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TODD PHILLIPS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Jose Kusugak says he's disappointed the architects designing Nunavut haven't created a model that better reflects an Inuit perspective.
The president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. made his comments this week in reaction to the Footprints 2 report released last week by the Nunavut Implementation Commission.
"What a letdown and a disappointment after anxiously waiting for a good sequel to Footprints 1," Kusugak said in his Iqaluit office, before leaving for Ottawa to review the report some more.
He said sequels to many movies are disappointing, but he had hoped the NIC's second report would break from that trend.
"Footprints 1 had a lot more innovative originality," Kusugak said. "It is, in my opinion at least, disappointing."
Kusugak said he had hoped the members of the commission would have spent more time looking for innovative ways of creating a government, "instead of taking all that time to have been convinced by the territorial government that the status quo is necessary." he said.
"The idea was not just to take a knife and cut [the NWT] and have twins in the west and in the east... The idea was to be able to look at it from an Inuit viewpoint, which we are a majority after all..."
He said the report doesn't go far enough in respecting the spirit of Article 23 of the Nunavut land claims agreement. That's the section of the agreement that sets out goals for hiring Inuit for jobs with the Nunavut government.
More specifically, Kusugak said the report didn't stress how important having a good knowledge of Inuktitut will be for getting a job with the Nunavut government.
"The idea of Inuktitut cultural and language knowledge is a real necessary asset to get a good government job. They kind of missed that through the insistence that they put job guarantees first," Kusugak said.
The NIC recommended that all government employees who are given a satisfactory job appraisal should be able to keep their jobs.
For its part, NTI had recommended that all existing territorial government jobs carried over to the Nunavut government should be reopened for competition within three years after division.
"If they are going to ride the coat-tails of the land claim agreement to make the [Nunavut] political accord part of it, then surely they would have used the land claims for things like jobs and procurement as a real basis for some of this..."
In the past, critics have accused Kusugak of making racist comments when promoting the views of Inuit, but he says he isn't trying to exclude anybody.
"It is not anti-qallunaat, it is not anti-the western idea of forming a government," Kusugak said. "It is just a different approach, a new approach to some of the ideas.
"Sometimes we talk about the Inuit approach. But it doesn't mean against any other society. It's what's workable for everybody. People continue to misunderstand..."
But Kusugak said the report was a "workable document" and did contain many recommendations that NTI supports. He said he plans to alert the members of NIC about his opinions at a Nunavut leaders' meeting planned for this weekend in Iqaluit.
Kusugak says he's also surprised that the commission released its report in English without an Inuktitut version.
He said NTI's translators are now scrambling to translate parts of the document so that unilingual Inuit, like second vice-president Raymond Ningeocheak, can understand it.
"It's kind of ironic that they would do this when they put so much emphasis on Inuktitut as a first language for the Nunavut government."
Kusugak left this week for Ottawa, where he will be reviewing the report with NTI first vice-president James Eetoolook, second vice-president Raymond Ningeocheak, and NTI's executive director and legal counsel.
Since the report covers so many areas, each of NTI's four elected executive members will head a review committee that will look at specific subjects.
The review committee members expect to meet in Rankin Inlet Dec. 10-11 to prepare their formal reaction to the report.
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsTODD PHILLIPS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Joshua Alookie knows he's lucky to be alive.
The Broughton Island fisherman was one of three Inuit crew members aboard the MV Vesturvon, which was harvesting turbot in Baffin Bay.
Alookie, who has a history of bleeding ulcers, was vomiting blood and needed urgent medical help. Rescue officials say they were worried he might have been hemorrhaging.
The trawler's crew called for help and headed toward Resolution Island, at the mouth of Frobisher Bay.
Rescue coordinators sent a Hercules aircraft from Greenwood, Nova Scotia to drop two search and rescue technicians (SARtechs) onto the island where they could meet the trawler and administer medicine to Alookie.
But poor weather forced the rescuers to parachute into frigid Arctic waters and then swim through rough seas to the fishing boat. There wasn't ice in the water, but the air temperature was -16 C.
They gave Alookie the medicine he needed to stop his bleeding. The trawler then took him to Iqaluit where he was taken to the Baffin Regional Hospital. He was treated and released this week.
"I'm very happy those two guys parachuted to the boat," Joshua Alookie said last week from his hospital room, still groaning in pain.
"They told me that if they didn't come, I could have died from losing too much blood."
Alookie praised the bravery of the men who saved him.
"There were a lot of waves, they were pretty brave."
Even after the SARtechs brought him medicine, rescue officials in Iqaluit had to scramble Tuesday night to bring him a different type of medication.
That's when they got the RCMP's DQ-15 orange Hurricane Zodiac rescue boat in the water to take the medicine out to meet the trawler in Frobisher Bay about 50 kilometres from Iqaluit.
"They took down IV fluids and drugs that were necessary. They met the boat and transferred the stuff," said Mike Ferris, emergency measures coordinator for the Baffin.
"It's past boating season. All the main boats, including our search and rescue boat, were out of the water," said Ferris." "We worked on it until 1:30 a.m. to get it in shape."
Many people in Iqaluit were surprised to see the brightly-lit fishing trawler anchored in Frobisher Bay on Wednesday. The trawler dropped off Alookie and the two search and rescue workers.
Shore packed ice is building in Iqaluit and heavy equipment is needed to plow a path in the ice so boats can get in and out. The municipality also had its loaders down at the beach at 6:00 a.m to break up the ice and clear a path for the boat and trailer.
But the two men who rescued Alookie only had time for a brief media interview on the beach before setting off again to search for four of their colleagues who were missing in Labrador.
"After they got off the boat, they had a bite of something hot to eat and were taken right out to the Herc that was waiting for them with its engines running," Ferris said.
A four-man Griffon helicopter crew from Goose Bay, Labrador was trying to make its way to Frobisher Bay to take Alookie to hospital, when it crashed off the coast of Labrador near the abandoned Killiniq/Port Burwell settlement.
The four men swam to shore and then hiked about four kilometres to a fuel cache where they sheltered themselves in a crude, tarp covered shack. They used fuel to start a fire to keep themselves warm.
Meanwhile, the original Hercules aircraft from Greenwood, plus an Aurora from Greenwood and other military planes joined in a search Wednesday but their efforts were hampered by poor visibility.
At 5 a.m. Thursday, spotters aboard the Aurora saw four flares fired from Killiniq and they dropped two SARtechs who walked about 2 km to where the helicopter crew had sheltered themselves.
About 36 hours after they crashed, the four men were hoisted aboard a helicopter and taken to Kuujjuaq for medical treatment. Two crew members returned to Goose Bay, Labrador, and the other two were medevacked to Montreal.
The men were treated for injuries from their sudden impact with the water, including cuts and bruises, whiplash, and lower back pain.
Some men had damage to their respiratory system, partly from inhaling the smoke and fumes from the fuel they lit to keep themselves warm.
"What are you going to do? You've got to build a fire no matter what the fuel is," said Lieutenant Commander Glenn Chamberlain from the Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax.
First Officer Capt. Wade Pelly, 25, lost his boot while swimming ashore after the crash and had serious frostbite on his foot. Doctors are now trying to save his foot.
The other crew members were pilot Capt. Karim Krey, flight engineer Sgt. Scott McCoy, and Master Cpl. Andre Daigle, a search and rescue technician.
The 65-metre fishing trawler is from the Faroe Islands.
(With files from Jason van Rassel in Iqaluit)
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsJASON van RASSEL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Elder Jayko Pitseolak opened Iqaluit's community wellness conference Monday by lighting a qulliq and offering participants some sound advice.
Pitseolak explained that out on the land, she would often prepare a qulliq for lighting before she went to sleep, so she wouldn't have to do it in the morning, when people tend to be groggy and a little slow-witted.
"I think that's the best way to handle any situation - to plan ahead," she said in Inuktitut.
It was fitting advice for the more than 60 participants representing nearly every social service agency and interest group in Iqaluit, who gathered at the Anglican Parish Hall for the four-day community strategic planning session.
The purpose of the conference, which was scheduled to end Thursday, was to come up with a community wellness strategy for Iqaluit.
Community wellness was conceived by the GNWT to give communities the power to make their own decisions over funding health and social services initiatives.
By the end of the day Monday, the participants had already identified the top seven challenges facing Iqaluit today.
Perhaps not surprisingly, drug and alcohol abuse topped the list.
Parenting was ranked second, with many participants talking about the need for better supervision and discipline of children and a need for a curfew in Iqaluit. Parents also need to do more to instill traditional Inuit culture and values on their children, some said.
Youth issues, particularly suicide, ranked third. Participants spoke about the lack of youth programs and activities in Iqaluit, as well as the need for good role models.
Youth were well-represented at the meeting. In addition to a whole table of youth representatives, a group of students from Inuksuk High School visited the conference Tuesday and participated in some of the discussions.
Other priorities identified by the participants fell under the following areas:
The participants also came up with a wish list of what they'd like to see in Iqaluit in the year 2010. People wanted to see a community centre where kids and teens could go; a safe house for abused or neglected children; more jobs for Inuit; more awareness by young people of Inuit culture and traditions, like sewing, hunting, singing and dancing.
People also wanted the education and justice systems to better reflect Inuit values: more Inuktitut in the schools, while in the justice system, the majority of cases would be dealt with not by the courts, but by community justice mechanisms, with a focus on personal betterment - not punishment.
All the information from the meeting will be pulled together into a report that will make up Iqaluit's community wellness strategy.
Iqaluit Mayor Joe Kunuk, who spent most of his time at the meeting observing and taking notes, said the priorities identified by participants at the meeting will help Iqaluit town council gauge what people in the community want them to do.
"My hope with this conference is that the map of our future will be done through here," Kunuk said Monday.
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsJIM BELL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT It's 7:30 a.m., July 27, 2001.
Pauloosie has just climbed out of bed. His grandfather is sitting at the kitchen table, saying "Let's go beluga hunting."
But Pauloosie has a job maintaining the hamlet's power station. Somebody has to be there all day to monitor and maintain the generator.
Does that mean Pauloosie must say no to his grandfather's invitation?
No, it doesn't.
Pauloosie calls his younger brother, Mark, with whom he has a job-sharing arrangement, and Mark agrees to look after the power plant that day.
That's just one example of how the nature of work could change in Nunavut, if recommendations contained in the Nunavut Implementation Commission's Footprints 2 report are adopted.
The NIC is also sponsoring a major conference in Iqaluit in February, 1997, called "The Future of Work in Nunavut Conference."
The commission says that unlike many southerners, Nunavut residents have other interests in life than just work.
"Having time for family, friends, hunting, fishing, camping, and time to deal with the simple practical realities of life in the Arctic (snowmobile repairs, frozen water pipes, meeting airplanes etc.) is important in Nunavut, and requires a flexible approach to life," the commission says.
And they say that classic economic measuring sticks like "GDP," or "gross domestic product," don't include many factors that reveal the true quality of life in a society.
They say, for example, that the unpaid work of community volunteers and unpaid home-makers is as valuable as work that's done for wages.
"In more traditional times, distinctions between work and the contributions of individuals to society were not made," the commission says in Footprints 2. "Work, and the carrying out of responsibilities to the collective good, were considered to be one and the same thing."
The commission also points out that in Nunavut, there just aren't enough full-time jobs to go around anyway.
They say that according to the 1994 NWT Labour Force Survey, there were 11,318 people in Nunavut between the ages of 15 and 44 79 per cent of the population.
But the commission says that the creation of the Nunavut government is likely to result in the creation of only 3,672 full-time jobs, enough for only 29 per cent of those in the 15-44 age group.
And they say that situation is not likely to change.
"In Nunavut, there are too few traditional wage type jobs and not enough money spread around to allow people to take full advantage of free time," the commission says.
"A better balance between work time and personal time could bring about tangible improvements in the quality of life."
In Footprints 2, the commission suggests eight different ways of doing that:
The commission estimates that as many as 587.5 additional job openings could be created with the Nunavut government.
The commission says this option gives people time to stay home to look after children or elders, to go hunting, or to pursue other interests. They say it also gives managers an option for keeping staff who might otherwise leave their jobs.
The commission describes this as another form of part-time work, where two employees agree to share the duties of one position.
The NIC says that in order to retain employee status, at least one of people in the job-sharing arrangement must work more than one-third of the week.
The commission also says members of one household or family could share certain jobs, "while giving household members more time at home to look after children and elders, while retaining the benefits of a full-time salary."
Under this option, employees are allowed to complete their work in a period of time that's shorter than normal.
Under this option, employees could do things like collapse four weeks of work into three, allowing for nine consecutive days off at the end of each month one five-day work week plus two weekends.
The commission also says 12 months of work time could be compressed into nine months, allowing to people to hunt for long periods in the spring and summer.
The commission says this could be useful to managers at times when a larger work force is need during peak periods, and when a smaller work force is needed in slow periods.
This would allow employees to pick variable times for starting and finishing their work. This commission says this could allow employees with other commitments to juggle their responsibilities.
This could allow for maximum use of office space and equipment, the commission says. And in seasons when there are extended hours of either daylight or darkness, it may not matter to some people when they're up and about.
This means working at home while being connected to your office with a computer and a modem.
In the United States, there are already 8.8 million telecommuters, and it's becoming an increasingly common way for people to do their jobs without leaving their homes and families.
The commission says teleworking may allow for more jobs to be distributed more widely throughout Nunavut's far-flung communities, especially if every community gets access to a new broadband telecommunications network that the GNWT is helping to build.
The commission also says teleworking would save a lot of money, since it means fewer employees will have to relocated and that the construction of new office space and housing would be kept to a minimum. And it also makes it easier for employees to spend more time with their families and to work flexible hours.
The commission recommends that the Nunavut government look at more ways of giving more people more time off.
This might include "income averaging" and more time off without pay, the commission says.
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsJIM BELL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT - "The road to Nunavut is along the information highway."
That's what the Nunavut Implementation Commission has to say in its recent Footprints 2 report about the crucial role that new telecommunications technologies ought to play in Nunavut.
They say that new tools, such as computers, modems, videoconferencing equipment, and high speed transmission lines sent through the earth's atmosphere by way of satellites and satellite earth stations could bring a cornucopia of benefits to Nunavut residents.
"The case for such a system is simple," the NIC says. "A decentralized headquarters government spread throughout 11 communities in one of the highest transportation cost regions in the world requires an effective telecommunications system if it is to function effectively and efficiently."
And they say the creation of a new telecommunications network in Nunavut will not only make it easier for the traditional elites to govern the governed.
They say all Nunavut residents will benefit from the economic transformation that new technologies will bring about, and that ordinary people would have more power, and more opportunities than they have now.
"In a region where the problems of distance and remoteness are impediments to economic growth and job creation, reliance on old resource-based economic strategies are no longer appropriate," the commission says.
"In Nunavut, poor telecommunications infrastructure and services, a lack of technological skills, a lack of income, and difficulties associated with unilingualism, prevent residents from participating in the knowledge-based economy."
But a new communications network could change all that, the commission says.
"Individuals could do distance work for the Nunavut or federal governments, or for private employers located in other parts of the country," the commission says.
"Information, libraries, and databases located in Nunavut and throughout the rest of the world could be easily accessed. Goods and services, news, and travel information that is currently inaccessible could be placed at one's fingertips."
The NIC points out that in 1992-93, the GNWT spent a whopping $70 million on travel, with $35 million of that being attributable to Nunavut.
But a system that allows for videoconferencing and the easy transfer of text, graphics and audio material could bring those costs down.
"Members of the Legislative Assembly could be present for meetings in their constituencies without having to leave the capital, and could participate in caucus meetings in the capital without having to leave their home communities," the commission says.
"Similar benefits could exist in the administration of justice, where witnesses could be interviewed at a distance and perhaps even testify at a distance in court proceedings."
New community jobs and training
A new digital network would also create new jobs in the communities, each of which, under the NIC's proposal, would have a community teleservice centre.
To help run the new network, the commission says Nunavut will need 58 community technicians, nine regional technologists, and three Nunavut systems engineers.
Back to Nunatsiaq News
JASON van RASSEL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT The NIC and Finance Minister John Todd agree that Nunavut should start out healthy, but they have different ideas about how to do it.
But despite disagreeing with some of the Nunavut Implementation Commission's latest recommendations on laying off government employees and selling staff housing, John Todd says the GNWT is mostly happy with the NIC's "Footprints 2" report.
The GNWT has yet to issue its formal response, but Todd said it will likely be favorable.
"We're sort of setting the stage for what we believe will be a generally positive response to the report," Todd said from Yellowknife Tuesday. "There will be some differences, but I don't think they're significant."
In Footprints 2, the NIC recommends that for the Nunavut government to start out on solid footing, the GNWT shouldn't lay off any more employees after March 1, 1997.
"Fewer departments employing fewer people, with adjustments of a wrenching nature being made according to tight time-frames these things are now shaping public perceptions as to how much or how little job security GNWT employees can expect in the immediate future," the report says.
But the government hasn't finished its two-year plan of eliminating the deficit, John Todd said, and more lay-offs are inevitable.
"I do appreciate the NIC's position and concern because it's of equal concern to me as well, but there is no guarantee right now that there won't be further lay-offs," Todd said from Yellowknife Tuesday.
Cutting more jobs isn't the easiest or most popular move, but it's necessary if Nunavut and the new western territory are to be born financially healthy on April 1, 1999.
"I'm balancing the budget so that we've got a future...so that we have adequate financial resources to deliver the services to people and peoples' kids," he said.
In Footprints 2, the NIC also reiterated its longstanding recommendation that the GNWT stop selling staff housing in Nunavut, but Todd says that isn't going to happen, either.
"We've embarked on a process, and we're far away down the pipe," Todd said, adding that 60 per cent of the GNWT's staff housing is already sold.
Considering the Nunavut government's buildings will be built and owned mainly by private Inuit companies and leased back to the government, it doesn't make sense for the Nunavut government to be a landlord to its employees, Todd said.
"We are consistent... with the approach that's being recommended and being supported by NTI and others on the infrastructure of Nunavut," he said.
The GNWT's policy not only benefits Inuit businesses that can buy staff houses and rent or lease them as private landlords, but GNWT employees as well, who have the chance to own their own homes, Todd said.
In a news release this week, Premier Don Morin and Deputy Premier Goo Arlooktoo called Footprints 2 a "positive step" towards the creation of Nunavut.
"The proposed model of government will be easier for people to understand and to deal with," Arlooktoo said in the news release. "The Footprints 2 report is clearly a step in the right direction for the new territory."
That's a marked change in tone from last May, when Morin suggested that the NIC be scrapped and Arlooktoo said the decentralized government model set out by the NIC might not be possible.
Todd, who is the chairman of the territorial cabinet's division planning committee, said the GNWT will likely announce its official response to Footprints 2 in Iqaluit sometime in December.
"We're trying to move as quickly as we can I think that's important because the last time we didn't move as quickly as we should have," Todd said.
The GNWT didn't issue its official response to the NIC's original Footprints in New Snow report until May, 1995 a year after it came out.
Back to TopJASON van RASSEL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT The NIC's recently unveiled "Footprints 2" report is a big step towards better labor relations with public servants, the Union of Northern Workers says.
The Nunavut Implementation Commission released its latest report on the design of Nunavut's government last week. It contains several recommendations about the relationship the government and its employees will share after 1999.
If the NIC's recommendations are adopted, the frosty relationship between the GNWT and its employee unions will be a thing of the past, a UNW official in Iqaluit said Tuesday.
"We're looking forward to a warmer relationship with our future employer compared to the GNWT," said Andrew Johnson, the UNW's vice-president for the Baffin region. Needs different from West
Among other things, the NIC is recommending that Nunavut's interim commissioner once he or she is appointed negotiate collective agreements on behalf of the Nunavut government with the unions and employee associations that represent Nunavut's public service workers.
Nunavut members of the UNW have long argued that the needs of public servants in Nunavut, where there are no roads and the cost of living is higher, are different from their counterparts in the west.
Given the feeling of many employees in Nunavut that the current collective agreement with the GNWT was forced on them, having a separate agreement in place for Nunavut makes sense, Johnson said.
"We are more than happy for the interim commissioner of Nunavut to negotiate a separate contract for workers in Nunavut when the current contract expires," he said. "We are not willing to be divided and conquered by the GNWT again."
Despite widespread opposition in Nunavut, the UNW ratified its collective agreement with the GNWT last July, largely on the strength of a Yes vote by union members in the western NWT.
In Footprints 2, the NIC argues that the needs of Nunavut's workforce are unique, and require innovative approaches to the concepts of work and employment.
The NIC is recommending a "flexible" approach that would include more part-time work, job sharing, compressed work time, seasonal work, flexible hours, shift work, and "telework," a term for working from home while connected to the office by a modem.
Those measures would allow more of Nunavut's workforce to find jobs in the public service, while at the same time giving employees more time to spend with their families and on traditional activities like hunting and camping, the commission says.
Historically, unions have been wary of measures like job sharing and part-time employment on the grounds that they take away from the full-time employment of union members.
But Johnson said the union is committed more to serving its members in Nunavut than sticking to ideology, and said the union would welcome any innovative solutions the Nunavut government comes up with if that's what workers say they want.
"The whole point of the Nunavut caucus of the union is that we want to form a union that reflects the needs of its membership," Johnson said.
"All of those are perfectly feasible techniques for distributing work among a maximum amount of participants," he added. "We'll cooperate if we get strong support."
Back to TopI read in this past week's Nunatsiaq News that there has been a lot of hoopla about Santa Claus living in Greenland.
The last time I spoke to Santa some years ago, he was living just north of Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island. He was very happy to be living on Ellesmere then and didn't seem to have any plans to move anywhere.
I was suspicious of the stories from Greenland so I decided to call Santa to clear things up. His phone number is one of the world's best kept secrets and only a handful of people in the world have it.
Because Christmas is getting closer, Santa is extremely busy but he was kind enough to accept my call.
"I still remember you when you were a little smart aleck in Resolute Bay," he said with a belly laugh.
I asked him about the stories of him living in Greenland. He told me that he had taken a long holiday some years ago in Greenland.
Apparently some people recognized him even though he was in a disguise and under an assumed name. They mistakenly assumed he was living there.
"I don't have the heart to tell those nice Greenlanders that I had just been on holidays and don't intend to leave my home in Nunavut. I've been sending one of my many doubles to take part in some of their activities," he explained.
Santa also wanted people not to think of him as a Nunavummiuq or a Greenlander.
"I am an international citizen who loves all the beautiful children of the world," he said.
But he still likes his home on Ellesmere the best. Besides his home and toy factory in Nunavut, Santa also has a cabin in the Alaskan North Slope, a small outpost camp in Siberia and a chalet in Norway.
Santa said he was a little disappointed about all the publicity in Greenland.
"I've ran into Larry Audlaluk and some others from Grise Fiord a few times but they have always respected my privacy and kept their promise not to tell anyone," he said.
Santa's secret home and factory is inside a mountain and not likely to be found.
Santa also explained that he doesn't use reindeer to pull his sleigh.
"I have been using Peary Caribou for years," he explained. He said that Peary Caribou were much less temperamental and easier to train then reindeer or barren ground caribou.
"I started out using reindeer but found that the smaller Peary was much easier to get along with," he said with a chuckle.
Santa also told me that he would like part of Ellesmere Island to become a national park after Nunavut is created. He said he has always been concerned about mineral exploration intruding into his domain and would like some protection from the Canadian and Nunavut governments.
Santa agreed to another interview about Christmas issues and the results of that interview will appear in these pages sometime in December.
It was not very long ago that it was rare to hear Inuit contemporary music on the public airwaves.
In the last few years, there has been an explosion of Inuit contemporary music. This sudden increase of Inuit music is probably due to the success of Susan Aglukark and Tudjaat.
But behind every success story, there are usually pioneers. The pioneers in this case are people like William Tagoona (who got his start with The Harpoons in Churchill), Charlie Panigoniak, Etulu Etidluie, Naudlak Osuituk, Charlie Adams, Tumasi Quitsak, Itulu and Susan Angnikmiuq, Uvagut, and Colin Adjun.
Besides being a politician, a rebel, and a writer, Zebedee Nungak also blazed a trail with his accordion and his banjo.
Keep the music coming. Expand your musical horizons. And tip your hat to the pioneers.
Back to TopI really enjoy reading your newspaper every week on Internet it is so convenient and informative.
In a recent edition, there is a letter criticizing you for stating that a quote is "through an interpreter."
I agree with you that it is important to mention that the quote is not direct but through an interpreter, for many reasons.
As a suggestion, you could indicate simply [Translation] before the quote, as is done in many texts that are translated from another language.
For what it's worth, the Hansard uses that way to indicate it is a translation.
P. Rousseau
Yellowknife, NT
I agree with Lorne Kusugak's letter of Nov. 1 in which he wrote that you should stop reporting that someone speaking Inuktitut spoke "through an interpreter."
Although I'm sure you don't mean it, it does sound rather demeaning to the person being quoted.
There may be occasions when there is a conflict between what a person said in Inuktitut and what the translator and the reporter understood, but I think those occasions would be sufficiently rare that you should change your policy.
One other possibility is that you merely report that the person "spoke in Inuktitut," and let your readers decide if they thought the reporter understood the speaker's words or was quoting a translator.
Dave Mullington
Ottawa
A couple of weeks ago, members of Iqaluit's RCMP detachment showed us they're willing to listen and that they're willing to do their jobs.
The RCMP's newly-created Nunavut drug enforcement unit has found a legitimate way of using police service dogs to detect illegal drugs entering the Baffin region by way of the Iqaluit airport.
Fed up with rates of illegal drug use that are among the highest in the country, Baffin residents have requested that kind of police action for at least 10 years.
So after an intensive five-month investigation that culminated in the use of a trained German shepherd dog named Bud, RCMP in Iqaluit seized $96,000 worth of drugs and laid narcotics charges against seven people.
As well, RCMP have shown a new willingness to crack down on bootleggers and those who import liquor illegally. That resulted in charges laid several weeks ago against an Iqaluit resident for illegally selling booze. They also made several liquor seizures, including one from somebody who tried to bring in 1300 cases of beer on the last sealift.
Those charged are of course, presumed innocent until proven guilty. And some may indeed be found not guilty by the courts.
But finally, the message the police are sending to dope peddlers and bootleggers is now consistent with the values and aspirations held by most Baffin residents.
We all know that dope and booze have turned our region into a killing ground for the young. Over the past 10 years, 37 people, most of them young, male and Inuit, have killed themselves in Iqaluit alone. During the same period, there were only 24 suicides in the entire Keewatin region, which has a population two and a half times greater than that of Iqaluit.
As for the whole of the Baffin, there were 99 suicides during the same period &173; yes, there really were that many.
And that doesn't include the hundreds, and perhaps thousands of people permanently maimed by fetal alcohol syndrome, sexual abuse, malnutrition, and the deep scars that incessant family violence has carved into their psyches .
There may be those who believe that the recent actions of the RCMP are an unjustifiable violation of individual rights &173; especially the right to privacy, and the right not be subjected to "unreasonable" police searches.
But Canada is an essentially conservative nation, and most of us Nunavut residents are deeply conservative in our own way &173; "conservative" in the true sense of the word.
For us, the organic ties that bind families and communities to each other and to the land are sacred. And we must fight whatever threatens them. Most of all, we have to fight the monsters that are eating our young.
That's why the RCMP's actions are reasonable. Drug and alcohol abuse in our region has produced a death count approaching that of a low-grade guerrilla war. To inconvenience those responsible by using a sniffer dog at the Iqaluit airport is the least we can do.
Section one of the Charter of Rights allows governments to infringe upon individual rights whenever such actions can be shown to be reasonable in a free and democratic society. Such a situation surely exists in the Baffin region today.
So the RCMP is doing its job. But are we doing ours?
There once was a time when many of us were too drunk or stoned to notice, or care about, what was going on around us.
But all that's changed. The community wellness planning meeting that Iqaluit residents held this week at the Anglican parish hall shows that more and more of us are willing to fearlessly confront the past in order to build a healthy community.
Another is a "Take Back the Night" march held recently in Cape Dorset, where about 400 people came out to take a stand against family violence. This week - which is national addictions awareness week &173; there were numerous other events held around the Arctic.
That's the real solution to drug and alcohol abuse &173; community residents banding together to help each other walk away from alcohol and drugs. If more of that happens, we won't need the RCMP. JB
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These materials are Copyright (C) 1996 Nortext Publishing Corporation (Iqaluit), and may be freely distributed throughout the Internet, or other electronic computer networks or bulletin boards, as long as this notice remains intact and the articles are reproduced in their entirety. These materials may not be reprinted for commercial publication in print or other media without the permission of the publisher.
Last updated November 22, 1996
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