Around
Nunavut
June
18, 2004
Candidates' debates
next week
Nunavummiut will have plenty
of chances to hear from the federal election candidates before voting day on
Monday, June 28.
CBC will host an all-candidates
debate at St. Jude's Anglican Parish Hall in Iqaluit on Wednesday, June 23.
Voters may listen to the debate on CBC Radio from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. eastern
time.
Voters are invited to ask
questions by telephone. Iqaluit residents may also attend the debate in person
at Iqaluit's parish hall.
The next day, June 24,
the Nunavut-Northwest Territories Registered Nurses Association will hold their
own debate on health care at the parish hall at 7:30 p.m. Liberal candidate
Nancy Karetak-Lindell, NDP candidate Bill Riddell and Green Party candidate
Nedd Kenny are scheduled to attend.
The Aboriginal Peoples
Television Network plans intensive election coverage. Rick Harp and Len Kruzenga
host a debate at 7:30 p.m. eastern time tonight, featuring a variety of aboriginal
candidates, meeting in Winnipeg.
On Friday, June 25, Indian
Affairs critics will square off from 7:30 to 9 p.m. eastern time. Hosts Rick
Harp and Paul Barnsley will moderate a discussion with Andy Mitchell, the Liberal's
current DIAND minister, Conservative party critic John Duncan of Vancouver Island
North, NDP critic Pat Martin of Winnipeg Centre, and Green Party critic Carl
Chaboyer of Kenora, Ont.
June
18, 2004
Hamlets reach broadband
compromise
Nunavut's municipalities
have agreed to contribute $10,000 each, so that even the smallest communities
can gain access to a 20-mile radius of wireless broadband Internet.
Mayors and SAOs were not
pleased when an NBDC board member told the Nunavut Association of Municipalities
in early May that six decentralized communities would get service within a 20-mile
radius, while smaller communities would get wireless services only within a
one-mile radius, unless they could come up with $50,000.
The Nunavut Broadband Development
Corporation held a teleconference with 14 municipalities to discuss the problem
on May 19, where hamlets agreed they should ask each hamlet to share the costs
of the long-range service.
Five councils have met
since that meeting, and all have agreed to donate $10,000, even after being
assured that they would get the full service anyway. The remaining councils
will meet this month.
NBDC project manager Lorraine
Thomas recently visited 10 communities and says she is "overwhelmed"
with the demand for broadband internet, and the hamlets' willingness to contribute.
The NBDC originally underestimated the need for long-range service.
The municipality-driven
solution will help, but even if 20 out of 25 communities find the money, NBDC
will still be $400,000 short of the $650,000 that the higher radius systems
will cost.
Some municipalities are
facing major debts and will not be able to contribute. NBDC is currently working
on proposals for more funding.
June
18, 2004
ITK approves new identity
cards
The national Inuit organization,
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami has approved a new national Inuit photo identification
card, which would replace or complement existing beneficiary identification
cards.
The decision to approve
the new cards came at a board meeting in Repulse Bay, where the organization
also held its annual general meeting.
Among the highlights of
the back-to-back meetings was a special commemoration of the recent ratification
of the Labrador Inuit land claim.
Toby Anderson, the vice-president
of the Labrador Inuit Association, thanked ITK for its help in rallying beneficiaries
to vote.
Anderson and elder Mariano
Aupilardjuk lit candles in the meeting room.
During the meeting, Aupilardjuk
received an award from ITK for his leadership as an elder. Jessie Mike received
the Youth Role Model and Athlete Award.
The president of the Qullit
Council on the Status of Women in Nunavut, Madeleine Qumuatuq, received the
women's award and filmmaker Zach Kunuk was also honoured for his contribution
to Nunavut.
June
18, 2004
Cold spring means
cool summer for much of Nunavut
"Guess I don't have
to tell you that it has been a cold spring in the Arctic," Yvonne Bilan-Wallace,
a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said in a message earlier this week.
Bilan-Wallace said Arviat
in particular seemed to freeze into a "winter-like state" over the
past few months, with April and May showing the lowest average temperatures
since records started in 1978. March came in a close second.
That tundra region spring
was the 6th coldest spring in 57 years.
Rankin experienced temperatures
below -40 Celsius on four days in March and it dipped to -31.2 C on April 4.
The warmest area in Nunavut
this spring was found along the extreme eastern mountain and fiord region, where
temperatures were still below normal.
The summer outlook for
western Nunavut is for conditions to remain colder than normal.
In much of Baffin Island,
weather models predict above normal temperatures this summer.
June
11, 2004
Aboriginal leaders
question Conservative policies
The leaders of the First
Nations, Inuit and Métis people of Canada want Conservative Party leader
Stephen Harper to explain his view on Tom Flanagan, his senior advisor, and
author of First Nations? Second Thoughts.
In the controversial book,
Flanagan argues that assimilation is the best policy for Canadian aboriginals.
He opposes modern land claims, and says that "current public
policy... is flooding reserves
with money, enticing people back, enticing people to stay and weakening their
resolve to participate in Canadian society."
Flanagan, who is also the
national campaign chair for the Conservative party, has also called Canada's
Métis an "economically marginal, incohesive assortment of heterogenous
groups" that should not have status as aboriginal people.
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
President Jose Kusugak said in a press release that he is not pre-judging Harper,
his party, or his platform.
"We want to know if
the new Conservative Party will recognize the legal and constitutional rights
of aboriginal people, or will it take the narrow, assimilationist 'melting pot'
approach that Flanagan advocates?"
June
11, 2004
Wildlife Act one step
closer
Work continues on the made-in-Nunavut
Wildlife Act, expected to come into force January 1.
On June 3, Nunavut Tunngavik
Inc., the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board and Government of Nunavut signed
a document that outlines the way in which the three groups will determine the
regulations in the Act.
The regulations are the
detailed rules, such as quotas and seasons, that will come into play when the
Act is made law.
NTI, NWMB and the GN will
continue to work together to draft the regulations, and will also seek input
from regional wildlife organizations.
June
11, 2004
Statistics Canada
seeks interns
Statistics Canada and Health
Canada have room for four new interns in the two-year aboriginal internship
program.
Successful candidates
will spend 10 months each with Statistics Canada and Health Canada in Ottawa,
where they will learn about data analysis, interpretation and health data.
Applicants must have obtained
a university degree by June 2004, and be of aboriginal ancestry. The deadline
for applications is midnight on June 22.
For further information,
visit: www.jobs.gc.ca or contact Claire Thie at 613-951-1947.
June
4, 2004
Red tape delays Doris North mine
Miramar Mining Corporation will not start work on the Doris North mine until
2006, a company press release said this week.
The company cites the uncertainty of the federal election as one factor holding
up the proposed gold mine at Hope Bay. Permit delays are also holding up the
project.
The Nunavut Impact Review Board was to have held a final round of public hearings
on the project next week. Instead, they will hold the meetings July 11 to 16.
Miramar president and CEO Tony Walsh said he is "disappointed" with
the delay, but still expects NIRB to complete its review this summer. But more
delays could push the start date even further into the future.
"We continue to be encouraged that, after 26 months of meetings and input
from the public, regulators and other stakeholders, no party has asserted that
the mine should not be permitted for production," Walsh said in the release.
If the hearings are positive, DIAND will be next to give its rubber stamp to
the project, before the Nunavut Water Board begins its review.
June
4, 2004
GN and NTI renew partnership deal
Premier Paul Okalik and NTI President Paul Kaludjak signed a new deal governing
the working relationship between the government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik
Inc. last Friday.
The agreement, called Iqqanaijaqatigiit, comes five years after the Clyde River
protocol was first signed, and is intended to brings new clarity to the relationship
between the two groups, which have both evolved in the last five years.
Okalik is to table the agreement in the legislative assembly.
June
4, 2004
Arviat celebrates 21 high school grads
Twenty-one high school students graduated from Arviat's Qitiqliq High School
last Saturday, the second-highest number outside of Iqaluit, where 24 people
graduated on the same day.
In Cambridge Bay, 14 students graduated, also on Saturday, one of whom has
been blind since birth.
Cambridge Bay MLA Keith Peterson offered Ashlee Otokiak, and the teachers who
helped him, a special tribute on the big day.
June
4, 2004
Nunavut's own journeyman carpenters
Six journeyman carpenters graduate from Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit today,
becoming the first carpenters to be trained in Nunavut.
The graduates are now eligible to write their Red Seal Interprovincial exams,
qualifying them to work in any province in Canada.
The graduates are: Jimmy Nattaq of Iqaluit, Lino Aqatsiaq of Igloolik, Alexander
Alooq of Rankin Inlet (originally of Baker Lake), James Karetak of Iqaluit (originally
Arviat), Jason Shingoose of Baker Lake and Christopher Lahure of Baker Lake.
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