The real hypocrites
Near the end of last month, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told international leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland that the world’s richest countries should do more to help pregnant women and young children in the world’s poorest countries.
In those remarks, and in an opinion piece published Jan. 26 in the Toronto Star, it’s clear that Harper was talking about nations like Sierra Leone, Afganistan, Chad and Somalia, whose infant mortality rates are many times higher than even the worst regions of Canada’s Arctic.
Of every 10 children born today in Sierra Leone, for example, nearly three will die before their fifth year of life. The Inuit of the Canadian Arctic have not experienced such death rates since the 1940s, when, according to Statistics Canada, an Inuk born in those years could expect to live only 28 to 35 years. That’s because, in the era before nursing stations and settled communities, more Inuit were dying than were being born, which is definitely not the case now.
It’s also clear that Harper was talking about the grim conditions that afflict pregnant women in the world’s poorest countries, where 500,000 women perish every year during pregnancy or while giving birth. This is because they live in places where there are no doctors, nurses, clinics or hospitals. Again, this is not the case in Nunavut and other regions of the Canadian Arctic, where it is now extremely rare for a woman to die while giving birth.
It remains to be seen if the Harper government’s actions on foreign aid will match the prime minister’s rhetoric. Only time will tell.
As we’ve said, it’s clear Harper was talking about nations where even Nunavut’s mediocre health indicators would be considered miraculous achievements.
These obvious facts, however, didn’t stop the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Inuit leaders from leaping into the issue with some highly uninformed commentary.
Pita Aatami, president of Nunavik’s Makivik Corp., essentially accused Harper of hypocrisy, in an article distributed last week by the Canadian Press:
“If you’re going to talk the talk, you might as well practice it in your own country,” Aatami said.
It’s Aatami’s hypocrisy, however, that is breathtaking. If Aatami wants to know what hypocrisy looks like, he should take a look at the face staring back at him when he shaves every morning.
Aatami’s Makivik Corp. operates within a failing region, Nunavik, where nearly every health and social indicator — including life expectancy, infant mortality, and suicide — are worse than in any Arctic region in Canada.
Yet Makivik rarely uses its considerable influence to expose these issues and press governments to better the lives of women and children in the region it purports to represent.
In 2007, for example. the Quebec commission on human rights and the rights of children issued an embarrassing report on the complete failure of the Nunavik region’s child protection system. Makivik’s reaction? Near total silence.
In 2008, reporter Agnès Gruda of La Presse wrote a devastating series of articles on homeless children living like animals in Aatami’s hometown of Kuujjuaq. Again, Makivik reacted with near total silence.
And when the Inuulitsivik Health Centre, which manages one of the region’s two hospitals, teetered on the edge of collapse, beset by numerous scandals, including its inability to cope with the sexual abuse of children, Makivik’s reaction was muted at best.
Furthermore, any direct entreaty to the Prime Minister of Canada about Inuit health care is a waste of time anyway. It’s territorial and provincial governments who run health programs for Inuit in Canada.
The federal government does provide much of the funding for this, without requiring much in the way of accountability. That absence of accountability on part of the territories and provinces does deserve much criticism, but Canada’s Inuit organizations rarely do that.
For example, in July of 2009, a study presented at the International Congress of Circumpolar Health in Yellowknife revealed that half of Nunavut’s children aged three to five don’t get enough to eat. Another found that seven in 10 Nunavut families go hungry for at least part of the year. Yet another found that about half of pregnant women in the Baffin region don’t get enough to eat.
And yet it took Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami more than six months to arouse itself from its habitual state of apathetic torpor to comment on this issue, which they did only last week, long after the information was made public in Yellowknife last summer.
Nunavut institutions aren’t much better. It took an outside body, the North Sky Consulting firm, to point out, in the Qanukkaniq report card, to propose that Nunavut desperately needs anti-poverty and nutrition programs for children and families.
So far, no Inuit organization has ever forumlated and put forward a coherent position on this issue. That should tell you all you need to know about who the real hypocrites are in the Canadian Arctic. JB
(17) Comments:
Don’t worry, this is the year of the Inuit! AND, the VANOC logo is an inukshuk. What more do you want?!?
JB, I am not Inuit but I have been in the North since before Nunavut and NWT split. I love it up here; the people are great, the land is beautiful. The biggest problem with Nunavut is the leadership (with the exception of the new premier). 10 years of telling the rest of the world about their rights and culture, but forgeting about the future. You have babies having babies, uncles raping nieces, and if the kids go to school, they go hungry and having witnessed acts that no child should see, or the are forced to sleep on the streets like dogs to escape. It is pasted the time that the Inuit leaders who beat their chests and scream about the past, look in the mirror and realize they need to take care of their future, THEIR CHILDREN.
Because no matter how much money they recieve to compensate them for the past or the millions to promote their culture, without a healthy vibrant educated youth all their money, culture, past with just be a footnote in history.
You’re right but yet the federal government is in charge of “Indian Reserves” under the colonial Indian Act and it is well known that the situation of people living on Reserve is often dismal. For instance there are many cases of overcrowded and insanitary houses (mold etc.), lack of potable water, rampant violence etc. For a developed country like Canada, this situation is unacceptable.
His government killed the Kelowna Accord and very little efforts are being made to address the colonial Indian Act and really start a process of decolonization. I don’t mean by this that they shouldn’t help other countries - no, quite the contrary - but they should certainly address those internal issues that have been festering for decades in this country, leave that colonial approach and enter into modernity through a real partnership with Canada’s Aboriginal peoples.
Jim Bell misses the point of the leader’s arguments. It is the federal government that sets the landing fees for all aircraft, which impact on the high food air cargo rates. Similarly the Canadian Coastguard sets high fees for all cargo ships coming north. These two things alone, help to artificially inflate the price of everything in the north, and are under the control of well Prime Minister Harper and the federal government. Similarly the reduced Welfare block funding all but guarantees that Inuit who comprise almost 100% of wellfare recipients, are stuck with a limited food budget to pay for all the high cost of food items. These three items have helped to make Inuit lands into 3rd world countries.
In reality, it is the lopsided funding of Nunavut, which promotes greed, apathy (such as the editor of NNews) and ignorance. Very little of the money that goes to Nunavut actually ends up benefiting the people it is supposed to help. That is the reality. It is not the Inuit leaders who set the agenda. The agenda is set by Ottawa, Nunavut is still very much under the sphere of influence of the Dept of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Prime Minister Harper can help by raising and insisting Nunavut get rid of its Welfare to Work program, and instead replace it with a realistic welfare program. One that provides destitute Inuit families with a decent chit program where they can afford to actually buy nutritious food. And answer some of the same challenges Harper makes to the rest of the world while he is at it. Fix Nunavut Harper, fix it first, then complain.
Taqulik - you are bang on about all of that.
However, I think the intent was not to whitewash aboriginal issues in Canada, but to suggest that it’s rich for Inuit ‘leaders’ to lay all the blame on the Federal Government.
We need leaders who are willing to confront our social issues head-on. When was the last time you saw an elected Inuit leader who went after pregnant smokers? Pregnant mothers who drink? Young men who sit around the quickstop and drink coffee all day? Child molesters? Spousal abusers?
We can’t expect the Federal Government to fix all of our problems for us. If we do, then why do we need Inuit ‘Leaders’?
Happy Iqaluitmiut, do you have any idea what the livng conditions of a third world country are? To see your child die, right infront of your eyes, because there is neither the medicine or resources to feed him. These fees that you talk of, they are all over Canada. The day of blaming everyone who tries to help need to end, the only one who can fix this problem is the person in the mirror. Harper comes to Nunavut once or twice a year, he is the elected leader of this Country, he does not live in Nunavut, we will still be here long after he leaves office. Nunavut is our problem, either get busy and be part of the solution, or go back to the Quikstop and drink coffee with the rest of the braintrust.
Well said Throbbin!
All too often our leaders here in the Nunavut and the greater north lay blame (often aimed at the Feds) but do nothing beyond that. We must recognize the problems, recognize the factors contributing to those problems, and then do WHAT WE can to fix or alleviate those problems by ourselves. After that it would be a lot easier to then complain, pressure, and ask the Feds for more help if we can show we are also putting $, resources, and effort into alleviating the problem. Becasue showing them we actually have a plan along with the will to overcome such problems makes ones complaint or request a heck of a lot more legitimate and meaningful.
Happy Iqaluitmiuit: It’s clear that you simply hate Jim Bell and that hatred clouds you from any rational consideration of the content in which he has put forth. I’ve read your posts before and similarly these ones are off the mark. The reality is that it IS the Inuit leaders and birthright organizations who set the agenda. Ottawa’s involvement is transfer payments. That’s it. What is done with the money is decided by our consensus gov’t. Ottawa is not going to fix anything…especially if Harper is still in power. He only cares about sovereignty, not the welfare of Inuit/Nunavummiut. The Feds are also not going to do anything about high costs of living, it’s up to the GN et. al. to develop infrastructure to reduce the high cost of importing goods.
I remembered not to long a go an “honourable” guy named Steven Harper apologized to First Nations, Metis and Inuit people of Canada on behalf of the Federal Government.
In his speach he linked the social problems in our communities today were linked to the Residential School System.
Once I head this I believed that the Federal Government finally recognized that they helped create the social conditions that exist in our communities today and was dedicated to addressing them. Unfortunately that has not been the case, nothing has been done other then given a hand full of people money that many ended up blowing away on drugs and booze becuase the social issues were never addressed!
Yah we can thank all those people who wanted the money too to fuel their addictions and cravings. Now momst of the money has been spend on the residential school settlement and I have barely seen any improvement.
Go read this article in the New York Times. It’s about Haïti but can be put in relation with the North.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15brooks.html
A comment on the ed op, “Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yeild to him” von Goethe. A high flying leadership will do little if the grass roots work is neglected. What we are lacking is more responsible citizens, not in quality but in quanity. Do you share each day and the tide can be turned.
I give up. If the scientific evidence that showed Inuit children from Cambridge Bay to Hopedale Labrador are starving and malnourished is not enough, then what is? Corrupt Ottawa politics that pit Inuit against Inuit has not impact on what the feds give us a territory. It is Ottawa that sets the stage for Nunavut, these are the actions of non-Inuit politicians and bureacrats. All our elected politicians do is well, act like corrupt politicians they are.
Well if Ottawa gives us so little money, then how can we fix our hunger problem if there is nothing being done to stop the wanton rape of Nunavut by the stores, the businesses, the airlines? No amount of blaming corrupt Inuit politicians will answer that one. It is Ottawa’s willingness to overcharge us outrageous landing fees at the airport which are over and above landing fees charged in southern Canada. Or the outrageous Coastguard fees that drive up the cost of shipping to the north. These are set by Ottawa, no amount of Inuit politicans living a Compassionate Christian Conservative lifestyle is going to change that. The reality is everyone wants to rip the Inuit off, and that is why we see hungry, underweight Inuit children, (which by the way is now scientficially proven by the recent study done on the coastguard ships, the Inuit Health Survey)...
Okay the Government of Canada spends 187 million dollars on this so called food mail program. how about giving that money to Inuit to have enough food for 7 years after that, e.g. 187 million divide it the number of people in Nunavut and thats how much it cost to just bring the food in and on top of that we have to by it from somebody who got it for free from the feds? We need to reform this system where we rip ourself off, If the money was given to me directly I would have 7 million dollars and imagine how much food I can buy, where does all this money go????
Leadership? Rampant child sexual abuse, spousal and sexual assault, malnourished pregnant women,kids having kids, hungry children, STDs, drugs, crime…
Current GN leadership & NTI, prefer not to talk about these issues, believing that they should present a ‘more together front’ for the Feds, so investment and tourism won’t be hurt - sacrificing the people here from ever getting the help they need.
The GN leadership and NTI have to get real or get out.
Nunavik’s Makkvik leadership did the same thing. It took the Quebec Provincial Government to point all this out and to do something about the social mess they were in & their children - not the Inuit leadership, who were too busy hiding under their desks, trying to avoid it as usual.
Maybe the Feds on their own, should declare it a state of emergency here, so they can fast-track much-needed resources to deal with the social crisis, since no one else wants to step up and do the right thing…
Who are the real hypocrites here, As everybody knows all Inuit were conditioned to be like this, and people tell us it’s our fault that we are like this, no way it ain’t, the government make us like this and for people to complain about something like this is just plain stupid. We had priests raping beating and brainwashing all Inuit to be fucked up, and then there are the people who make fun of us when we were never responsible for this crap.