Meegwetch, Speaker. October 21, 2024, 10:15, is what I heard, when we will be coming back. I know when I come to this place, any leadership that we have—I know, at the community level, at the council level, there’s always opportunity for leadership to meet to talk about the issues that we face, to address, to try to help the people that are living in that community, and it’s important to have that dialogue. It’s important to bring up the issues to the place where leadership is. There’s a time to respond to the crises that are happening. Even though I’m talking about at the community level, but I think, it’s at the same—when I think about the Legislature. This place, this Legislature, is a place where we debate, where we bring the issues. It’s a place of democracy, where we bring the issues of the people that are living in Ontario.

I know that when we talk about democracy, when we talk about democratic law-making, it needs debate. We cannot be part-time legislators; we need to be here. Democratic law-making needs hearings. We need to be able to have the voices of the people all over Ontario on any specific issues that are happening. Democratic law-making also needs committee meetings to be able to move the agenda forward, to bring the issues to light so people do not continue to suffer across Ontario.

I’m just thinking about—if we aren’t here, how does the debate happen? How are we going to be able to debate the issues that matter to the people not just in Kiiwetinoong but also across Ontario?

I’m a believer that our role here at the Legislature, at Queen’s Park, is to bring the voice of our constituents forward, and that’s what I do. I mean, when we talk about Kiiwetinoong, there’s so many issues, so many matters in Kiiwetinoong that require the attention of this government, the attention of this assembly. I can go down the list of some of the issues that we face. When we talk about health care in northern Ontario, in the riding of Kiiwetinoong—unnecessary suffering, needless deaths become a norm, and then status quo sometimes is construed as normal and acceptable in Kiiwetinoong, especially on First Nation reserves. That would not be acceptable anywhere else in Ontario—in fact, not anywhere else in Canada.

I know that the facilities that we have—there’s our example—Ornge is a medevac service that we have in the north. In Kiiwetinoong, I can probably say eight to 10 flights per day—that’s the health care system that we have, and we have one hospital where everybody goes, in Sioux Lookout. These are the issues, these are the realities that we face.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the member from Mushkegowuk–James Bay’s riding. I went to one of his First Nations that was there, and they’re struggling. When you actually land in the community, the community is right by the airport. The gravel runway is right by the community, and they’re so full. They’re at full capacity of their reserve status that they have. There is a whole reserve that they have, and they’re trying to get more land. They’re trying to get more reserve land, but the process is that the federal government has to talk to the provincial government to access that land. The federal government will have to buy that land from the province and then give it to the community as a First Nation. How messed up is that? They’re actually begging for land, on their own land. It’s kind of messed up in that way.

But I talk about that because they cannot build. They cannot build homes. They’re over capacity. They have a lot of suicide attempts, suicides in the community. At that time when I visited, they had a boil-water advisory. There were people actually carrying their jugs to where they get the water and then taking it to their home. That is Ontario. That is the Ontario that I know. That is the Canada that I know.

I know when we talk about access to housing, there’s certainly a lot of people who are couch-surfing, even in First Nations. When there’s overcrowding in First Nations reserves in the north, they come down south and they become homeless in communities such as Thunder Bay, such as Dryden, such as Kenora, such as Sioux Lookout. They become a provincial issue.

Again, that’s how oppression works. That’s how colonialism works. I think it’s not right to be able to continue on that road.

I know another thing that’s happening up north quite a bit is resource development, lots of mining. I see these announcements down here that there are these investments in EV factories. But one thing I know is they haven’t done the work of free, prior and informed consent. In order to do any work on the traditional territories, the treaty lands up where you’re going to try to get the minerals, there has to be a process of free, prior and informed consent.

I feel that this government is moving too fast, which means if you’re trying to mine over there on our traditional lands, on treaty territories, that development will not happen if you move too fast. I think those are the things that we need to be able to talk about. But right now, the approach that this government is doing with regard to resource development and mining, it is very colonial.

I would want to talk some more—but for this reason, I cannot support this motion. Meegwetch.