Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, homelessness prevention is not a passive process. It needs aspiration, and it needs action. Today is the National Day of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. On this Day of Action, where better to start than safe and secure housing.
Lack of housing and lack of affordable housing has an accumulative impact on the health and safety of Northerners, especially women and especially women with children. Indigenous women, girls, and twospirited people experience disproportionately higher rates of violence, marital assault, familial violence, and sexual assault. Persistent gaps in living standards between Indigenous and nonIndigenous peoples in Canada, along with disparities in education, transportation, and employment, contribute to high rates of violence against Indigenous women and girls.
Across this country, women living off reserves are more likely to live in poverty even more so than women of visible minorities, women with disabilities, single parent women, and single senior women. Many women have shared with me that they are one missed paycheque away from homelessness.
If housing truly is a human right, and we mean no more stolen sisters, this government needs to actively increase the number of, and access to, affordable housing, promote strong social networks for women, increase efforts to prevent family violence through healing, recognize and address intersectionality of women experiencing or at high risk of experiencing homelessness, and expand and enhance social support systems.
Mr. Speaker, too many NWT residents find that to gain support they need to fall through the cracks at the right time to the right depth and ask the right questions to the right person to access social supports. This year, after a fiveyear wait, this government tabled its homelessness strategy. Members on this side of the House demanded accountability and eventually used tabling this strategy as a bargaining chip. The strategy we did get was a framework. It lacked data to inform who was being impacted and in which NWT communities to inform policy and budgetary decisions. It was silent on the funding deficit to maintain a fleet of aging assets and the influx of dollars needed to address housing in core need and lack of housing.
Mr. Speaker, we need aspirational goals that address the housing needs specifically of those Northerners experiencing or on the brink of experiencing homelessness, especially our youth who continue to put themselves in vulnerable situations in exchange for a roof over their heads. Mr. Speaker, if this territory is to reach zero homelessness, bold, aspirational, targeted, funded, actions specific to those who need it is required because all of us know someone who depends on it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Members' statements. Member for Nahendeh.
