KIA wants more attention paid to long-standing issues

Lack of CBC outlet, support for Umingmatok and Bathurst Inlet still rankles many

By JANE GEORGE

Many residents of Cambridge Bay long to return home to Bay Chimo, shown here, and Bathurst Inlet. But these two tiny communities, located about 200 kilometres to the south of Cambridge Bay, are not considered to be communities, but outpost camps, by the Government of Nunavut. (FILE PHOTO)


Many residents of Cambridge Bay long to return home to Bay Chimo, shown here, and Bathurst Inlet. But these two tiny communities, located about 200 kilometres to the south of Cambridge Bay, are not considered to be communities, but outpost camps, by the Government of Nunavut. (FILE PHOTO)

CAMBRIDGE BAY — Inuit in Nunavut’s Kitikmeot region still wonder if officials outside the region are paying any attention to them.

That’s because they’re still waiting for action on two outstanding issues that cropped up once again this week during the annual general meeting of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association in Cambridge Bay.

There, delegates told Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq, who joined into the AGM from Ottawa by telephone, to bring back the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s regional news bureau.

They also passed a resolution Oct. 20, asking the KIA to lobby CBC North to re-establish a broadcast facility in Cambridge Bay to “broadcast news and current events in Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun and English.”

CBC North’s Kitikmeot bureau opened April 1, 1998 in Cambridge Bay after years of lobbying by Kitikmeot leaders.

But the bureau, usually staffed by only one person, fell silent in March, 2008.

That’s when reporter Matthew Illaszewicz left CBC for a job in Iqaluit with the Government of Nunavut.

In June, 2008, a CBC North spokesperson said CBC would not close its small Kitikmeot news bureau, promising to resume service to the region after filling a vacant job in Cambridge Bay.

However, after the job was filled, the new hire never relocated to Cambridge Bay and remains in Iqaluit.

The CBC building in Cambridge Bay is now a Service Canada outlet.

CBC North’s radio shows for Nunavut, which are scheduled to air before work, at lunch and at the end of the work day in the Baffin and Kivalliq regions, miss listeners in the Kitikmeot region due to the time zone difference between Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet and Kitikmeot communities.

Events in Iqaluit stopped GN ministers and MLAs from learning first-hand about Kitikmeot concerns at this week’s KIA meeting.

They didn’t attend the gathering because the Nunavut legislature resumed its sitting on Oct. 18, the same day that the KIA convened its meeting.

So they weren’t there to hear repeated calls from KIA delegates for more GN services for Bay Chimo and Bathurst Inlet.

Most of these two tiny communities’ residents spend the winter in Cambridge Bay due to a lack of services.

Bathurst Inlet and Bay Chimo, located about 200 kilometres south of Cambridge Bay, have several houses, tiny diesel power plants, a make-shift water system and gravel airstrips.

Until a few years ago, Bay Chimo, officially known as Umingmaktok, had a Co-op store, a couple of warehouses and a one-classroom school.

But the school closed, its store shut down, and now the runway is becoming overgrown with weeds, the KIA meeting heard.

The GN maintains that the two communities are outpost camps and will receive fuel.

But that’s all.

Under the Northwest Territories, funding was provided to “unorganized communities,” including Umingmaktok and Bathurst Inlet.

Before the KIA meeting wrapped up Oct. 20, delegates resolved to “have Bay Chimo and Bathurst Inlet recognized and funded as communities” by the GN.

“They are under the Nunavut Land Claims agreement, which was signed by all levers of government and is enshrined under the Constitution of Canada,” the KIA resolution reads.

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