Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I am joining many of my colleagues and will speak to the theme of housing.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that public housing can be a net good and benefit for our communities, but it must be supported within a framework that allows for collective pride and a cooperative approach. I also believe in providing smart investments into the maintenance of public housing such as retrofits and new builds as needed and where appropriate. But part of the problem here is that the fact that the federal government has continuously cut funding into public housing significantly since the 1980s. So it feels like Housing NWT has limited choices in front of them.
I also want to take the chance to share some insights that Dr. Julia Christensen outlined in a new book Housing, Homelessness and Social Policy in the Urban North. In short, the book's research finds that effective housing policies in the North must be contextually and culturally rooted. Moreover, Mr. Speaker, Dr. Christensen has spoken further in the media clarifying that Indigenous Northerners are disproportionately represented in those experiencing a lack of housing on their own homelands. This mean that is it is imperative to connect the contemporary issue of homelessness with the ongoing effects of colonialism because this issue is a social justice, human rights, and treaty rights issue all in one.
Mr. Speaker, our model and definitions on homelessness come from southern Canada so it isn't reflecting the realities of homelessness manifestations in the North. Dr. Christensen also states that homelessness does not exist on an island solely in urban centres but is, rather, interconnected to the dynamics of chronic housing needs in smaller communities. That interconnectedness also plays into the fact that NGOs in urban centres, like Yellowknife, do so much with so little to provide emergency housing. Mr. Speaker, we must provide these NGOs with consistent funding.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, not only do we need smarter investments into our public housing system, but we also need to provide consistent and annual public funding to the nonprofit sector to assist in filling the gaps that our government is unable to fill on its own. I will have questions for the Minister of housing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Members' statements. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
