind of informal. Tonight we're going to be able to put your remarks on the record so there will be a permanent transcript of what you've said, and that's very useful to us in writing our report.
I want to thank you for your recommendations, and it was especially worthwhile to get the reasons and the impacts you thought the recommendations would have. That was very well thought out.
I have just a couple of questions.
First, you talked to us about this long-standing discrimination against local residents. Housing is provided to Southern hires by employers. Inuit at school can't even use their southern address to apply. I think you suggested that even Inuit organizations sometimes do this. If I heard you right, you said you are working on this.
I wonder if you could tell us how you're working on this and maybe what you think our committee could do to assist.
Ms. Ikey: I am not personally working on it, but organizations are starting to realize they are losing a lot of educated Inuit. The KRG, the Kativik Regional Government, has been looking into this and trying to give locals housing. There are a couple of Inuit from Kuujjuaq that have housing. It mostly depends on what job you have and how high you are within the organization. This is the first organization that is trying to change these rules, but with the unions that created them, it is a hard rule to pass by.
Also, Minnie Grey of the health board has been dealing with this. She has been trying to get college students who are finishing their diplomas within the health sector to apply for jobs in the health board, but she's having a hard time getting them housing because they cannot come back home and move in with their parents. So we're trying to find loopholes to get in there, and one of the loopholes that works sometimes — sometimes it doesn't — is using our college address. It works sometimes, but most of the time it doesn't. That's one of the loopholes we use, our college addresses, but it's very hard because it’s not your permanent address. It’s not where you're from.
There are different ways of getting through it, but it really comes down to the unions that created these laws or requirements.
Senator Patterson: Thank you. That's an analysis that I hadn't considered before. By the way, we find this in Nunavut. I know this happens in the Northwest Territories. I've seen this issue in Greenland. It's really amazing that this seems to happen all over the North. It seems to me that it's a human rights issue and maybe a Charter rights issue, and I'm sure our committee is going to want to study that.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: It is nice to see you young ladies again.
In one of your recommendations, you mentioned rent-to-own homes. What if the economic situation suffers and somebody loses their job? What would happen then? They wouldn't be able to pay the rent on their house, correct?
Ms. Ikey: That's a problem we're facing right now, people renting houses through our social housing program. Just a couple of years ago we had started eviction processes because people are getting up to $80,000 in arrears; they have never paid rent.
However, I feel that Inuit would be more motivated to pay their rent and take care of their homes once they know it belongs to them, because we are renting houses. They are not ours and they will never be ours, so we are not motivated to pay for these low-standard houses. If we could at least eventually be able to own them, I believe the Inuit would make the effort to do that.
With the eviction process, it's a bad thing to do, but it's how the world works. We have to pay for rent, and they need to understand that. Those are requirements that are necessary. But I believe that Inuit would be motivated to pay rent once this program has started.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Thank you. You mentioned there's a 90 per cent dropout rate for students. Would one of the problems be that in order to get a house, sometimes they would rather have children, and that's one of the reasons they drop out of school?
Ms. Ikey: That's exactly it. The requirements for housing are that you have a low-income job, that you have children and that you have social problems. So if I succeed in high school and get a good job, I'm not going to get a house. We're encouraging young people to do this. These are the requirements for housing. They are not literally trying to encourage it, but the kids see it differently and are interpreting it differently. So we have 16-year-olds dropping out of secondary that have two children, and they get a house. It took me seven years to get a house. I graduated high school through adult education, I had no children and a good paying job and they said, “We're sorry, we can't give you a house.” So then I said, “Well, I should have dropped out. I should have had a child.” You start to reconsider your life choices.
Housing has a big effect on youth and their motivation of wanting to go to school and wanting to succeed.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Are those houses built to specification?
Ms. Ikey: Some of them are. There is a big difference between Inuit local housing and company housing. There are very big differences. We get your regular box houses, low quality, tile floors, and then if you go into company housing, they are beautiful. They have wood floors and everything is top quality. It shows that we're second-class citizens within our homes.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Right. Exactly. Thank you very much.
Senator Enverga: Thank you for appearing again. We were impressed with you when we were at Kuujjuaq. That's why we wanted to see you here, to make sure we hear from you again so you can give us more insight on the issues the youth in Nunavut are facing.
What are the differences among the other 14 villages? Are you all the same as youth, or is this specific to your particular area?
Ms. Ikey: We're all the same. We all face the same challenges. Youth in the other communities are in the exact same boat as us: They cannot get company housing and they cannot get social housing if they're educated or if they have high-paying jobs. We're all in the same boat. The only thing is that other communities have populations of 700 and we have 2,500, so we kind of have a bigger voice. We have more people, we have a stronger voice, but we're all facing the same problems.
Youth in smaller communities have it even worse. They get no housing. Six out of 14 communities are getting housing, and Kuujjuaq is on that list. The bigger communities get housing. The smaller communities are forgotten.
Senator Enverga: So it is basically tougher in the smaller communities as compared to Kuujjuaq. Is that what you're saying?
Ms. Ikey: Yes. We have a few more options in Kuujjuaq. We have a few more organizations, companies, a bit more variety of housing, but in the other communities it's very limited. They have more social housing and they may have two company houses, but in Kuujjuaq we have about 400 company housing and a thousand local housing. So they have it harder in the smaller communities.
Senator Enverga: I know that sometimes youth want to stay together and be in one location. Is that a possibility? Maybe there could be housing with multiple units that are available for multiple youth. Is that something that you are looking into, or are you only looking for single housing?
Ms. Ikey: No. The co-op housing I recommended would be a big apartment complex, and the youth — educated, motivated, successful Inuit youth — would be able to rent those apartments. To be able to rent those apartments, they have to be on the board of directors of this co-op program.
We don't want single housing. We'll take whatever you can give us. Having a house where we're all together, we're all responsible for the building, it's going to create more responsibility for the youth. They are going to be more motivated because it's not just my house; I'm not just responsible. If I break a window, I have to deal with everybody else.
Big apartment complexes, we're more than happy to have that, but with our small land, with our construction teams that are not used to building up in the North, it's a work in progress. The cost of heating and the cost of electricity would be lower than having your own single dwelling. So we would save money, and it would be a good program.
Senator Enverga: I don't know if we're talking about the same idea here, but it's more like the room and board where each youth would have their own room but there is a common living space. Hopefully the washrooms are not common, but I'm thinking of something like that. Are you thinking the same way?
Ms. Ikey: I'm thinking of small apartments, but that would work too. It would work. It would be your first step to owning a place. I didn't think of that.
Senator Enverga: There you go.
Ms. Ikey: Thank you.
Senator Enverga: Because that would be cheaper.
The Chair: Like a student residence.
Ms. Ikey: Like a big residence.
Senator Enverga: That's right. I was thinking more it could easily fix or hopefully it's easy to fix the housing crisis for the youth that way.
I'm really concerned about the dropout rate of the youth. Ninety per cent is so huge. When you say “dropout,” are they dropping out from another location, from a college degree, or just grade 12 education somewhere else? Are they located somewhere else?
Ms. Ikey: It's high school.
Senator Enverga: Is it close to your home?
Ms. Ikey: They're all within our communities that are dropping out of high school. Some are dropping out at grade 7. Some of them don't even make it to secondary 3. So it's not college level; it's high school level. We have 90 per cent that don't have a high school diploma.
Senator Enverga: When they drop out, is it probably because of the educational system, or is it a totality of the whole community issue?
Ms. Ikey: It's a whole region issue. It involves housing; it involves family support; it involves organization support; it involves everything, lack of resources. Youth are not motivated. There are not extracurricular activities like there are down South. There are not things to keep youth interested in education.
Also, the standard of our education is very low. We're not being challenged enough, so the youth don't care. They know that even with this diploma, you can't really get far, so what's the point?
Because back in the day there was a lot of people that could get jobs without diplomas, and it was easy for them to do labour work, but the world is changing now and also Nunavik is changing a lot. We're trying to bring up our standards that you do need a high school diploma. That's your basic minimum requirement, but it's very hard when we have a 90 per cent dropout rate to have Inuit employees within our organizations.
Senator Enverga: If there is overcrowding in housing, wouldn't the youth rather stay in school rather than go back where there is overcrowding? I know it's only a few hours of the day, but is it better? I don't understand why they would drop out when they're probably better off in school. There must be something going on in the school.
Ms. Ikey: It's not better off. Our teachers are very young; they're very inexperienced. We don't have enough extracurricular activities. School is not fun for them. School is work and it's horrible. They don't like school at all.
Ms. Yeates: Especially when they're in a situation where they don't have a proper bed to sleep in and they don't have food in the house. There are parties going on in the house; they're very tired; they go to school; they can't keep up; they're discouraged. It's a big vicious circle, unfortunately, and this is something that doesn't work out in the end.
Senator Moore: Again I want to thank you both for coming here, for making the effort to do this.
I hope Canadians are listening to these two bright, leaderly young women, because Canada doesn't know this. I didn't know this, and I don't think my colleagues did until we went to visit your community. It's been an educational eye-opener for me.
You say the youth are dropping out even in high school. They are probably smart kids, and they probably know the rules about housing and opportunity, and they therefore are looking at that as what I call bondage. I think the youth are being kept in bondage by these rules that I would say are probably against the Charter of our country. They're against fair consideration and natural justice. I've never heard of such rules as these, and we have to put a stop to it.
You said that unions made those. How do you know that, and tell me what unions do this, and has this been going on forever?
Ms. Ikey: Since the 1960s.
Ms. Yeates: When the James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement was being negotiated, they had unions like the Public Service of Canada and the Indian Affairs unions who were part of the negotiations, and they were also helping counsel as the negotiations were going on.
The JBNQA was signed very quickly. Too bad Senator Watt isn't here. I'm sure he would have had a lot to say. Things went quick, and it's in a lot of the paperwork, but I did do a lot of research, and I found out these were the two main unions who were part of the negotiations at the time.
Senator Moore: So what are the names of the two unions?
Ms. Yeates: The Public Service of Canada union, also the Indian Affairs union.
Senator Moore: Okay. So we better talk to these people and educate them. That's unbelievable stuff.
Is it right that two young people committed suicide since we were there?
Ms. Yeates: Yes.
Senator Moore: And how old were they?
Ms. Ikey: There's been what, four?
Ms. Yeates: Since you guys were there?
Senator Moore: We were there on April 20 in Kuujjuaq.
Ms. Yeates: My uncle just buried his grandson and his daughter in the same week.
Senator Moore: So did either of you know these young people?
Ms. Yeates: Yes.
Senator Moore: Was there any reaching out? Did you have any indication? Was there any way to try to help them? The youth are the future. Do they come to you, or do they just go on their own? What's happening here? Who can they talk to, anyone?
Ms. Ikey: A lot of them do reach out, but we have very limited services, and when you're dealing with people who are flown into your home community and know nothing about your culture and are there to help you and they're not genuine about it, our youth cannot trust these people.
We're having a very hard time to have our people within mental health services. We have amazing people. Louisa's mother is a social worker, but she's not recognized as a social worker with big diplomas coming from the South, you know? So we're having a hard time dealing with CLSCs, dealing with youth protection departments, dealing with mental health services.
We have people that are coming into our community that have never heard of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. They have never heard of residential schools. They have never heard of the history that we've had. It's really affected me, and I didn't even know it.
Senator Moore: So who would you turn to today within your community?
Ms. Ikey: Elders, Martha Greig, Eva Lepage. I went to a community meeting once. I was a very troubled youth when I was young. I was suicidal. I was intense.
What they do is they take you into an intake room, and they strap you down on a bed for 24 hours. For 24 hours, nobody is allowed in the room. You are not allowed to speak to any of your friends, any of your family members. They wake you up 24 hours later and send you home.
Senator Moore: Who does this?
Ms. Ikey: The hospitals.
Senator Moore: The hospitals.
Ms. Ikey: I've been on that bed. I told the doctors, “I would never send a youth to you.” I would not do it. It makes it worse. We started realizing this, that it would make it worse, and one of our elders, Martha Greig, who does this all voluntarily, who does this out of wanting to help the community, had notified the hospital that this is wrong. “Do not put them in that room.”
She offered to go to the hospital and to speak with the youth. She recommended that they put them in a regular room with regular people, but just monitor them, because strapping them down to a bed and sending them home is not working.
Senator Moore: I can't imagine this. I can't imagine this happening. It sounds like I'm watching One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest all over again. This is Canada in 2016. I can't believe what you're telling me.
Ms. Ikey: We live in Third World countries.
Senator Moore: Is there an opportunity to have a facility that would be staffed by elders who understand and come from the Inuit culture and could be of assistance and encouragement to the youth?
Ms. Ikey: After all the tragedies that have been happening, all communities have been working very hard to create local, trained suicide-prevention workers. I'm ASIST trained, and I can intervene with youth who are suicidal.
We had our first suicide prevention conference that was in the same model as Dialogue for Life. We did this in POV, and we had many different community members from all different communities come and take this training.
We're working on creating in-home resources from the community, not specifically from the hospitals or from the health board. It is people that are willing to help on a volunteer basis and to take care of that. But this involves a lot of funding. Just to get a trainer to travel to Kuujjuaq, to stay in a hotel and to give this, it costs a lot of money, and there is not enough funding for this. We are trying the best we can to do this.
Today with my youth, I'm here for an exchange. We were at the NS — Nunavut Sivuniksavut school — and we were doing training on safeTALK. It is to be able to notice, to identify when there is someone who is suicidal, and to make sure that you direct them to the right person who is ASIST trained.
We're getting youth that are regular youth that have friends to be able to identify this and to get them the right help. But with all the suicides that are continuing, that keep going on, we had a very hard time today. We did not want to trigger some things. It's too fresh to get them in there, so half of our youth could not do it. They stepped out. Half of the youth continued. At least we have five to six youth within our community that are now trained within this.
Senator Moore: Olivia, this session today, did you do that in a high school? Did you have some kind of meeting house or place? Where do you do this?
Ms. Ikey: We did it today at NS. It's called Nunavut Sivuniksavut. It's a school. It's a pre-college program offered to students from Nunavut. I'm originally in Ottawa for a youth exchange. We brought 12 kids from Kuujjuaq here to do some educational, cultural exchanges.
Senator Moore: Right now? Today?
Ms. Ikey: Yes. My kids are at the church right now doing cultural night.
Senator Moore: Wow.
Ms. Ikey: Before the youth arrived to Ottawa, they came to Kuujjuaq in February. A week before that, one of our youth's uncles committed suicide, and it was very hard. We weren't sure if we wanted to continue with the exchange or cancel the exchange.
We did not want to stop everybody else's life, so we made it continue, but we had a mental health day in the community. We had elders come in. We had social workers come in. We wanted to make sure that we continued that dialogue when we come here, because it's still continuing.
We have suicides every other week in Nunavik, and it's a very taboo thing to talk about up North. You don't talk about suicide, but that's what's creating the problem.
We did that training today, here in Ottawa, down the street, and we just finished it around 4:30. So my staff are trained within this, and about six Kuujjuaq youth are trained within this. We were very amazed that the young woman whose uncle committed suicide in December was willing to take this training, and she completed it.
Senator Moore: Wonderful.
Ms. Ikey: So we're having progress. We're doing something. We're trying as hard as we can.
The Chair: I'd like to ask one follow-up question.
You were talking about training local suicide intervention teams or individual people, and that funding was one of the problems. I'm wondering if one of your recommendations would be that — presumably this would be federal funding — there would be more money available to initiate or build on to what you have now or make it sustainable so that you're not always worried next year whether or not you have enough funds to continue the program that you do have. Would that be the type of thing that you would want to see happen? Louisa, do you want to go first?
Ms. Yeates: Like I said, we just started last September, and one of the first things that was very prominent as soon as we started was we needed to tackle this issue. We started looking around for a lot of different funding, and it turned out that our health board actually funnels a lot of this funding and dispatches a lot of the resources into the communities. So we didn't want to double tap on resources, and we can't double tap on a lot of these resources.
A lot of these questions are difficult for us to answer, but of course we need more services. We need more resources. We need them to be more culturally oriented. We need something for the youth to be able to connect with, because like Olivia was saying, our social workers, our help, they come in and they go just as fast as they came. We need to build sustainable relationships with our resources.
The Chair: Olivia, do you want to add anything to that?
Ms. Ikey: Like Louisa said, they did a consultation. The youth council did a consultation on all the region, and suicide was the number one priority that we want to work on. There are funding opportunities, but it's very limited.
I'm sure in the future, once we're settled in and we are more aware of what's going on, we're going to be looking into that. With everything going on right now, we have to look into that.
Senator Raine: Thank you very much, and I can't tell you how much it means to our study for you to be here, so we really appreciate that.
Just in the last conversation you had, I made some notes, and your first recommendation was to create safe houses. That could obviously be the place for this kind of counselling to take place. As you move forward with planning to address the issue of suicides and to overcome the despair that is driving this, the safe houses would be a very important part. Is that how you see them?
Ms. Ikey: Yes, these safe houses would offer different programs, different counselling programs. We had a safe house at one point. Due to funding, due to lack of employees and mismanagement, it had to be shut down.
When I was younger, we had a safe house. It wasn't necessarily with all the programs, but it was there for youth that needed to sleep. I slept in that safe house many times, so they're very useful, and we have children that are sleeping under steps because they don't want to go home to their parents that are drunk. Every community needs a safe house.
It would create better relationships with the mental health workers and the social workers that are there on a daily basis, that see these youth and that interact with them. We only see these mental health social workers when we're in a crisis, and we need to see them regularly, daily. We need to create better relationships with them and not only see them when we're in crisis.
Senator Raine: Thank you. My burning question is: Who sets the points system for social affordable housing? Because you say it runs by a points system, and that points system is not written in stone. I mean, surely to goodness, we could maybe think about a system where you get a lot of points if you finish high school, you get even more points if you go away and get a university degree, and then if you get a job, you go right to the top of the list, which would motivate everybody to do it.
Senator Moore: Exactly.
Senator Raine: And then I would think that if you're willing to be an influence, a calming influence, an elder, and look after a safe house, you should also go to the top of the list to get that house as a safe house.
So my question is: Who runs the points system?
Ms. Yeates: Before coming, we did a lot of research and we called a lot of people. We called a couple of lawyers who work at the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau, and we were really lucky. We spoke with a lawyer who wanted to speak with us. So I asked her the exact same question. It's always been on the back of my mind. I never knew where it came from.
So she said basically because the SHQ is the major housing bureau of all of Quebec and then they have about 500 other housing bureaus underneath them. So she said that they adopted the point system from another housing bureau from the South, and that's how it works. It's social housing.
So when they said they adopted the point system from the South, in the South you have many different options. You know, you can go find a cheap apartment and live there. Basically we're a little bit in a situation where beggars can't be choosers as well. Under the point system, there are also standards. So let's say I have three children under the age of seven years old — we will only comply for a two-bedroom house. And it goes kind of like that. So if I have more children over the age of seven, the more chances I have of getting a house that will actually fit us.
Senator Raine: But when you think about it, it is absolutely ludicrous that a bureaucracy from a province of Canada that is set up to deal with social housing in the rest of the province has their standards put on Nunavik, which is completely different. So I guess we could look into that further and do whatever we can, because that doesn't make any sense at all.
It is shocking to think that children will have children even though they know that if they do get a house, lots of relatives will move in and they won't be very good for either them as a young mother, maybe single mother. It's just very, very tough.
Ms. Ikey: It's a big cycle.
Senator Raine: Exactly.
We're talking about revisiting homeownership programs and that there was a program in place through INAC to rent to own during the period from 1959 to 1965. It didn't work back then, but it might work now. Is that what you would like us to do, take a look at that program and see if it could be reinstated?
Ms. Ikey: We researched, and I found a couple documents on how housing started and how the region was affected, because Inuit were moved into settlements by governments. We were nomadic people. We did not have houses. So for us to be relocated into settlements, into villages, these were the deals that were made with governments, that if you are going to relocate us into a community, into a settlement, then we need housing.
So the first type of housing was a box with a heater. There was nothing else. There was no running water. It was a box with an oil stove. Those were the houses we were given in the beginning. And they forcibly moved us. They killed the dogs to make sure that we do not move, and then they give us these standards of housing. What were we to do? Like Louisa said, beggars can't be choosers. We took what we were offered.
And there were promises of housing and there were promises of good housing in the James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement that have not been followed through.
Senator Raine: As I hear what you're asking for — I'm reading between the lines — yes, you know that some people need to be given a house, but those of you who get an education and who can get a job are willing to pay for their house if they then own it.
Ms. Ikey: If I could own that house, I would be more proud.
Senator Moore: Exactly.
Ms. Ikey: Because right now we have a lot of deficit, not just because people don't pay their rent but because people do not take care of their houses. Windows are being broken; shacks are burning down. They are just not proud to own these buildings that do not belong to them and will never belong to them.
So it will create a proudness, a determination for Inuit to want to pay for their house, to want to take care of their community and their neighbourhood. It will create a different lifestyle for us to be able to own those houses.
Senator Raine: When you talk about youth, what age group are you talking about? Because some of us think you might just be talking about teenagers, but you're really talking about young people who are starting a family.
Ms. Ikey: The government says youth is 15 to 35, the Qarjuit mandate says youth are 15 to 35, but we're dealing with almost 13-, 14-year-olds that are having children. So our youth is a big scale, and I'm talking about if we set an example for young people, they're going to become youth one day, so we have to set a good example.
Senator Raine: We heard that there are staff houses or company houses that are sitting vacant in all of this.
Ms. Yeates: Yes.
Senator Raine: What do you think about that?
Ms. Ikey: It creates a lot of tension. It creates a lot of racism, a lot of hate of white people, a lot of hate of people that come up to work. Like, we have people from the South that move up North that are there genuinely, that want to help us, that have created families and they want to live there. But then there are those that are there to pay off their college tuitions. There are those that are there for adventure.
It really hurts when I can't get company housing and I know it's empty. I'm a good employee, I want that house. But I'm from there, so they can't give it to me because of these requirements that were set by the unions.
Senator Raine: Thank you so much.
Senator Beyak: Thank you very much. What excellent presentations. Your knowledge and your understanding of the situation and your recommendations are so common sense. It's hard to believe that governments of all stripes for decades have poured billions of dollars into something without ever asking you what would work. I don't understand it, I don't know how it ever got this way, but I sure hope our committee can help.
Most of my questions have already been answered, but is this housing for government jobs or do companies actually build there and provide decent housing for their employees?
Ms. Ikey: Most of them are government, like the Kativik Regional Government. The Municipal Housing Bureau offers housing. The health sectors are the worst. My uncle is a small businessman up North, and he creates apartment complexes. He wishes he could rent to locals, but he is not given subsidies, so he cannot rent to locals. He has no choice but to rent to these organizations.
Senator Beyak: So everyone gets a nice house but you.
Ms. Ikey: Yes.
Senator Beyak: Thank you very much.
Senator Tannas: Thank you for being here. I have to apologize for arriving a few minutes late.
Your presentation was terrific and very compelling. I hope you don't mind, but as Senator Moore said, Canadians are listening, and I'm sure, like me, many of them would like to know each of your stories, your quick family history, your schooling, your level of education and where you got it, and what decisions and what circumstances would you say make you the successful and articulate and committed people that you so obviously are. You have provided detail about friends and people that you know and the stories of frustration and hopelessness and so on, and yet look at you. How do you explain that? What inspiration can you give us and others that have brought you here to Ottawa before a table of people in government to advocate so well for your people? I'd like to know. I don't know if others would, but I'd like to know, because I'll bet it's something that we all can learn from.
Ms. Ikey: I was a very bad kid. I was very troubled. My mother's side of my family is originally from Happy Valley-Goose Bay. They were relocated to Salluit. My father's side of my family is from Kangirsuk, and they were relocated to Kuujjuaq by the Hudson's Bay Company. So my family has been taken from their homelands and relocated.
I grew up in Salluit. I followed my mother everywhere. I've lived in Kuujjuaq, Salluit, Montreal — I've been all over the place. I was a very, very troubled youth. I used to be into drugs and alcohol. I was suicidal. I was suspended from school. I had to drop out of school because I was going to hurt my teacher, so I made the decision that I had to leave school.
I had very many social workers. I had social workers that I could not trust. I had social workers that told my stories to people, and teachers that have been in Kuujjuaq for many, many years, 30, 40 years, and changed my life. When I went to secondary three, this woman changed how I looked at it. She didn't treat me like I was a bad kid. She didn't treat me like I was a child. She treated me like an adult. She gave me the decision. She put it into my hands, and I had to make that decision.
A lot of the time we're told what to do, we're told how to do it, we're told when to do it, and I find that our youth don't want that. If you give them the decision, now it's on them. Now they're responsible for that. And I was given that responsibility, and I was put through that.
And I had many social workers. The only social worker I could trust was a woman that was married to a police officer that had lived in our community for 30, 40 years, and she got my mother involved. The other social workers at school dealt with me and nobody else. This woman went out of the school to deal with me and my family, and it really helped.
And then because I was very vocal, and I would just say stuff not in the proper way, but I would always be vocal on different boards. I was once a youth committee president, I was once the president of the co-op housing we tried to start. So I tried to be very vocal within a lot of things. And I think about it today and how did I end up the way I am today from when I was 16.
And when I deal with youth, like my exchange today, a lot of people are like, “Oh, be very careful,” and I said, “No, we're going to make them responsible. You speak to them the way they speak to you. If they are disrespectful, you let them know that they are responsible for their attitude. I'm not going to tell you to be nice. You're responsible for it.”
So once we give people a responsibility within their lives, it changes, and youth think like that. If I'm being told what to do, I'm not going to do it. I will do everything the opposite you tell me to do.
So I don't know how I ended up where I am today. I was just a very broken kid that was in bad situations. I was in crowded housing. I was in the ghetto neighbourhoods. I was with alcoholics, and I just grew up, and I was in there. I was in the middle of that, and I knew I didn't want to do that. So I chose that I'm going to graduate.
When I dropped out of high school, I dropped out on September 11, 2008. I started adult education on September 12, 2008. I was determined that I was going to graduate, and I did. I graduated. I didn't get to wear a nice dress. I didn't get to have a bouquet of flowers, but I hang my high school diploma on my wall for everyone to see. I'm the 10 per cent that graduated.
I tried out college. It didn't work. I was very humiliated. I didn't know that we were taught second language English. I thought I was just like every other kid in Quebec until I went to college and found out that our education standards are very, very low compared to the rest of Quebec.
I have always been involved with youth committees. I have always been the boss of my friends, the more creative one, the one who can lead the group, so I was always just the leader. But the thing is I don't want to be a politician. I don't want to be in politics.
Senator Patterson: You should.
Ms. Ikey: I don't. I don't want someone to hold something over my head saying, “You could be fired if you say that.” I'm just your regular person. I want to be able to say whatever I want, how I want to say it at any time, and I don't want my life to be manipulated by rules and stuff.
So I'm staying away from politics. I'm in smaller positions, and I don't want to take bigger positions. I'm very scared.
Senator Tannas: That's an inspiring story, and I would tell you that many politicians don't want to be politicians. They do it because they know that they have to serve. So you may find that happens with you.
What about you, Louisa? Do we have time for Louisa's story, too?
Ms. Yeates: Olivia and I are actually cousins. Our grandparents are first cousins.
My grandfather was nomadic. He had an arranged marriage with my grandmother. His mother brought him to go get her, and they literally just picked her up out of her community and brought her back to their community. She was 16 and he was 19. It took them a while, but they actually did fall in love. We come from a very large family, a huge Inuk family.
Like I said, my grandparents eventually did fall in love. My mother was born nomadically. She lived on the land until she was 8 years old. She had never seen a White person until she was 8 years old. That's when the missionaries came in. They told them they had to move to a permanent settlement. There were also laws at that point, and they said, “If you don't come, we won't give you your family taxes.” So they had no choice; they moved to the settlement.
At that point, they realized that a lot of the Inuit were still trying to keep the nomadic lifestyle. They would have summer camps for fishing and fall camps to follow the caribou. They always followed their hunt, so they never stayed put. That is why we were nomadic. When we were told to stay in one spot, it was very difficult.
That's when my grandfather's dogs were slaughtered. My mother was forced into residential school. She's my role model. She's 63 years old and she has defied all the odds. She is a beautiful woman. She is a community leader. That's basically my family's history.
I was born and raised in Montreal until I was about 11 years old. That's when I moved to Kuujjuaq and met Olivia. We've been friends for a long time and partners in crime — not actual crime, though. For all the rough times we've gone through, I think we've had an equal amount of successful times, being on youth committees, being on co-op committees, doing different kinds of youth initiatives within the communities and things like that.
I struggled as well as a teenager, especially coming from the South and moving to the North. I was ashamed because I couldn't speak Inuktitut. I didn't like the Inuit who didn't like me. I was the “White girl.” Obviously I'm not even that White, but I struggled with being accepted. I struggled accepting my culture and my language. It took me a really long time to figure it out, and it was only through the TRC that came through our community. My mother went to these meetings and I followed her, and that's when I really realized, “Wow.” I was finally proud of myself.
I attended a national youth summit back in August 2015, and there was an elder who was speaking, and the way he described it, he said it was an attempted genocide, “attempted” being the keyword there.
Olivia and I can have perfectly fluent conversations in Inuktitut, and our children speak Inuktitut. This is where I come from. This is what makes me proud. I also went through adult education and I struggled hard for a long time because it was easier to work. I do aspire to attend post-secondary education. I will see at the end of my term.
Senator Tannas: Thank you for sharing, ladies.
The Chair: Thank you, ladies. I have to say that your level of presentation to the committee makes you well beyond what you would expect from someone who has a university degree. I have worked at universities for much of my life, and I just assumed that you had university bachelor degrees. From the amount of material and research that you've done, it's very stunning, and you present the most compelling cases.
I am so glad that as a committee we all decided it was important we hear from you because we know that the demographics are such that youth comprise the majority of the population, and now we understand clearly from what you've told us why it is important to hear from youth. It's increasingly clear that it's a vicious cycle that you won't get out of until we solve some of these problems. Housing is integral to that holistic cycle of things, and you've explained the social problems that go with it.
Senator Patterson: I just want to say that I think the rent-to-own concept you recommended is a very compelling one. I'm impressed that you reminded me there was a program you described as having been sponsored by Indian and Northern Affairs. I think you said it was from 1959 to 1975.
We've heard that giving people incentive to purchase or build their own homes is pretty daunting for many because they're plunged into the world of maintenance, insurance, repairs and paying a mortgage. We've heard in other regions that many people have lost homes who have been lured to go into them.
We are also well aware of the problems of pride of ownership that you mentioned, that people don't take care of houses that they really have no stake in.
I want to commend you for this. I'm not sure if I have a question, Madam Chair, but I think you've given us a very good avenue to pursue.
I also want to say that the co-op housing idea you started and you told us about — I do want to ask a bit about that.
The CMHC has a co-op housing program, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I know because I was involved in starting one in Iqaluit and we actually have units in Iqaluit. I think they're the only ones in Northern Canada. As you described, there is a group of people who take collective responsibility for maintaining homes, and the CMHC has a program to provide low-rent options for those who can less afford to pay for them.
The co-op housing program that you started on, was that under the CMHC program or was that another approach? Could you give us more detail on that?
Ms. Ikey: It was under the Société d'habitation du Québec, so the same program that the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau goes under. I have a bit of information here. I've found old documents.
Senator Patterson: I think you told us that when you got close to going ahead, it turned out the rents would be unsustainable for the average person. Is that what happened?
Ms. Ikey: Yes. They were willing to subsidize the rent, and with the subsidy, a one-bedroom unit would have cost $1,110 per month. With our high cost of living, that’s not feasible. We're not down South. Down South, that might be feasible and I could go grocery shopping. Up North, you pay rent and that's it; you will never eat again.
Senator Patterson: What year was that?
Ms. Ikey: 2010. We had created a board. We had about 15 youth who were interested in this.
Senator Patterson: Those numbers would be a lot higher today, unless the program changes. Thank you.
The Chair: Just as a follow-up to that, maybe there could be a new co-op program that somehow has a subsidy to encourage youth to go that route, so it would be directed towards youth only.
Ms. Ikey: My uncle, the small business owner, had tried to create this because he does build apartment complexes. He builds houses, but like I said, he has to rent them out to organizations because there were no subsidies being offered to him. He had tried to partner up with different organizations in Nunavik like Makivik, with SHQ, but there's a monopoly up North, and they don't want profits taken from them. So my uncle had stopped, had given up that program, but he really wants to help. I wanted him to come here. I invited him. He was here yesterday in the Parliament. He's open to that. He is a very successful businessman. He has been involved with youth for many years, and he is an Inuk man. I don't understand why we are not encouraging Inuit to be involved within our region, and we're hindering them because we don't want the profits taken. The profits are staying in our region and they're helping our people. So there are people out there that willing to hop on.
Senator Enverga: We learned so many things about you and how you came from a different perspective and came to realize that you are a proud Inuk. That's a very good thing.
During our trip to the North, we heard about the need for transition housing, one step higher than being in an overcrowded house. I told you my idea about something like a boarding house. This is something that we can look for, especially with the youth where we can match each particular character to be able to live in a housing unit like that. Do you think that's one way to reduce mental health stress, or maybe even switch to this transition housing that I was hoping we could introduce in the future?
Ms. Ikey: It would be very useful. We have a lot of students in high school over 18 that are trying to complete. They are trying as hard as they can. Sometimes we have 21-year-olds that are still in secondary 4, so those people would for sure appreciate that type of housing at a low rate. To offer those services and to get them out of the family realities that they're dealing with and to allow them to be independent would help a lot on health issues, on mental health issues, many different issues. It would alleviate what is going on within families.
Senator Enverga: So we will look at that.
Senator Beyak: Thank you again. I live in northwestern Ontario. There are 52 Aboriginal communities around me, and the most successful ones are Spirit Alive out of Saskatchewan and Tribal Trails in Thunder Bay. They're Christian ministries. They have dry reserves, no alcohol, no drugs.
You mentioned that the kids don't want to go home to their parents who are drunk, and I wondered how much of a problem that is for you and if there's anything we can put into our recommendations that would help there as well.
Ms. Ikey: We just recently opened up a Co-op store. Well, it's been around for many years, but they just recently started selling alcohol. The crazy thing about that is the crime rate dropped. It doesn't make sense.
Ms. Yeates: But there's no number for alcohol-related deaths.
Ms. Ikey: It's a big problem. In our community, we have a bar, we have a lounge, we have the Co-op that sells beer, and we're also allowed to order from the South. So it's available.
A community called Puvirnituq just recently started selling alcohol through their Co-op also. They had a very high rate of crime. Once they started selling beer, the crime rate went down.
Alcohol will get in no matter what. Drugs and alcohol will get in, and bootleggers are making a fortune out of that, and we can't stop that because planes are coming in and ships are coming in. Now people are talking about railroads being brought up to there. We can't prohibit people. We cannot control their lives like that.
It's weird that our crime rate goes down, but like I said, when we give people the responsibility to deal with their lives, it changes. So when we're telling people don't do this, don't do that, they do the complete opposite, and that's showing. It's weird. Our crime rates went down, because when people in the community get a hold of a 10-ounce of vodka, that's the only thing they have and they're going to drink it right now, finish it. But if you have the option to go to the store later and get half a case, they're going to take it easy, there're other options, it's all good. That's how I see it.
The Chair: We're at the end of our time. We've actually gone overtime because we had such incredible witnesses this evening.
If there are no last burning questions, then I would like to thank our witnesses from the Qarjuit Youth Council, Louisa Yeates, the vice-president; and Olivia Ikey, Ungava representative. You ladies have presented us with compelling personal stories and compelling stories on the effect of overcrowding in housing in your region. We thank you very much for being with us this evening.
With that, we will adjourn the meeting.
(The committee adjourned.)