PQ hound Liberals on Nunavik housing crisis

The plight of many youth in Nunavik who can’t get social housing units or find a place of their own to rent, was raised in Quebec’s National Assembly Nov. 10 by the Parti Québécois native affairs critic, Alexandre Cloutier, who visited Kuujjuaq earlier this week with the PQ leader Pauline Marois.

In question period, Cloutier peppered Pierre Corbeil, Quebec’s native affairs minister, with numerous questions.

In them, he referring to a letter that Olivia Ikey Duncan, a 21-year-old Kuujjuaq woman, recently wrote to officials about her inability to get housing.

“In 2007, we needed 500 housing units [in Nunavik]. Three years later, we need 1,000 [there]. What can you say to this young Inuit woman who has sent us a cry for help?” Cloutier said.

Corbeil told Cloutier that his Liberal government, and organizations in Nunavik, are very “aware” of the housing issue in the region.

And Quebec will work with officials in Nunavik “to settle this question once and for all,” he promised.

“Together we are working on a catch-up [housing] plan for Nunavik over the next few years,” Corbeil said, mentioning that a meeting with federal officials on Nunavik’s housing crisis will take place next month in Ottawa.

But Cloutier also wanted to know why Quebec is paying $1.5 million for an information campaign to encourage Nunavimmiut to take better care of their social housing units, when there isn’t enough money for adequate housing.

Corbeil said Nov. 9 that $1.5 million was recently awarded to the National public relations agency.

The agency, which some suggested received the contact due to its links to the Liberal Party, will receive $750,300 over each of the next two years to develop the campaign.

Cloutier asked Corbeil if he knew how many social housing he’d built in Kuujjuaq – “none,” meriting a warning from the speaker, who chastized Cloutier for making insinuations instead of asking questions.

This was the first time Cloutier had ever defended Nunavik, Corbeil responded.

“He doesn’t have anything to teach me and even less to the municipal bureau of housing, which put out the tender for the housing campaign,” Corbeil said, also pointing to two social housing agreements which would see a total of 640 two-bedroom duplexes built from 2005 to 2015.