Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, many of my constituents have been touched by the tuberculosis epidemic which hit the eastern Arctic in the 1950s. Many families lost parents, grandparents and children to TB. Many families lost track of those people. Large numbers of Inuit were sent for treatment to southern sanatoriums, all across southern Canada. One of those, which took TB patients from Baffin Island and Ungava in northern Quebec in the 1950s, was the Hamilton Mountain Sanatorium.

I am pleased to announce, Madam Speaker, that a dedicated group of northern and Hamilton residents, most notably, Mr. Chester Orzel, who for 24 years ran Woodland Cemetery in Hamilton, have developed plans for a monument to 36 Inuit who died there.

Recently, the city of Hamilton authorized the spending of $16,500 towards the cost of land and perpetual care for a monument, at Woodland Cemetery, to recognize these people who died and were buried so far away from home. The monument will record the names of the deceased in Inuktitut and English, their date of death and place of origin, as far as it is known, and will feature replicas of Inuit carvings, some of which will be commissioned especially for this memorial.

The city of Hamilton committed the funds estimated at about one-third of the total $50,000 cost of the monument, and perpetual care, on the understanding that their contribution would be matched by the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

I will be asking the Minister of Health whether our government will be making a contribution towards this memorial to Inuit TB victims later today. Thank you, Madam Speaker.