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Editorial

March 1, 2002 - Are MLAs victimizing the victims?

March 8, 2002 - A good decision by NTI
March 8, 2002 - Feeling used today?

March 15, 2002 - Bad gas, bad facts?

March 22, 2002 - Lawsuit anyone?

March 29, 2002 - Time to narrow the digital divide

March 1, 2002

Are MLAs victimizing the victims?

In April 1997, a distraught man wielding a knife made his way past the front door of the Qimaavik transition home in Iqaluit.

Once inside, he found his estranged partner and her young child. He took them hostage, holding a knife to the woman’s throat for many hours as police surrounded the building to wait him out.

After the man gave himself up early the next morning, more than 20 women and children seeking refuge at the home returned, but not until after a defenceless woman and an innocent child had been traumatized — within the only place in Nunavut where their safety is supposed to be guaranteed.

For the traditionalist MLAs who complained in the legislative assembly last week about how male abusers are often prevented from communicating with spouses who take refuge inside women’s shelters, this incident should help to answer their questions.

The safety and security of clients must be the first priority of those who run the Qimaavik home and others like it. Their next highest priority should be to help their battered, traumatized clients find the strength to rebuild their lives.

Since 1986, Qimaavik — known in its early years as "Nutaraq’s Place" — has served as the last and often only hope for thousands of Baffin women and children victimized by violence. Between April 1, 1998, and March 31, 1999, there were 4,460 admissions to the Qimaavik women’s shelter in Iqaluit. The following year, that number rose to 5,583.

The Qimaavik transition home — the only one of its kind in Nunavut — was started by Inuit and continues to be run by a majority of Inuit. Its board, the Agvik Society, was born after a historic meeting held in Iqaluit in December 1985, attended by dozens of Inuit men and women from every community in the Baffin region.

Although the government of Nunavut provides most of its funding, the Agvik Society runs Qimaavik, not the government. That means its hard-working employees don’t get the generous salaries and benefits paid to unionized government workers.

The Agvik Society and Qimaavik have always respected Inuit culture, and did so long before the territorial government’s promotion of "Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit" as a political construct.

Sadly, this widely known and easy-to-find information appears to be beyond the grasp of some esteemed Nunavut legislators. The traditionalist members who ganged up on Health Minister Ed Picco last week displayed an ignorance that defies understanding.

"Sometimes when the women are sent out to the shelters, whether to Iqaluit or to another community, and if they are here in Iqaluit, many end up drinking and some end up having extramarital affairs," Tunnuniq MLA Jobie Nutaraq declared.

Wait a minute. Isn’t that what many MLAs are renowned for when they end up in Iqaluit? Through his words, Nutaraq is telling us, in effect, that two-faced hypocrisy is perfectly consistent with his version of "Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit."

Nutaraq went on to complain about the suffering of children left behind by mothers who seek refuge at Qimaavik. He made no reference, however, to the suffering children who have to hide inside closets and utility rooms while daddy smashes their mother’s face in. The suffering of female victims, however, appears to be irrelevant to Nutaraq. Not once did he acknowledge that their abusers are guilty of serious crimes.

Then Rankin Inlet South MLA Manitok Thompson piped up with a story about how she tried to "contact" a women’s shelter on behalf of an aggrieved male constituent. How reassuring for Nunavut’s many victims of violence. Now they know even their MLAs can be counted upon to side with their assailants.

Another traditionalist MLA, David Iqaqrialu of Uqqummiut, complained that Picco’s answers just didn’t have enough IQ in ‘em.

"The government members are making responses without any regard to Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. It is something that I do not tolerate," he said on Feb. 21.

If Iqaqrialu wants respect from mature adults, however, perhaps he could say something like this the next time he gets up to speak: "Too many innocent people in Nunavut are suffering from violence and abuse. It is something that I do not tolerate."

Since the creation of Nunavut, many Nunavummiut have basked in a nostalgic haze of inward-looking cultural traditionalism, ignoring the fact that governments at all levels have been incorporating Inuit culture into their policies for nearly 40 years — in social policy, education, wildlife management, and the justice system.

Elders committees to deal with domestic violence? That’s an old idea that’s already been tried, sometimes with disastrous results for abuse victims.

In 1985, in Arctic Bay, a territorial court judge, upon the urging of a well-meaning elders’ committee, allowed a convicted rapist to serve a short sentence in the community instead of the four-year stretch in federal penitentiary that his offence would normally have warranted. As Nunatsiaq News reported last summer, the victim in that case, who was a teenager at the time, is still getting counselling for the trauma that she endured. No one paid attention to her needs.

Before playing with potentially dangerous community-based experiments in which powerless crime victims have their fates decided by the arbitrary whims of powerful community leaders, Nunavut legislators must first face the ugly truth.

Nunavut has the highest per capita rate of violent crime in Canada, including homicides. That doesn’t mean the streets of Nunavut’s communities are dangerous. Most of the time they’re not. It does mean, however, that for the weak and the vulnerable, it’s Nunavut’s homes that are dangerous. That’s where the violence takes place, at home, behind closed doors.

It’s mostly males who are responsible for major crimes of violence — 676 in 2000, compared with only 484 in 1999. As for females, 119 were charged with major crimes of violence in 1999, compared with 98 in 2000.

This is occurring at a time when the overall crime rate in Nunavut is rising, even though crime is decreasing everywhere else in the country. In 2000, 6,130 Nunavummiut were charged with criminal offences, compared with only 5,085 in 1999. Over the years, a long list of Nunavut leaders, including MLAs, mayors and elected Inuit association officials, have done their best to contribute to these appalling statistics.

But some leaders, such as Quttiktuq MLA Rebekah Williams, are obviously dedicated to higher values.

"As long as there is violence in the home, we must support shelters that provide safety," she said in a member’s statement this week.

There are those who seem to believe that the creation of Nunavut should bring about a restoration of absolute power to traditional male leaders.

But Nunavut was created to bring power to all Nunavummiut, male and female, young and old. If that doesn’t happen, then the creation of Nunavut will have been a waste of time.

JB

TOP

March 8, 2002

A good decision by NTI

In deciding to dissolve the Nunavut Social Development Council and to have its functions performed directly by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., newly-elected NTI president Cathy Towtongie has launched her presidency with a bold and decisive move.

As for whether or not this is a good development for Nunavut beneficiaries, only time will tell. But so far it looks like a good decision.

It’s not surprising that Towtongie and the rest of NTI’s board were compelled to do something about the NSDC, whose responsiblities are set out in Article 32 of the Nunavut land claims agreement.

Although the NSDC appears to have done some things aimed at meeting the relevant provisions of Article 32, there is little evidence that it is accomplishing what appears to be its most important job: helping Inuit define their social and cultural development goals.

Another Article 32 requirement that they have rarely met is to produce an annual report on the state of Inuit culture and society. Since 1996, the NSDC has managed to do that only once, in a report issued in 2000.

Another problem with the NSDC is that, as an appointed body, its board was not subject to any form of democratic accountability to the beneficiaries. Nowadays, most thoughtful beneficiaries would consider this to be unnacceptable for an organization handling increasingly large amounts of money and responsiblity.

Having the NSDC’s functions performed by NTI’s board, on the other hand, means the provisions of Article 32 will now be carried out by people who need to face the voters from time to time in order to keep their jobs. The electoral system under which NTI leaders are chosen by beneficiaries may be deeply flawed, but it’s still better than an arbitrary appointment process.

As Towtongie pointed out, and as many of us know only too well, the Inuit of Nunavut are suffering from a long list of social dysfunctions, most of which have grown worse since the proclamation of the Nunavut land claim agreement in 1993. In her election campaign, Towtongie told voters that, if elected, she would have NTI do more to address these issues.

Seizing control of the NSDC and having it folded into a new social development department within NTI ought to give Towtongie and her colleagues a new tool for making the organization relevant to the lives of ordinary Inuit.

We’re sure that everyone in Nunavut, Inuit and non-Inuit, will wish them well in these efforts.

JB

TOP

March 8, 2002

Feeling used today?

In a sitting dominated by double-talk, moral cowardice and a variety of petty idiocies, Nunavut MLAs have done us all a great service over the past two and a half weeks.

More effectively than ever before, they’ve revealed who among them deserves to be thrown out of office in the next election, which, we hope, will be called as early as possible — in the fall of 2003, if not sooner.

Unfortunately, any MLA who quits at the end of this assembly, or who ends being defeated, will not now have to pay the full price for his or her incompetence.

That’s because they’ve now created two new ways of gouging the public even after they no longer hold public office: a new severance pay provision, called the "transition allowance;" and a new supplementary pension plan likely to cost the government of Nunavut an extra two to three million dollars over the four-year life of this assembly.

The transition allowance is not unreasonable. It provides departed MLAs with a form of severance pay that is roughly equivalent to what is available to territorial government employees who resign from their jobs.

Even those MLAs who spend their four-year terms boozing, screwing around and making fools of themselves every time they open their mouths in public should be legally entitled to some form of severance. Arguably, it’s a fair price to pay for getting rid of them.

But to allow MLAs to also collect a newly-beefed up pension after only one four-year term verges on an abuse of the public trust. For every dollar of his or own that a member contributes to the pension fund, the government will have to contribute at least five dollars, or more. That was a finding of a commission on MLA compensation that reported to the GNWT in 1996.

It’s no wonder MLAs kept their pension discussions secret for nearly a year. The idea is an insult to the intelligence of Nunavummiut, who have been told repeatedly by the same group of legislators that there is not enough money for a long list of human needs in Nunavut.

The small group of protestors who stood outside the assembly building at noon on March 5 displayed a greater sense of public responsibility and respect for democracy than the sad little band of idiots who met inside that day.

The four MLAs who had the good sense to either vote against the supplementary pension plan or to opt out of it are: Hunter Tootoo, Paul Okalik, Ed Picco and Rebekah Uqi Williams. Remember their names.

All other MLAs supported the plan, and 14 voted for it. Above all, remember their names too — and make sure you use this information against them if they’re foolish enough to put their names forward in the next election.

JB

TOP

March 15, 2002

Bad gas, bad facts?

On the surface, it appears as if government-supplied gasoline is playing havoc with snowmobile engines in at least 10 Nunavut communities, and possibly more.

Snowmobile owners all over Nunavut, most of them hunters, have been complaining for months that this year’s batch of fuel is destroying their engines.

Some say their fuel is a different colour than it usually is and produces an odd smell. Some repair shop mechanics agree the problems are related to unsuitable fuel. Some manufacturers say they won’t honour warranties for certain repairs on broken-down machines. Some hamlet councils who don’t trust the government have sent fuel samples out for independent analysis, and say the results support their claim that the territorial government’s fuel is sub-standard.

Not surprisingly, a few MLAs are now asking the government of Nunavut to consider compensation for hunters whose snowmobile engines have been wrecked.

The government, on the other hand, says its own tests show — so far — that there’s nothing wrong with its fuel. They have, however, sent more samples out for testing.

It’s understandable that the government of Nunavut has denied responsibility. The payment of compensation claims to aggrieved snowmobile owners could cost a lot of money, especially if the evidence to support those claims is open to question.

But the scores of hunters all over Nunavut who are shelling out hundreds of dollars each for expensive repairs and new parts can’t all be wrong — and this issue is about more than money. It’s also about public safety. The spring hunting season is almost upon us, and hunting families all over Nunavut will be heading for their favourite camping spots. If snowmobiles break down unexpectedly during that time, search and rescue workers may have some serious work to do.

It’s obvious that the first thing the government must do to resolve this issue is to produce a clear set of credible facts that everyone can agree on.

The key word here is "credible."

Ever since the winter of 1998-99, when people in Gjoa Haven first suspected that something was wrong with their gasoline, no one has really trusted the government’s assertion that Nunavut’s gasoline supplies are just fine.

The government, therefore, should find a way of conducting an independent, arms-length inquiry into the state of Nunavut’s fuel supplies. Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated and the regional wildlife organizations may wish to co-sponsor and co-finance such an initiative.

Its job should be to determine, once and for all, if Nunavut’s fuel supplies are tainted or substandard, and if so, to find out why. When it’s finished, the people of Nunavut should be told about its findings in an honest and clear manner.

Such an inquiry ought to look at where Nunavut’s gasoline comes from, who sells it, who ships it, and who stores it. It may well be that the territorial government isn’t responsible for the problem, and that someone else is.

Whatever the truth may be, it’s the responsibility of government to lead the way toward discovering it. Until that happens, the bad gas issue will never be resolved.

JB

TOP

March 22, 2002

Lawsuit anyone?

You’d think that after spending more than $443,000 in the first of what’s likely to be a long list of compensation payments to more than 40 victims of former teacher Ed Horne’s sexual abuse, the government of Nunavut would now understand the term "liability."

As many readers will recall, the Nunavut legislative assembly recently voted to spend the money as Nunavut’s share of a $1-million preliminary payment made by Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

That’s the sort of price that public institutions pay when they fail to exercise due diligence toward those placed in their care.

But recent events show that Nunavut’s happy-go-lucky territorial government is still creating unnecessary liabilities for itself.

For example, Denny Kudloo, a 21-year-old man from Pond Inlet with an undisclosed mental illness and a history of sexual deviancy that began at puberty, was allowed to stay at the Tammaattivik patient home in Iqaluit last October. Staff members at the home didn’t know his history. After he walked into a private room and sexually assaulted a patient, the home’s management was not "clearly informed" about what he’d done.

So in December, Kudloo was allowed back into Tammaattivik — sent there by Nunavut’s health department. On this second stay, he seemed to have as much fun as he did on his first. He walked into another unlocked room and sexually assaulted another hospital patient.

It gets worse. When Kudloo appeared in court this week, no one offered any evidence to suggest that the man is getting any competent, professional help for his mental illness. There was no evidence put before the court to suggest that the man will get help from a qualified psychiatrist or psychologist, or will enter any kind of treatment program for sex offenders. And no one has provided clear answers to questions about where the man will stay if he ever needs medical care in Iqaluit again.

In this case, Kudloo appears to be as much of a victim of territorial government incompetence as his victims.

Lawsuit anyone?

Unfortunately, few Nunavummiut have access to civil law, or understand how to use the courts to claim their rights or seek redress for damages inflicted by institutional incompetence. In Nunavut, civil law is, for the most part, available only to the affluent and the powerful.

But given the mounting evidence of institution failure in justice, health, education and social services showing up in the criminal side of the court system, we may not have to wait long for that to change.

For example, earlier this month it was revealed that a 17-year-old convicted of five sex charges related to children and youths has received no court-ordered psychiatric assessment.

Justice Robert Kilpatrick ordered the assessment on June 8, 2001, as part of a sentencing decision that saw the boy ordered to serve 14 months in custody, followed by a 22-month period of probation. As of March 13, 2002, the GN had yet to do that assessment. Described in court as posing a high risk for sexual violence, the boy is unlikely to get any help until after a psychiatrist assesses his problem.

Defence lawyer Michael Chandler even asked Justice Kilpatrick to find the GN in contempt of court, but Kilpatrick decided to give the GN more time.

So if this boy were to be released before an assessment is done, and then re-offend, could his victims successfully sue the GN? Or could the boy sue the GN for failing to perform a duty of care?

Yet another example is the dental therapist in Pond Inlet who in February was charged with two counts of sexual exploitation and two counts of sexual assault involving minors. A health department employee who works inside a school in Pond Inlet, the man had easy access to children.

So if this man were to be convicted, could his victims sue the GN for failing to perform a duty of care?

Understaffing and high staff turnovers may account for some of these embarrassing problems. Bad policies, incompetence, and complacent attitudes may account for others.

But those who work in departments responsible for performing duties of care to the public and to a wide variety of vulnerable clients should be reminded that when they screw up, the consequences of those failures can be expensive and long-lasting.

JB

TOP

March 29, 2002

Time to narrow the digital divide

Local dial-up Internet service first came to Nunavut in the summer of 1995, thanks to a small private business in Iqaluit.

Seven years later, people in most Nunavut communities are still waiting for basic dial-up Internet access. So are people in many other communities throughout northern Canada, including Nunavik.

Of Nunavut’s 26 communities, only residents of Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, Baker Lake and the five communities of the Kitikmeot enjoy access to dial-up Internet access. In the 10 communities outside Iqaluit with decentralized Nunavut government functions, government employees put up with a primitive form of satellite access that’s so slow it’s sometimes unusable. For private users in most of those communities, there’s nothing, except for expensive long-distance modem calls to southern Internet service providers.

In the year 2002, this is unacceptable.

The Nunavut government’s response to this situation has been equally unacceptable. In February 2001, the territorial government sponsored the creation of a 16-person task force to advise the government on how to bring broadband — or higher speed — Internet service to Nunavut.

More than a year later, the government has yet to produce a report based on the work of that group, which was made up of people from government and private business.

It’s original purpose was to complement the federal government’s broadband task force to make sure Nunavut’s voice was heard. But the federal task force finished its work in June 2001, issuing a report that recommended up to $4 billion in spending, without the benefit of the Nunavut task force’s work. In December, Finance Minister Paul Martin killed the idea by refusing to put any broadband money into this year’s budget — and still, no report from Nunavut. Brian Tobin, the federal industry minister who tied his reputation to the broadband initiative, soon slunk out of federal politics with his tail between his legs.

Perhaps the greatest casualty in the broadband fiasco was the notion of basic dial-up access, the kind of simple Internet access you can get by dialing a local phone number. Perhaps if Industry Canada had set its sights on a more modest goal — providing basic dial-up access to Canadians in remote and rural communities and leaving broadband to a later time — their efforts may have been taken more seriously.

At any rate, the broadband issue arose, attracted some public debate and then died. After that time, Nunavut residents are still waiting to view the result of their own government’s work on that issue.

So until the government of Nunavut gets its act together, the only recourse left for Nunavut residents who want basic dial-up Internet access in their communities is to appeal directly to Canada’s telecommunications watchdog, the CRTC.

That’s what the hamlet of Chesterfield did last August. Other Nunavut residents, along with municipalities and other organizations should think about doing the same.

In November 2000, the CRTC issued a landmark decision. Most Nunavummiut will remember it as the ruling that opened the North to long-distance telephone competition and allowed NorthwesTel to offer 10-cent-a-minute long-distance rates. A less well-known, but equally significant part of that CRTC decision allowed NorthwesTel to begin a four-year, $67-million service improvement plan.

Unfortunately, the CRTC did not let NorthwesTel add local Internet access to that plan. The phone company, in a prior submission, said it wanted to spend $5.3 million over the next four years to provide local Internet access in some smaller communities.

But the CRTC told NorthwesTel to wait two years. If no northern-based Internet service providers stepped forward to offer dial-up access in small communities in that time, then they would look at the idea of allowing NorthwesTel to do it.

CRTC inserted this provision, apparently, in response to submissions from Nunavut-based ISPs. But since then, virtually no northern-based service providers have stepped forward to offer dial-up Internet where it was previously unavailable.

In Baker Lake, the hamlet council contracted with an aboriginal-owned business in Winnipeg to provide local dial-up access to residents. In Arctic Bay, meanwhile, a locally based ISP went belly-up.

It’s likely that few, if any northern businesses, will ever step forward to offer dial-up access in Nunavut’s small communities. If it made sense to do that, those businesses would be there already.

The Hamlet of Chesterfield Inlet pointed that out in a letter to the CRTC last August.

"In our municipality, no business case has been made, or realistically will be made in the future for any Internet service provider to deliver local dial-up Internet access," said a letter signed by Chesterfield Inlet’s mayor, George Tanuyak.

Chesterfield Inlet’s letter also said that "the exclusion of local dial-up Internet access from the NorthwesTel service improvement plan causes a substantial financial hardship for the citizens and businesses in our community."

So NorthwesTel is again seeking CRTC permission to offer dial-up access in small northern communities not served by anyone else. They’re also seeking permission to offer call display and other extra telephone services that are in great demand in small communities.

This time around, we hope the CRTC agrees to NorthwesTel’s request, provided that the regulator also monitors the company’s finances closely. NorthwesTel is now using a $17-million-a-year supplemental fund, provided by the nation’s telecommunications industry, to make up for the revenue it lost when it slashed its long-distance rates.

That fund could also be used to make up for the cost of offering dial-up Internet access in small, unprofitable communities. Nunavut residents should encourage the CRTC to make it so — and not because it’s in NorthwesTel’s interest, but because it’s in the public interest.

JB

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