Nunavut MP Lori Idlout is a calling on the federal government to make a firm commitment to address the housing shortage in Nunavut.
“Will the minister keep working with Nunavut to address the worst housing crisis in Canada?” the NDP politician asked Liberal Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson in the House of Commons on Thursday.
Idlout pressed the government on the issue two days after posting a message on Facebook asking Nunavummiut whether they had ever been on a housing waiting list.
Robertson did not answer the question directly, instead reiterating the government’s plan announced last week to build 750 homes in Nunavut. Those 750 homes will be part of the Government of Nunavut’s plan to build 3,000 new units between 2022 and 2030.
Idlout’s question came on the heels of the federal NDP caucus’s visit to Rankin Inlet last month for their winter retreat. Along with talking strategy, NDP members met with Nunavummiut to hear their concerns on a variety of topics.
One Inuk man from Rankin Inlet told them he had been on the housing wait-list for 11 years, Idlout said in the House of Commons on Thursday. The man lives in a two-bedroom unit he shares with 16 other people.
“His story is all too common in Nunavut,” Idlout said.
In Ottawa last Friday, the federal government announced a partnership with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and the Government of Nunavut to build 750 homes in Nunavut as part of the federal government’s $13-billion Build Canada Homes project.
When Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the plan in September, it included funding for 700 Nunavut homes. Idlout said the federal government’s addition of 50 more homes last week “is a good start” to solving the housing crisis.
More than 60 per cent of Nunavummiut rely on public housing — 45 per cent of which is considered overcrowded — and the public housing wait-list sat at 3,348 as of March 2025, according to the auditor general’s report published in May 2025.