Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will repeat it again: June is Senior Citizens' Month, and June 15th is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Today, I would like to talk a bit about how this pandemic has affected some of our seniors in my community that I have observed.
Since March, programs have been cancelled, like the Elder Day Program, and orders to social distance have been put in place. No visitors for our elders in our long-term care or the elders that are in our homes. This pandemic is also keeping seniors out of the loop of what's happening in our territory during this pandemic, so it increases what's going on. What they're seeing on TV and what's actually happening in their territory, they haven't been able to observe, because GNWT has had a web page, Facebook posts, and most of the information shared by this government on the radio may have only been in English or in French. Those who speak other Indigenous languages may not have received the message. Our newspapers went digital, so they didn't even have the newspapers to read about what was going on in our territory.
Mr. Speaker, the only information that a senior who lived at home alone, with them alone or with a spouse, would get is word of mouth over the phone for the six weeks of this pandemic, if they had family to call, that is. They can watch the news, like I said, but only see what's going on in the rest of Canada. I know what it's like to have elderly grandparents that are living alone at home. Some are lucky and get visits every day, and phone calls all day, but there are those who have family that have their own issues they're dealing with, or they have work, kids, and other things that they're trying to manage. I'll be honest, when my grandparents lived alone at home, as a young mother, I could hardly get to see them.
Our elders don't like to ask for help as well, so they could be more at risk for loneliness, and that can lead to depression. Mr. Speaker, I just want to make sure our elders and seniors know they are important, and we must remember that they need to socialize. I'll ask for unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted