Inuit Housing Issues
Senator Dennis Patterson
‘Business as usual … is not going to address the gap,’ minister tells Senate committee
The northern housing crisis is a $10-billion problem at least — and that’s being conservative, said Jane Philpott, minister of Indigenous Services.
Philpott spoke at a Senate committee meeting Wednesday to discuss the government’s response to the report “We Can Do Better: Housing in Inuit Nunangat,” which examines the unsafe housing conditions of Inuit living in Nunavut, Nunavik, the Inuvialuit region of the N.W.T., as well as Nunatsiavut, N.L.
Senator Dennis Patterson
Money’s committed, but planning takes time says Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott
The new federal minister of Indigenous services says she’s committed to helping solve the housing crisis in Inuit Nunangat, but she offered no specific timeline on when Ottawa will deliver on thousands of much-needed homes in the North.
There’s money committed, she said. But the building part will take time.
Jane Philpott appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples Nov. 1, along with Jean-Yves Duclos, minister of families, children and social development, to respond to a Senate report released in March entitled We Can Do Better: Housing in Inuit Nunangat.
Senator Dennis Patterson
Monthly rent of $1,800 may be enough to get you an apartment in downtown Toronto, or a two-bedroom townhouse in Fredericton. But across Canada’s North, it’s not enough to get you through the door…
Senator Dennis Patterson
The housing shortages that plague the four regions of Inuit Nunangat represent a public health emergency that requires immediate federal government intervention, the Senate standing committee on Aboriginal affairs said in a report issued March 1…
Senator Dennis Patterson
At one point in the spring of 2016, members of a Senate committee on a fact-finding mission were inspecting an overcrowded home in Igloolik, Nunavut. “I was amazed at the number of people living in that house,” said Nunavut Senator Dennis Patterson…
Housing crisis getting worse
Senator Dennis Patterson
Sen. Dennis Patterson recalls vividly his visit to an overcrowded Iglulik home this past spring, as part of on-the-ground research for a Senate committee report on housing in Inuit Nunangat.
“They were so crowded that the son and daughter-in-law had to live in a plywood shack behind the house. We were invited into that shack by the young couple with their small baby,” he said.
“It was really a shocking situation -dark, poorly insulated and primitive heating. It was a real concrete example of the desperation to which people have been driven.”
Senator Dennis Patterson
When members of Canada’s Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples visited the Belcher Islands community of Sanikiluaq recently, they experienced first-hand Nunavut’s housing challenges…
Senator Dennis Patterson
As a group of seven senators begins a fact-finding mission about the Northern housing crisis, an Inuit leader says he hopes they’ll see more than the “shock and awe” of the situation.
The numbers are easy to balk at: thousands of people on social housing wait lists; dozens of people piled into overcrowded homes; and an estimated price tag for addressing the problem in the billions…
Senator Dennis Patterson
Members of a Senate standing committee are heading to six Inuit communities next week to study the North’s housing crisis, including the lack of affordable housing and extreme overcrowding.
The Senate’s Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples began working on the study after last year’s election…
Senator Dennis Patterson
Budget address attendees are echoing Nunavut’s finance minister in his call for more federal funding for infrastructure in the territory.
Finance Minister Keith Peterson delivered his ninth budget and the last of the fourth assembly on Wednesday in the legislature.
The territory returned to projecting a balanced budget after last year’s planned deficit…