Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I want to talk about the impacts of diabetes on our residents, particularly on Indigenous people and communities in the NWT.
Mr. Speaker, according to a March 2023 article from the US National Institute of Health, diabetes among Indigenous people in Canada is at epidemic levels. The Canadian Medical Association Journal has said that inequities in the social, cultural, historical, economic, and political determinants of health, lack of access to nutritionally adequate food, and barriers to proper health care, played major roles in the diabetes epidemic in Indigenous populations. Moreover, Mr. Speaker, according to Diabetes Canada, the rates of individuals with diabetes includes 12.7 percent of First Nations living off reserve, 9.9 percent of Metis people, and 4.7 of Inuit people compared to 5 percent of the general population.
Mr. Speaker, Indigenous people did not always have such a high rate of individuals with diabetes as there are today. It was only within the last 100 years that the Indigenous population have become significantly and disproportionately affected by diabetes and experience higher rates of mortality, hospitalizations, and complications compared to nonIndigenous people in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, this epidemic is a result of multiple compounding factors from Canada's colonial history, which included residential schools, the 60s Scoop, and Indian hospital. These factors have created longlasting physical, social, mental, emotional harms for our communities. Or, as one board member from the National Aboriginal Diabetes Association put it, diabetes has become now multigenerational.
Overall, Mr. Speaker, the small communities we see in the small communities we see it all the time, pop, chips, and Canadian, junk food is readily available, whereas healthier food is less accessible and more expensive. Nutrition is taking a back seat within our food system
Member from the Deh Cho, your time is up.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement, Mr. Speaker.
Unanimous consent granted
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to my colleagues. Nutrition is taking a back seat with our food system, and that is just not right. It is literally killing our people. It is sending our residents to an early grave, and it must change. Our government, at every level government for that matter, must work to reverse the diabetes epidemic. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from the Deh Cho. Members' statements. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
