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Back to January, 2002 Archive Index
Letters to the Editor Free speech We thank the following people for contributing to free speech by writing letters to the editor in the year 2001. Donna Fairbrother January 4, 2002 Thanks for making the craft sale a success We'd like to give our heartfelt thanks to the individuals and organizations of Iqaluit for their tremendous support in making our annual Community Craft Sale a success: Margaret Gardner, Levi Pishuktie, Ron Maclean, Iqaluit District Education Authority, Royal Canadian Legion (Alan MacCrae), Anglican Church, Nunavut Arctic College, Baffin Correctional Centre (staff and inmates), Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Francophone Association, Young Offenders Centre and Tony Jay. The proceeds of the sale go to the Anglican Church and the Iqaluit soccer team. Again, thank you very much. May joy and peace of the angels announced be yours. Community Craft Sale committee January 4, 2002 Housing is a basic necessity of life In writing this letter, I am not representing my employer, the Iqaluit Housing Authority. As the assistant manager, I am, however, responsible for rent collection for public housing. John Amogoalik's recent comment that he had to make a choice between feeding his family and paying the rent is one I am all too aware of. If this rationale is put forth as a legitimate excuse for the elite of our communities, I have no idea how those with less financial or employment capabilities should cope. Clothing, food and shelter are the basic needs of life. When money is tight, it's very hard to maintain one at the expense of another. No one will argue with someone's need to feed his or her family because many of us are also struggling to feed our own. I don't have the answers for these problems. However, I do know that if you don't pay your rent, sooner or later you will lose your housing, even if it is public housing. In my professional life I am responsible for rent collection and I see many families and individuals not paying their rent. This is a terrible mistake. Iqaluit has less and less available housing - the shelters are full and the waiting list for public housing is about two years long. As difficult as it is to get housing, owing back rent makes it a lot harder. Private landlords ask for references from other landlords and will not rent to anyone who owes money elsewhere. In public housing, you cannot get on the waiting list in any Nunavut community if you owe money to another Local Housing Authority and you may not qualify for home ownership programs, either. It's a sad reality in Iqaluit and Nunavut that there are many families in overcrowded living conditions and people living in shelters or on the beach in shacks. Some of these people owe thousands of dollars in back rent with absolutely no means of paying it off. This means that the opportunity for them to obtain suitable housing is virtually nonexistent. No matter how difficult times are for you and your family and how much you struggle every day, it will be a lot worse if you lose your housing for not paying your rent. Chris Wilson January 4, 2002 Please stop picking on Kuujjuaq I am writing concerning a very disturbing article about the Kuujjuaq bar in the Dec. 7 issue of Nunatsiaq News, ("Kuujjuaq's notorious bar told to clean up its act"). Why is it that Jane George has to constantly write negative articles about Kuujjuaq? Why does she not mention the percentage of responsible drinkers who go to the bar on occasion to let off some steam after a hard day or week of work? As for the young people who wait outside the bar, I feel it is the community's responsibility if parents are too incompetent to educate their kids on the negative impact this behaviour has on our community or to give their kids an alternative late-night destination. Also, a large percentage of these children's parents aren't in the bar drinking. The bottom line is that the adults of Kuujjuaq have to learn to drink responsibly. As a newspaper, you are only adding to the blame-game and not focusing on the real problem - which is the responsibility of our very visible minority of heavy drinkers. Until they accept their role as responsible adults, we will continue to look for excuses as to why they have drinking problems. I'm surprised that Ms. George did not blame the drinking on the white man. Maybe that excuse is getting old. In the same article, Ms. George had the audacity to refer to a lesson in history concerning an overused favorite of hers. I am referring to the cheap shot she took at George Peters. I wish Ms. George would take the time to visit with the Peters family when she is in Kuujjuaq next time. I am sure she'll be surprised at what she finds. Mr. Peters' wife is one of the many totally sober, church-going individuals in our community. I'm sure she and her children don't appreciate constantly reading about something that happened many years ago. Mr. Peters is also one of the few remaining Inuit in our community who spends 60 to 70 per cent of his time on the land making a living by traditional means, depending on the seasons. Why don't you pick on some of our other past, present and pending leaders with their own personal problems with drugs and alcohol? Please Jane, lighten up. Maybe I could recommend some medicinal marijuana to relax your writing style. Happy New Year. Harvey Mesher Greenlanders are no radicals The article "Radical Greenlanders call for new election," in the Dec. 14 issue, was not of the quality I have come to expect from your newspaper. It needed more (and more informed) analysis, and less phrase-mongering. Take this sentence: "The move to boost (the equivalent of MLAs’) salaries and benefits caused the radical left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit Party to bolt from the coalition and it incited radical young Greenlanders to march in protest and take their call for a general election to the streets." What exactly is "radical" about the Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) party? The IA Finance Minister has championed privatization of key elements of the largely government-owned economy — is that "radical?" IA was the only party to vote against the obscene salary increases — is that "radical?" As for the students, they collected 10,000 signatures on a petition demanding a new election (that’s more than one-third of the number of people who voted in the last election!) and held a couple of entirely legal and peaceful demonstrations — is that "radical?" If young people here ever develop that level of interest in Nunavut politics, I hope you won’t dismiss them as "radical!" The evolution of Nunavut’s neighbour to east is of interest to many of us. It deserves to be covered with the same level of insight and attention to detail with which you strive to cover our own politics. Perhaps a correspondent who actually lives there and has a sense of what is going on — and why — is required? Jack Hicks Editor’s note: When Inuit Ataqatigiit was founded more than two decades ago, its members described themselves as a "revolutionary Marxist" party — hence the use of the word "radical." January 11, 2002 Damming the dams When Hydro Quebec first made its water reservoir reserve calculations back in the 1970s, it didn’t expect the Caniapiscau reservoir to fill up for at least three years, but it did it — in about one year. In recent years, the overall turbine capacity has apparently been working at about 50 per cent capacity because of lack of water reserves. Hydro Quebec could build 10 more dams, but if Mother Nature decides not to co-operate and deliver enough snowfall, etc., we’ll have signed a death-warrant for three more rivers. Let the rivers run! Mitch Gingras Incorrect name spellings should be fixed This is an open letter to all the Inuit of Nunavut. This is something that might upset some Inuit, however I think and feel that it should be brought up. Going through the phone book for Nunavut, I see it all the time — our families’ last names have been misspelled by southerners after they first started coming up north to our homeland. At first they gave us E-numbers, then gave us names spelled the way they pronounced our Inuktitut names. I feel that if we are to maintain our language and culture, all the misspelled last names should be corrected. Whenever a southerner tries to say my last name, if he or she says it wrong, I correct the person just as we were corrected in school, sometimes very harshly in a way that today would bring criminal charges. So please consider how your last name is spelled. If it is incorrect, please change it for the sake of maintaining our language and culture. (Name withheld by request) January 18, 2002 Call your brother, Tim My name is Vance MacLeod. I have a younger brother who has been living in Iqaluit for the past few years. There was an article written in this paper outlining his motorcycle trip to one of your remote communities. I think it was the first time a motorcyclist had made the trip. My brother usually keeps in touch with me regularly, but over the past several months I haven’t heard from him. If there are any means by which you may be able to alert this person to my inquiry, could you please give it a try? My brother’s name is Tim MacLeod, about six feet tall, between 200 and 220 pounds. He has been working in construction in Iqaluit for the past few years. He drives a white GMC Sierra with big tires. Thank you in advance. January 18, 2002 Thanks from the Chrystal family We wish to thank all the many people who have sent Derek information for his Grade 4 Social Studies project on travel in Nunavut. To Lindsay Reimer, a big British Columbia thank-you for the books. This is a wonderful gift. Steven Genn of Baffin Island, thanks for the fantastic photos. To "Polar Man," who did not send his real name, thank-you for the information you mailed to Derek. It is people like all of you who make this world a better place to live. May all the citizens of Nunavut and Iqaluit have a wonderful new year. From Derek Chrystal and
family January 18, 2002 Inaccurate reporting? The cover story in the January 4 issue of Nunatsiaq News, "Gun-toting teens mar festivities in two hamlets" was inaccurate. "Gun-toting teen" indeed. Reading the headline of this article, one gets the impression that this kid had some thrills — shooting his rifle like a cowboy in the Wild West from the 1800s. Yes, when a rifle is aimed at your face there is "some risk," as stated in the article. But half the community was not at the dance. The community hall where the dance was held cannot even hold half of Kinngarmiut. As I had arrived at the scene minutes after the incident had happened, I would say that there were less than 50 people at the dance. I would think that the article would have been longer than a few paragraphs had half the community actually been at the dance, as a shooting would definitely panic some 600 people in an enclosed area. Please have some consideration for ones who feared for their lives, especially the ones who witnessed the shooting. Nathaniel Joanasie Nunavut voting patterns no different than anywhere else The Dec. 14 editorial entitled "NTI: By Apathy Indicted" presented a distorted picture of NTI’s Dec. 10 presidential election. It contended that because only 45 per cent of the beneficiaries eligible to vote in the election actually did so, even those who won the races for NTI president and vice-president of finance have no political legitimacy. That is nonsense. Political systems all over the world have electoral systems that result in people assuming office who received quite a small percentage of the total vote. Italy and Israel are just two examples. No one questions their legitimacy. The editorial then observed that back in the 1980s, "Nunavut was renowned for voting turnouts that ranged past 80 per cent in most elections." But here again, you find exactly the same pattern around the world — during periods of intense political activism such as what occurred in Nunavut during the years of struggle by Inuit leading up to the Land Claims Agreement — of course voter interest is strongest. Such periods are often then followed by what’s been called voter exhaustion. We’ve seen the same cycle many times in southern Canada, especially Quebec. NTI’s legitimacy is built on the rock-solid foundation of the constitutionally protected Land Claims Agreement. Whether or not they all go to the polls, beneficiaries know that NTI is their representative in securing their rights and benefits under the claim. And they know that NTI is working hard negotiating with the GN and federal government to ensure their claim obligations are fulfilled. NTI’s last AGM approved an expenditure of $1.6 million per year that will see the hiring of a Community Liaison Officer (CLO) in every community in Nunavut. Managed by the RIAs in partnership with NTI, these CLOs will improve the delivery of services to beneficiaries at the community level and improve two-way communications — including the conduct of future elections. Finally, your editorial’s proposal that there should be a single professional elections agency in Nunavut is an idea the NTI Board endorsed several months ago, and on which the GN and NTI have already held discussions together and with Elections Canada. James Eetoolook January 25, 2002 Name that name In response to the Baker Lake writer who complained in your last issue about mispelled Inuit names, how are we to learn if you withold your name? But that’s OK, I recognize it anywhere and know how to pronounce it too. It’s spelled "w-h-i-n-e-r."
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