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January 4, 2002
Year in Review: 2001
in Nunavut was the year of the artist
Although Nunavut's political leaders did not
distinguish themselves in 2001, the achievements of artists such as Zacharias
Kunuk and Tanya Tagaq Gillis more than made up for it.
January
- An outbreak of canine
distemper strikes dogs in Nunavut, killing several in Iqaluit, Kimmirut and
Kugluktuk.
- A report by the Canadian
Forces Northern Area headquarters in Yellowknife recommends that Nunavut's
rangers conduct regular exercises in the High Arctic to assert Canada's ownership
of that area.
- The Nunavut Social
Development Council prepares to seek intervenor status in a case to protect
the practice of Inuit custom adoption. The case involves the custom adoption
of a child by the birth-mother's parents. The child's adoptive mother, or
grandmother, seeks financial support from the biological father.
- Quttiktuq MLA Rebecca
Williams is sworn in on Jan. 30 after winning a by-election on Dec. 4.
- Forty-nine sexual abuse
victims of Edward Horne enlist lawyers from Newfoundland and the United States
to pursue damage claims against the governments of Nunavut and the Northwest
Territories. They assert government officials failed to protect them from
Horne's abuse and did not provide adequate care when the abuse was exposed.
February
- The government of Nunavut
creates an Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit task force to promote traditional Inuit
knowledge.
- In Governor-General
Adrienne Clarkson's speech from the throne, Jean Chrétien's Liberal
government promises to ensure the basic needs of aboriginal people, in jobs,
health, education, housing and infrastructure.
- Dene leaders of bands
from northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan pledge friendship to Inuit, saying
they will work together in the spirit of friendship.
- Statistics Canada takes
its first survey of residents of the eastern Arctic.
- Nunavut's liquor licensing
board plans a review of the Liquor Act.
- Health Minister Ed
Picco unveils a multimedia suicide prevention campaign.
March
- RCMP Const. Jurgen
Seewald is fatally shot after responding to a call about a domestic dispute
in Cape Dorset. Police charge Cape Dorset resident Salomonie Jaw with first-degree
murder.
- The Canada Council's
art bank gives artists the opportunity to buy back artwork at the original
price plus 30 per cent. The offer is meant to benefit artists whose work has
increased in value significantly.
- Nunavut homeowners
get a $450 rebate on the cost of heating. The one-time deal is available only
to homeowners who make less than $125,000 a year.
- Three inmates escape
from the Baffin Correctional Centre. Randy Klengenberg is immediately apprehended
by prison staff and two others, Herbie Janes and Joe Akpalialuk, enjoy about
90 minutes of freedom before being caught.
- On March 13, Iqaluit
launches a paper recycling program with a donation of 300 green boxes from
Environment Canada. The boxes are distributed to businesses and government
offices throughout Nunavut. However, a month later, almost no offices in Nunavut
are taking part in the program.
April
- Nunavut abandons Nunavut
time in favour of three separate time zones.
- Nunavut Power Corporation
flips the on switch, taking over responsibility for providing heat to the
territory from the Northwest Territories Power Corporation.
- Kootoo Korgak goes
on trial for the murder of Sarah Akavak, his common-law wife. Akavak died
Feb. 10, 2000, in Iqaluit's eight-storey high rise building. On April 10,
Justice Mary Hetherington sentences Korgak to life imprisonment, with no chance
of parole for 12 years. The jury takes just two hours to convict him of second-degree
murder, rejecting a defence lawyer's argument that Korgak should be found
guilty of the lesser offence of manslaughter.
May
- Zacharias Kunuk's Atanarjuat,
the first feature-length Inuktitut movie, is screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
Though not in competition for the festival's grand prize - the coveted Palme
d'Or - the film wins the Camera d'Or, awarded for the best first-time film.
- Nunavut's Legislative
Assembly takes its show to Cambridge Bay.
- Overcrowding in Baffin
Correctional Centre forces staff to transfer six inmates to a facility in
Yellowknife.
- Japanese adventurer
Hyoichi Kohno vanishes north of Ellesmere Island and is assumed to have fallen
into a crack in the sea ice. Spotter flights over the area where his gear
was found turn up no trace of Kohno, and the search is called off. His body
was later found.
June
- The University of the
Arctic celebrates its official launch on June 12, with Sami songs and toasts
to its future. The "university without walls" serves students throughout
the circumpolar region.
- Nunavut MLA James Arvaluk
is found not guilty of a charge of assault causing bodily harm. Arbaluk, who
represents Coral Harbour and Chesterfield Inlet, was accused of beating and
injuring his girlfriend. The Crown later launches an appeal in the case, saying
Justice Howard Irving made errors in fact and in law.
- A study on Nunavut's
economy released by the Conference Board of Canada recommends improvements
to health and education. The board's researchers predict Nunavut's gross domestic
product would grow by an average of 2.32 per cent per year through 2020.
- Paul Quassa resigns
as president of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated. In the fall of 2000, Quassa
had been caught misusing about $30,000 worth of NTI money, including nearly
$13,000 worth of unexplained cash withdrawals from bank machines using NTI's
credit card. Quassa repaid the money that he owed.
- Industry Canada rejects
a $1-billion bid to provide telecommunications services by upstart firm Bird
Satellite Communications Inc., allowing Telesat Canada to retain its monopoly
on northern satellite communications.
- The Department of Public
Works takes charge of the sealift and begins overseeing the resupply of the
eastern Arctic.
- The government of Nunavut
pledges to overhaul welfare, calling for job training and child care.
July
- Health Minister Ed
Picco announces a new bonus package aimed at recruiting nurses for Nunavut's
health care system. Any nurse who agrees to work in Nunavut for three years
will get a $6,000 signing bonus, an extra $2,000 every three months for two
years, and a $2,000 bonus at the end of his or her second year. Thirty Australian
nurses take advantage of the offer.
- Two Arviat men are
finally arrested and charged with numerous criminal offences after a weeklong
crime spree during which they attacked Arviat's lone RCMP member with a metal
pipe and piece of wood. Some Nunavummiut say they're worried about the RCMP's
thin staffing levels in Nunavut.
- The Nunavut Wildlife
Management Board issues a report recommending Qikiqtarjuaq hunters create
better rules to guide their annual narwhal hunt. They also say hunters and
the Department of Fisheries and Oceans should improve how they communicate
with each other.
- The Nunavut Associa-tion
of Municipalities tells Premier Paul Okalik that he must get more aggressive
with Ottawa in seeking infrastructure development money for Nunavut.
- Crown lawyers say they'll
appeal Nanulik MLA James Arvaluk's June acquittal on a charge of assault causing
bodily harm. Arvaluk was accused of beating and injuring Sophie Sangoya, his
former live-in girlfriend, in a drunken fight Aug. 26, 2000, in Coral Harbour.
The Crown says in its appeal that Justice Howard Irving made errors in fact
and in law when he ruled that her injuries were caused by a "mutually
consensual brawl," and not a criminal assault.
- High Arctic mayors
are stunned when they find out that the Kenn Borek airline will stop serving
their region in October. As a result, Arctic Bay residents must now make a
lengthy odyssey through Iqaluit just to get to the nearby community of Pond
Inlet.
- Numbers released by
Statistics Canada show Nunavut has the highest rate of violent crime in Canada,
and the third highest overall crime rate. They also show that the number of
people charged with criminal offenses in Nunavut shot up by 17 per cent between
1999 and 2000.
- Two southern tourists
who were attacked by a polar bear July 27 while travelling through Katannilik
Territorial Park complain park wardens knew about the bear but didn't warn
campers. Alain Parenteau, 31, and Patricia Doyon, 25, both of Quebec, suffered
multiple lacerations. The bear halted its attack when their fellow camper,
32-year-old Eric Fortier, stabbed it with a pocketknife.
August
- Nunavut Premier Paul
Okalik announces that two once-powerful territoral bureaucrats, Katherine
Trumper and Ken MacRury, are quitting their jobs. Trumper, the deputy minister
of sustainable development, had presided over the Nunavut government's controversial
refusal to allow a Coral Harbour man to hunt a polar bear with a spear. Alex
Campbell, a former executive director of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., replaces
her. MacRury, the deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs, had been shuffled
into that low-profile department after first serving as the deputy minister
of health. The government has yet to announce a replacement for him.
- Popular Inuktitut singer
Susa Aningmiuq dies in Pangnirtung after a battle with cancer. Since the late
1970s, Susa and her husband Etulu delighted Nunavut music lovers with their
gentle country-gospel ballads.
- Premier Paul Okalik
emerged from the premier's conference in Victoria, B.C. in an effervescent
mood, saying premiers understand Nunavut's health and infrastructure funding
issues better than ever, especially the shortcomings of the per capita funding
formulae used to calculate federal payments in health care and the Canada
infrastructure program. Federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stephane
Dion rejects the premier's demands for greater federal spending in health
care almost immediately.
- Engineers begin work
on preliminary studies looking at the proposed Bathurst Inlet road-port project.
The $6 million cost of the research work is made up of a $3 million contribution
from DIAND, and just over $1.5 million each from the government of Nunavut
and mining companies such as Inmet Mining Corp. of Toronto, which owns the
Izok Lake lead-zinc property. A port on Bathurst Inlet would be connected
to Contwoyto Lake by a 200-km road.
- The Canadian Arctic
Resources Committee upsets pro-development Kitikmeot leaders by saying that
the devleopment could cause problems for the 350,000 animals in the Bathurst
caribou herd.
- Nunavut Commissioner
Peter Irniq calls for a Nunavut-wide anti-littering campaign.
- Greenlandair announ-ces
that by Oct. 1 it will end the Iqaluit-Greenland jet route that it operates
with First Air. After a brief review, First Air announces that it can't operate
the route on its own and a major circumpolar transportation link dies.
- Cambridge Bay throat-singer
Tanya Tagaq Gillis performs with Icelandic pop singer Björk on a world
tour organized to promote Björk's Vespertine album.
- Lawyers representing
the Qikiqtani Inuit Association provide the organization's embattled president,
Meeka Kilabuk, with a list of 22 reasons justifying her dismissal.
- Grise Fiord residents
say they want more benefits from the Haughton-Mars Project on Devon Island,
an experiment aimed at providing information that might be helpful in the
human colonization of Mars.
September
- Rankin Inlet's Jammin'
on the Bay music festival, featuring 1970s rockers such as Trooper and Kim
Mitchell, wraps up Sept. 3. It's unclear if the festival earned any money
for the Children's Wish Foundation, since only about half the available tickets
were sold.
- Crown lawyers withdraw
charges against Gary Hoag, a disgraced U.S. missionary accused of sexually
exploiting a 15-year-old Iqaluit girl in 1995. Hoag and his wife had been
popular leaders of the Northern Lights youth group at Iqaluit's Anglican church.
- Zacharias Kunuk's Atanarjuat
makes its Canadian debut at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival.
- More than 70 throat-singers
travel to Puvirnituq to attend the Arctic's first throat-singers gathering.
- Fifteen Inuit law students
start their first academic year at the Akitsiraq law school in Iqaluit.
- The horror of Sept.
11 reverberates throughout Nunavut as North American air space is closed and
northern airlines are grounded. Emergency co-ordinators in Iqaluit scramble
to prepare for the arrival of 15 trans-Atlantic jets and 3,000 stranded passengers,
but the planes are accommodated at southern airports instead.
- Nunavut residents grieve
the loss of Christine Egan, a well-known northern nurse who went missing while
visiting her brother on the 105th floor of the south tower of the World Trade
Centre on Sept. 11.
- The government of Nunavut
finds money to hire another 14 RCMP officers through it policing contract
with the RCMP.
- Nunavut Tunngavik announces
that it will sue the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs over DIAND's
position on the powers of the Nunavut Water Board. DIAND says water board
licences aren't valid unless the minister approves them, but the water board,
backed by NTI, says ministerial approval isn't necessary.
October
- A new acronym strides
boldly forth: the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada changes its name to Inuit Tapiriiksat
Kanatami - from ITC to ITK.
- The Qikiqtaaluk Corporation
packs up 17 tonnes of ice from Pangnirtung and Clyde River and ships it to
Pure Berg Canada Inc. to be melted and bottled for sale in Asia.
- Community Government
Minister Jack Anawak tells the Nunavut Association of Municipalities that
the government plans to introduce new municipal legislation aimed at giving
hamlets more powers and responsibilities. He also says the GN is thinking
about giving hamlets the power to raise their own taxes.
- Delegates at Nunavut
Tunngavik's annual general meeting in Pangnirtung approve a $2.5-million loan
to the Kivalliq region's floundering Sakku Corporation.
- The government of Nunavut
says it' s looking at a new way of calculating polar bear quotas that may
result in lower quota numbers across Nunavut.
- Alexa McDonough, the
national leader of the New Democratic Party, visits Iqaluit as part of an
effort aimed at reinvigorating the NDP.
- While praising the
government's decision to hire more RCMP officers, Nunavut mayors call for
the recruitment of more Inuit police officers.
- After taking a financial
battering caused by the terrorists attacks on Sept. 11, Northern airlines
announce plans to hike cargo rates and air fares.
- Nunavut's commercial
fishing interests suffer a big blow when the Supreme Court of Canada rejects
NTI's appeal of an earlier court decision that upheld Ottawa's turbot quota
allocations in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. Nunavut interests only get 27
per cent of the total allowable catch in waters off Nunavut.
- The James Bay Cree
announce a tentative deal with Quebec worth $3.5 billion to them over 50 years.
In exchange, they will drop their opposition to hydro development in their
territory and drop a long list of law-suits against Quebec.
- Jeremy Kuuk, 29, of
Baker Lake, is charged with second-degree murder in connection with Nunavut's
eighth homicide since April 1, 1999. Samuel Nagyougalik, 40, was found dead
along a roadside in Baker Lake Oct. 2.
- The Nunavut Wildlife
Management board goes to work on a policy to govern the export of live animals
from Nunavut.
November
- Breakwater Resources
Ltd., the Toronto-based firm that owns the Nanisivik zinc mine, announces
it will shut the mine down by September, 2002, four years ahead of schedule.
Breakwater is expected to follow an environmental clean-up plan set out in
its water licence. A group of officials led by the territorial Department
of Sustainable Development is to hold meetings in Arctic Bay next week.
- The Nunavut Liquor
Board recommends that the GN make it easier for residents to import liquor
from outside of Nunavut.
- Nunavut cabinet ministers
easily fend off MLAs' questions during a marathon 25-hour mid-term review
of the government.
December
- The Inuit Tapirisat
of Canada, renamed Inuit Tapiriiksat Kanatami, celebrated its 30th birthday
with a seven-hour bash in Ottawa. ITK president Jose Kusugak honours the organization's
founding president, Tagak Curley, by giving him a bronze casting of Curley's
face. Indian Affairs Minister Bob Nault is a last-minute no-show, and isn't
there to hear ITK's request for an annual core funding grant from Ottawa.
- Nunavut Premier Paul
Okalik promotes the award-winning film Atanarjuat during a tour of the western
United States.
- The Auditor General
of Canada says the government of Nunavut is spending too much money on office
space and staff housing leases, and should look at owning buildings rather
than leasing them. The Auditor General also criticizes the Nunavut Development
Corporation for pouring $3.3 million a year into its territory-wide family
of money-losing businesses with few few spending criteria or financial controls.
- Cathy Towtongie defeats
five other candidates to win the presidency of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. About
45 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots. Paul Kaludjak of Rankin Inlet
easily wins the vice-president of finance position, which is now a part-time
job.
- Federal Finance Minister
Paul Martin's budget contains little for northern Canada.
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