(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister of Housing has to be commended, first of all, for being able to meet with the Minister of the federal government responsible for housing.
However, I also want to say, that I remember clearly in the early 1960s, the federal government came to our community, and began building houses. The rent was payable at $2.00 per month. This is not the first time that you have heard this in the House, as M.L.A.s. I remember clearly, we used to live in qammaq, sod houses.
When we were told that we had to move into houses, we left my father behind, and we moved into a house. Back then, my father did not want to move into a building, I am not sure what his reasons were. Now, I understand why he did not want to move to a house. Perhaps he had a better idea of what the future held, than we did.
In our community there are social problems. There are very few bedrooms in a house with many people living in it. This is practically standard across the territories. I also want to tell this, William Parry... (translation ended)
...back in the 1500s. He estimated the population of Cumberland Sound was about 1000. Between the 1500s up to 1950s, the population had dropped down to 500. It has taken from the whaling times, with the diseases that were brought in that the Inuit had no immunity from, for the population of Pangnirtung to come back up to what is just about 1000, a little over 1000 now.
We keep talking about our high rates of birth in the north. We also forget the fact that there were factors for the population dropping among aboriginals due to the diseases that they had no immunity to. As a result of that, the federal government had the obligation, and acted on providing housing to eliminate some diseases that they figured were from overcrowding, or lack of housing, which were qammaqs.
To me, to hear that there is a cutback for the N.W.T. is not acceptable. I feel that the federal government has a responsibility and an obligation to continue to provide housing for the aboriginals. For those very same reasons, Mr. Chairman, I just said that the Inuit themselves never initiated, or ever asked for housing, and these are the arguments that Mr. Minister is going to have to use, if he does go back and meet with the federal Minister.
We can only do so much with the amount of budget that we have for the housing within the N.W.T. We also cannot be treated like one of the provinces in Canada because we do not have provincial status and if we are going to get treated just like any other province in Canada, then I think it is about time the federal government should start thinking of transferring us other responsibilities to us like minerals, mines and resources, fisheries, and other things that we do not have right now.
This way they can substantiate their arguments, and their reason, for treating us just like any other province. I would like to commend the Minister for the efforts he has made to get the number of houses that we had, before the cutbacks were done. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
---Applause