June 26, 2009
Nunavut needs more spending on health infrastructure
We would like to congratulate Leona Aglukkaq and Health Canada on their cool-headed national response to the current swine flu situation.
Many of us were proud to hear of her appointment as federal health minister. Indeed, most accounts of the actions taken by Health Canada to this pandemic have been positive.
As Nunavut's member of Parliament, Leona is in a privileged position to represent the needs and aspirations of her constituents.
Inuit in Nunavut and on-reserve First Nations have been disproportionately affected by swine flu. This should come as no surprise considering the common social conditions and severe lack of health care personnel and infrastructure in Inuit and First Nation communities across Canada.
Nunavut's chief medical health officer, Dr. Isaac Sobol, disputed the World Health Organization's expressed concern over the situation in Nunavut after 53 swine flu cases had been confirmed.
At the time we are writing this letter, that number stands at 145 and is expected to continue to rise. Considering the realities of housing in Nunavut, we find Dr. Sobol's response curious.
Additional doctors and nurses have been deployed into affected Nunavut communities to help contain and mitigate the effects of swine flu.
However, this piece-meal response does not address the underlying limitations of Nunavut's health care infrastructure. It's no secret that access to health care for many Nunavummiut is comparable to some Third World countries around the world.
We recognize that Aglukkaq is responsible for the health care needs of all Canadians, but we hope that this outbreak will finally lead to significant and long-term federal investment in Nunavut's health care infrastructure so Nunavummiut may one day enjoy the same health care services as our fellow Canadians to the south.
The time has come for Leona to use her position in cabinet to represent her constituents.
Jesse Tungilik
Robin Anawak
Tommy Akulukjuk
Ottawa
When this letter was prepared for publication, the number of people in Nunavut with confirmed cases of swine flu, nearly all of them mild, stood at around 200. The numbers rise on a more or less daily basis, but do not take into account swine flu patients whose bodily fluids are not tested in laboratories.)
Tim Hortons "a blight on the environment?"
The last thing Iqaluit needs is more garbage all over the place.
Tim Hortons is a blight on the environment. On the other hand, they are an excellent community-minded business and a wonderful supporter of needy children.
Therein lay the conundrum. As a former Iqaluit resident for close to 10 years, I was a huge supporter of the spring clean-up with a focus on the hospital creek through to the bay for four to five of those years.
Tim Horton cups will fill that creek in a heartbeat. Good luck and enjoy your double-double.
(Name withheld by request)
Halifax
Ode to Winnie Ohokak
A few weeks ago, a dear friend passed away in Cambridge Bay, Winnie Ohokak.
Her passing was sad and silent, and I haven't stopped thinking about her ever since. Who was Winnie Ohokak?
She was not a politician, she was not an executive, she was not an administrator nor an employee, nor was she in charge of anything. And yet, to me, Winnie was and is a legend.
Winnie was a sewing ‘machine.' A woman of talent, a creator, a major contributor to Cambridge Bay's artistic community. Her hand-sewn wall hangings are known around the world. Yes, around the world.
I fell in love with Winnie's wall hangings 15 years ago when she was a student of mine at Arctic College. I fell in love with Winnie's wonderful sense of humor and giggle around that same time. She was a joy to be around.
Over the 15 years that I have known Winnie, I have managed to acquire almost one of every wall hanging design that she created. I couldn't get enough of them and I was not alone.
Many times over the past years, when she could not keep up with the demand for her wall hangings, she would call me and see if I had any to spare. I always did, and I thank God that I always made sure to get more.
Dear Winnie. You have enriched so many lives. I look at you every day on one of my walls at home or work and you always manage to make me smile.
Thank you Winnie. Thank you for enriching my life. May you rest in peace.
Vicki Aitaok
Cambridge Bay
June 19, 2009
Another satisfied customer
Can anyone from First Air justify for me the need for charging such insane fares for flights into and out of Nanisivik? Anyone?
I was quoted a price of $4565.75 on First Air's website to fly return from Nanisivik to Ottawa.
This is quite simply pathetic. Honestly, how can First Air justify this?
What is the logic, or lack thereof, behind coming up with a fare like this? Can you not be honest just for once and simply admit that these fares stem from nothing other than pure greed?
Truly, I would love to know an answer. I've written my MLA and fully intend to contact First Air, Nunavut's transportation minister, our MP and the prime minister regarding this flagrant social injustice.
Honestly, First Air, enjoy your nice little monopoly. You people make me sick!
Darcy Steele
Arctic Bay
Thanks to all hospital housekeepers, janitors
With all the publicity and fear that Nunavummiut have had with the H1N1 swine flu virus, not only have the doctors and nurses kept this virus from becoming an epidemic, but also the housekeepers and janitors.
My hat's off to the people who provide housekeeping and janitorial services.
You have helped people in the medical field keep this virus from spreading.
With all the cleaning that has to be done in public facilities to keep the environment clean and germ-free, this is just to let you know you are very much appreciated!
Liz Gordon
Iqaluit
(Daughter of a janitor)
June 12, 2009
Mary, where are you?
In the fall of 1954, while on board the hospital ship C.D. Howe on the way south from Resolute for treatment for tuberculosis, I met a young girl in Iqaluit as she boarded the ship on her way to the hospital.
She, like me was frightened of the uncertain future we were facing. I remember the evening she got on board with her young husband, who was probably no older than her. They were both crying in our small isolated room and spent no more than five minutes with each other as we were not allowed visitors because of our health condition.
Early the next morning, as the C.D. Howe was preparing to leave Iqaluit, we both went on deck to see the community two miles away. Again she started crying loudly and I, being the only other Inuk beside her, joined her in her sad farewell to her home town and her family and we both wept until Iqaluit was out of our sight.
Sad and frightened, we went back to our isolated home and cried ourselves to sleep. For weeks we were together, and spoke very little as we had different dialects and being shy we only spoke a few words to each other that first week.
By the second week, we were talking more and began to tell each other about our past and were becoming good friends when we arrived in Churchill and were separated as we went to the Churchill hospital.
I never saw her again.
After spending one week in Churchill hospital, I was transfered to the Indian Hospital in The Pas, Manitoba, where I spent two years before I returned home happy and healthy.
To this day I often wondered what happened to Mary and I hope, like me, her frightening experience had a happy ending.
Mary, where are you?
Markoosie Patsauq
Inukjuak
Should an Inuk be appointed to commission?
Member of the new Truth and Reconciliation Commission have been chosen. Once again, no Inuk is among them.
Our recent history is one of upheaval, pain and much confusion. The creation of Nunavut was our attempt to deal with the changes we have experienced and to take back our culture, our language, and our lives.
In the 1950s and 1960s the federal government tried to make us "fit" with what it believed to be the values and ways of living common to Canadians. It was a journey we were supposed to make in 10 to 15 years.
In all of this, our experience with residential and federal day schools was profound. Our language, beliefs, and ways of living - of relating to and teaching our children, our food habits, our system of naming our children, our relationship with land and animals, and our bodies - were assaulted by a government determined to make us "ordinary Canadian citizens."
What is the use of telling our residential school experiences to the three truth and reconciliation commissioners who know nothing about our past, as Inuit, who know nothing about our culture, who don't speak or understand our language?
The experience of all aboriginal people in Canada is unique. Our experience is no exception. Imagine our parents, losing their children to government and church-run residential schools, being forced to move from their camps where they knew how to live and survive to shacks and wooden houses in settlements run by the RCMP and government officials, being send south for the treatment of tuberculosis, in some cases never to see their loved ones and their land again, in some cases having to work underground in mines and in factories, railroads and offices in a strange land called southern Canada.
And all of this change taking place between 1950 and 1965, in a world that was supposed to have learned so much from the suffering of people colonized all over the world.
We deserve to be heard. We cannot just take what is offered to us. Our residential school and life experiences are as unique as any other. The failure to appoint an Inuk commissioner to the federal truth and reconciliation commission is a national disgrace.
You could see it coming. We were ignored right from the beginning. We had to scramble to get a list together of not only the large residential schools some of us attended, but the small, one and two room matchbox-style homes used as residences in some settlements. No one setting up the commission had ever heard of these experiences.
Look at the wording. On the website of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the mandate of the commission is described like this: "The Truth and Reconciliation Commission aims to provide those affected by the legacy of Indian Residential Schools with an opportunity to share their individual experiences in a safe and culturally appropriate forum."
We Inuit are not Indians. There is nothing safe or culturally appropriate for Inuit about the forum the federal government has created to hear our residential school experience.
Inuit, Indians and Métis are recognized in this country as three distinct groups of aboriginal people. The Government of Canada should have made sure that all three were represented on the truth and reconciliation commission.
There is no excuse for this. If the appointments were made in the prime minister's office - which is highly likely, then our prime minister is badly informed about the status and diversity of aboriginal cultures and experiences in this country.
And there is little excuse for this oversight. During the spring of 2008, I, along with Tom Sammurtok, Frank Tester, a professor at the University of British Columbia, survivors including Marius Tungilik, Jack Anawak and Paul Quassa, lobbied hard with the Prime Minister of Canada, the minister of Indian Affairs, and Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, for an Inuk to be named as one of three Commissioners. Our efforts clearly fell on deaf ears.
It is time to act. We Inuit should have our own truth and reconciliation commission, following the example of Qikiqtani Inuit Association, who established a truth commission, headed by Jim Igloliorte, a respected Inuk judge from Nunatsiavut (Labrador), to look at the experience of Inuit in the Qikiqtani region dealing with the difficult times Qikiqtanimiut experienced in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
I am calling on our leadership - on people like Mary Simon, Pita Aatami, Paul Kaludjak, Jose Kusugak, Charlie Evalik, Nellie Cournoyea in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Eva Aariak, Leona Aglukkaq, our Nunavut MP and others - to rise to the challenge.
Let's give Inuit experience a voice and let's use the opportunity to reach out to all Inuit in need of healing so that we, our children and our children's children can live healthy, respectful and informed lives.
Peter Irniq
Ottawa
Editor's note: Canadian Press reported last week that the reconstituted commission will be made up of Murray Sinclair, a judge from Manitoba; Willie Littlechild, the Alberta vice-chief for the Assembly of First Nations; and Marie Wilson, a former head of CBC North.
St. Jude's fundraising group says thanks
On behalf of the local St. Jude's Anglican Cathedral Fundraising Committee, we would like to thank the people of Iqaluit, volunteers, and the following organizations, companies and individuals who supported our recent "Raise the Roof" event at the AWG:
- Iqaluit City Council for use of the AWG;
- Arctic Ventures for the Toonik Tyme buttons and prize donation;
- Baffin Canners for canteen discounts;
- Canadian North and First Air for ticket donations;
- Northmart for their on-going support and prizes;
- Raven Rock/CKIQ for advertising;
- Anglican Church Ladies Group for bannock;
- Brent Crooks and his NCC team for the two-by-fours and logistic help;
- Iqaluit City Recreation Team,
- The many individuals who donated clothes and items;
- Tukisigiarvik Society for the Qamutik donation;
- Mae Lonsdale and Mina Pearce;
- Kate and George Emmons.
The foundation of the new Cathedral was laid last fall, and this summer the shell of the building will be erected and closed in.
The local fundraising committee has been active since November 2005, in raising funds for the construction of the new Cathedral. To date approximately $280,000 has been raised locally and overall over $2.2 million nationally and internationally has been dedicated to the new Cathedral, but we have a long ways to go to meet the estimated construction costs of $6 million.
This takes a lot of time, dedication and work from the volunteers but it also takes involvement and support from local businesses and the entire community.
An exciting fundraising activity is the ability of individuals or companies to purchase a building block for the new Cathedral. The blocks are $750, tax deductible and can be purchased at any local branch of the Royal Bank in the North or by mailing a cheque or money order to Box 57, Iqaluit, XOA OHO, in the name of the St. Jude's Building Fund.
A plaque with the names of all purchasers of a block or in memoriam of a loved one will be placed in the new Cathedral. Later this summer our annual Chilli Fest Funraiser will be held on Nunavut Day, July 9 and we will be hosting the canteen during the Alianait Festival again this year.
On behalf of the Parish of St. Simon's and St. Jude's, thank you for your continued support and prayers.
Ed Picco
Chairperson, Local Fundraising Committee
Anglican Parish of St. Simon's and St. Jude's
Iqaluit
Congratulations to Nunavik's graduating students
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the graduating students of Nunavik, whomever they may be.
I especially want to acknowledge two young ladies who are very close to my heart . My nieces, Leah Grey and Minnie Puppuk Annahatak, have received their high school diplomas.
Minnie is the only one to graduate from the Sautjuit School in Kangirsuk, out of about 12 students that started kindergarten with her. I wish them both all the best in their future studies.
There is also Jason Annahatak who recently graduated as a psychologist from Columbia University and Joey Flowers who has a B.A. in linguistics and finishes his first year of law school at McGill.
We Nunavimmiut should all be proud of their achievements. We often say that we need lawyers and doctors, now we can say we have started with these two.
Education is the key to success and I encourage all the children and young people of Nunavik to persevere. Aspire to be all you can be. You are the future leaders.
Let us all encourage our youth and motivate them, so that we can be proud of having been there for them.
Congratulations again!
Minnie Grey
Montreal
June 5, 2009
Does PETA think Inuit are Neanderthals?
In last week's news I read about the Governor General's visit to Nunavut in celebration of its 10th anniversary.
Unfortunately overshadowing the 10th anniversary of a landmark reclamation of Inuit-owned land was the participation of the Governor General of Canada in an age-old tradition of sitting in a group and eating from a fresh seal.
"It amazes us that a Canadian official would indulge in such bloodlust," Dan Mathews, senior vice-president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, told the Toronto Star.
"It sounds like she's trying to give Canadians an even more Neanderthal image around the world than they already have."
Normally, I wouldn't dignify a quote from PETA, as they are known for being a bit eccentric, but seeing as this was almost a direct attack on Inuit culture and its values, I felt compelled to retort.
The quote begs these questions. Since the senior vice president of PETA said the Governor General herself was giving a Neanderthal-like image, what does he think of the Inuit culture? What does PETA and its members think of Inuit culture? Does the world really think that Inuit are Neanderthals?
Being an Inuk myself, I worry about the negative press this is attracting. The European Union and other animal rights activists are jumping on the bandwagon as well.
Barbara Slee, an anti-seal hunt campaigner at the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Brussels, said, "The fact that the Governor General in public is slashing and eating a seal, I don't think that really helps the cause, and I'm convinced that this will not change the mind of European citizens and politicians."
One sad truth is that the focus is on the non-Inuit related seal hunt with the Governor General's gesture, instead of focusing on what it really was: participation in an Inuit tradition.
Further investigation lead me to PETA's website, and on the front page I came across a boycott to end the seal hunt. I read the following blurb to a petition:
"Can your choice of syrup really help stop the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seals in Canada every year? Yes! Tell Canada you won't support Canadian maple syrup, a product vital to its economy, until you can support its treatment of seals."
I've always known that Canada has had one of the better economies in the world, and I'm confident that the line from the blurb - a product vital to its economy - regarding our maple syrup is misleading. I read into it and came to the conclusion that maple syrup makes up .69% of the AGRI-exports to the U.S., This doesn't even touch other aspects of our diverse economy.
What does this tell us? Does PETA really want to put hard-working maple syrup farmers out on the street, even if they have nothing to do with sealing? Does PETA really want Inuit to discontinue four millennia of tradition? Do their ends really justify their means?
I'll put this out there, PETA is ignorant, but so is the rest of the world. They are not familiar with Inuit way of life, even though we are the people on the frontlines of one of the biggest issues in the world today, climate change and global warming.
I would like to know why Inuit aren't the centre of, or even off-centre of conversations around the world.
Nanauq Kusugak
Montreal
University of the Arctic does not serve Inuit
I am writing with respect to the Governor General's recent call for a physical university based in the Arctic.
Let me begin by stating that I am supportive of this position, primarily because of my experience as a student enrolled in the University of the Arctic through one of its member institutions.
Several years ago I made the decision to return to school. I realized that the completion of a university education would assist in my career development and would open doors that would otherwise remain closed to me.
I also believe that education represents a potential shift in the socio-economic circumstance for all Inuit not only my own.
All we have to do is look to countries that have invested heavily in university education, like Finland and Ireland, who have reversed the poor socio-economic conditions of their very countries through an investment in higher learning.
Like many other Inuit, I am an adult learner and work full-time. When I started my search for a university, I needed to find an institution that would allow me to study by distance.
I did my research and found an institution called the University of the Arctic. I enrolled, a decision that I have now come to regret.
Upon enrollment I was required to complete a core program of seven courses, which I did, and from there I was meant to pursue an "advanced emphasis" to complete my degree.
It is two years later. I have sent numerous emails between southern Canada and northern Europe trying to identify a member university that offered its "advanced emphasis" online or by distance in order to complete my undergrad because I want to go to a masters' degree.
After being bounced around from one university to another, one country to another, I've only recently learned that one university has it's major available by distance. Others have some courses available online but also have a residency requirement for the completion of an undergrad, which would mean moving.
I have a job and a family. Moving is not an option for me.
While I do not wish to speak for other students, I know I am not the only one who has encountered difficulty in getting answers with respect to courses available for the advanced emphasis.
It has been a frustrating process, I have felt very misled by this loose association of universities and if I had my time back I would never have enrolled. I would advise other Inuit to not pursue this track for a university education because it is clear that the University of the Arctic is not serving an important segment of the "northern" population in which it is meant to serve.
Its motto is "in the north, for the north" and from where I stand "it's in the south, with southern academic interests."
It's an association of universities and colleges comprised of predominantly well-funded and powerful southern based academic institutions, all united by their wish to keep its piece of the Arctic pie.
There is something wrong with this picture. I have been desperately waiting to continue my studies with no opportunity to do so until recently. Each barrier I've encountered has only made me more determined.
But what if others give up after a dozen or so email exchanges that lack any clear answers? What does it say about the ability of the University of the Arctic to serve Inuit and northerners? I invite the reader to reach their own conclusion here.
While the above speaks to a darker side of the University of the Arctic, I have to report on some of my positive experiences. I've been able to learn in an academic environment that seriously considers my world, the rich cultures of the north, including Inuit.
I've learned a wealth of information about the political and environmental circumstances that shapes our societies across the circumpolar north. Having attended a mainstream university previously, learning in the environment provided by the University of the Arctic has absolutely allowed me to absorb each course and become genuinely engaged in the learning process.
I have been blessed to learn from some of the most respected professors in the academic world with a genuine sensitivity and interest in the north, and to learn with other northerners, indigenous and non-indigenous from numerous circumpolar countries. I've also been blessed to encounter staff who did their best to help get me answers and supported me in this journey.
The Governor General's call for a bricks and mortar institution or a variation thereof through satellite campuses has provided me with an opportunity to reveal some of the problems associated with the University of the Arctic.
It absolutely has to be physically based in the north - based in the North, for the North, with northern solutions to higher learning.
(Name witheld by request)
Ottawa
Many victims are never compensated
I would like to comment on the letter in Nunatsiaq News on May 29 by a person whose name was withheld, "Are the right "victims" getting compensation?"
I fully understand what you are experiencing; anger and hurt. That is what I've experienced in the past couple of years. My older sister was sent out when I was about two years old, and my mother never saw my sister again until 30 years later.
My mother was angry for all those years, so that I was forever being called ugly compared to my older sister. I was told that my sister could have done a better job at anything that I've ever tried to do around the home and that my mom was never happy with me.
I tolerated that crap from the time I started remembering until the mid-1960s. What did that do to me? I learned never to trust anybody because someone who was supposed to love me hurt me. This distrust continued throughout my life until the best friend I have in life now told me 19 years ago that I have been badly hurt so badly and then continued to support me to get help.
I've learned to deal with it but things still hurt. For all those years that my sister went to school, she got paid for them and what did I get for the abuse I got all those years?
When I had my son, when I just turned 15 years old, no one helped my financially. My son's father was making money, but not once did he offer to send me money to help me and my son.
My son was born in Yellowknife and then sent to Edmonton for treatment. I was sent back home. A few months went by and I finally talked to the area administrator to ask when my son was coming home to me.
That area administrator said "we decided to adopt him to a very nice family in Edmonton because you're too young to look after him and your mother is too old to take care of him."
The area administrator is now collecting a nice pension from the Government of Canada with no accountability of of the abuse he inflicted on me back in 1966.
Then a single male minister asked me to come to his house to wash and iron the choir outfits on weekly basis. He decided he was going to rape me, but he never got the chance because I ran out of his house.
He's collecting a lovely pension from Government of Canada today, as he quit the ministry and went to work for the government. I wonder if he felt he was not worthy of being a minister.
People learn to go on with life with anger in their hearts; That hurt and anger never leaves; cope with it.
I tried to become a property assessor with the GNWT in the 1980's as a "trainee." Anger started to build up when the boss insisted that I take minutes at our weekly meetings "because I'm a female."
I talked to the union about it as I was paying dues to the union. They checked into it and told me they feel the government did nothing wrong. The union person did not even show any support for me.
My answer to the lady who wrote "Are the right ‘victims' getting compensation?" is this: definitely not.
Abuse of any sort is not acceptable. If you question something and feel that it's not right, take action and talk to somebody, don't ever let these people get the upper hand on you.
Remember. If you harbour bitterness, happiness will go somewhere else. I still have lots of bitterness at the government. I don't want to die before I stop hating them and I still have lots of hate and anger for some individuals.
I am including my name because I am a person, an individual and I have a name.
Martha Toka-Peet
Winnipeg
Flight? Or fight?
We the residents of High Arctic have been having flight crisis for almost a decade now.
We have talked to political leaders and nothing seems to be progressing. I am asking the higher leader we elected to do something about it, since we are spending lots on small planes.
The money spent on a certain airline that comes makes a lot of money that could go to Nunavut instead.
It takes a lot of money to fly even to nearby communities and through Iqaluit. I hope they will read this and actually do something about it.
Jimmy Enoogoo
Arctic Bay
