The year Nunavut turned 10
Nunatsiaq News looks back at the year 2009 in Nunavut
Sherri Ikuutaq, a university student from Baker Lake, worked at Agnico-Eagle's Meadowbank mine last summer. The gold mine, located near Baker Lake, is expected to start production early in 2010. (FILE PHOTO)
Terry Kuliktana, a blind parathlete, carries the Olympic torch in Kugluktuk on Nov. 5, the day the torch entered the territory. (PHOTO BY VANESSA MOSEK)
Iqaluit West MLA Paul Okalik talks to reporters on Nov. 30, just before MLAs voted 11-3 to accept a report by the Nunavut integrity commissioner that found Okalik contravened the Integrity Act by sending campaign fundraising letters to territorial deputy ministers while he still held the premier's job. Okalik stood up in the house Dec. 1 to apologize. (PHOTO BY CHRIS WINDEYER)
Thomasie Alikatuktuk, 56, died in Ottawa this past November after resigning as president of he Qikiqtani Inuit Association for health reasons. On Dec. 14, Okalik Eegeesiak of Iqaluit was elected QIA president of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association in a by-election marked by a woeful turnout of only 28 per cent. (FILE PHOTO)
January
• Joshua Oqallak, 41, a former resident of Arctic Bay, dies New Year’s Day following a fist-fight at a house in Ottawa’s Vanier district. Tim Kadluck, 25, faces a charge of second-degree murder.
• The 2008 Nunavut Economic Outlook report, issued by the Nunavut Economic Forum, shows the territory’s economy boomed between 2004 and 2007, creating 1,700 new jobs. But the report’s authors also warned of a growing gap between haves and have-nots.
• The never-ending election: A judicial recount done Jan. 8 reveals that legislative assembly candidates John Ningark and Steve Mapsalak are tied for the lead in a by-election held Dec. 15 in the Akulliq constituency. The chief electoral officer, Sandy Kusugak, declares a second by-election for March 2, and MLAs prepare to meet in Iqaluit minus one member.
• Mary Simon, the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, urges the federal government to spend up to $1 billion on Inuit and Arctic programs as part of its economic stimulus package.
• Bruce Rawson, a career civil servant, is appointed by the federal government to lead talks on devolution with Nunavut.
• Premier Eva Aariak takes the justice portfolio away from Amittuq MLA Louis Tapardjuk after Tapardjuk distributes an email containing unguarded comments about domestic violence and the justice system. Soon after, Cambridge Bay MLA Keith Peterson becomes justice minister.
• MLAs choose Rankin Inlet North MLA Tagak Curley as Nunavut’s eighth cabinet minister over South Baffin MLA Fred Schell and Tununiq MLA James Arvaluk. Premier Eva Aariak assigns him the health and social services portfolio.
• Nunavut’s new language commissioner, Alexina Kublu, is sworn into office.
• Jim Flaherty, the federal finance minister, announces another $100 million for social housing in Nunavut in his Jan. 27 budget speech.
February
• Iqaluit lawyer Neil Sharkey becomes Nunavut’s fourth judge, after being sworn in at a ceremony held Feb. 6.
• Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. says Inuit should have an unrestricted ability to hunt bowhead whales, now that new population estimates show the species is healthy and plentiful.
• First Air announces the re-instatement of jet passenger service between Winnipeg and Rankin Inlet.
• The Nunavut cabinet emerges from a weekend retreat in Cape Dorset with a declaration that makes “quality of life” a top priority for the new government elected in the fall of 2008.
• Isuma Igloolik Productions releases its third feature film: Before Tomorrow, a dark tale of despair and death. The film goes into general distribution later in the year, attracting mixed reviews from film critics.
March
• More than four months after his first attempt, John Ningark wins the Akulliq constituency, beating Steven Mapsalak in a second by-election held March 2.
• The Beijing-based China Minmetals Corp. launches a $1.7 billion move aimed at grabbing control of Oz Minerals, the financially ailing Australian mining company that owns the Izok Lake, High Lake, Gondor and Hood deposits in the Kitikmeot region. After making adjustments to its offer, Minmetals buys most of Oz Minerals’ assets, including all of its Nunavut properties.
• Justice Earl Johnson sentences Mohammed Jamal Cherkaoui, 21, of Edmonton, to 46 and a half months in jail for selling crack cocaine in Iqaluit. Cherkaoui’s cousin, Rafic El-Cherkaowi, 23, also of Edmonton, is sentenced to seven months for similar offences.
• Nunavut’s third legislative assembly gets down to real business for the first time following the fall 2008 election. MLAs pass a slew of money bills aimed at paying for the GN’s operations until July, when the assembly will pass its first real budget.
• MLAs spank Iqaluit West MLA Paul Okalik for suggesting in a long rambling statement and in questions that Arviat MLA Daniel Shewchuk is unfit to serve as minister of the environment because of his race.
• The GN cuts retail fuel prices by 10 cents a litre, the first of three such price-cuts to be announced throughout the year.
• The GN announces a plan to train scores of Nunavut residents in suicide prevention.
• Delegates at Pauktuutit’s annual general meeting in Iqaluit elect Rhoda Innuksuk to serve as president. Innuksuk, who had already served as interim president for about a year, would, in a highly controversial internal coup, be removed from office later in the year.
April
• Nunavut residents celebrated the territory’s 10th birthday in a low-key manner April 1, with a series of community feasts, games and other modest celebrations.
• Premier Eva Aariak, also on April 1, tabled her government’s priorites for the next five years, set out in the Tamapta Building Our Future Together document. Priorities include improving education, reducing poverty, increasing housing and providing more help to Nunavummiut in distress.
• Despite the recession, the Bathurst Inlet port-road project acquires new life, thanks to renewed support from the Sabina Silver Corp. and the owners of the Izok Lake lead-zinc deposit.
• Natar Ungalaaq of Igloolik wins a Genie award as best actor for his work in Ce Q’il Faut Pour Vivre, a film about an Inuk hunter sent to a tuberculosis sanatorium in the 1950s.
• Mary Simon, the president of ITK, signs an agreement with 14 other governments and school governance bodies that creates a national Inuit education committee that’s charged with the job of creating a Canada-wide Inuit education strategy.
• The federal government dumps $24 million into the Piqqusilirivvik “culture school” in Clyde River as its share of the project’s $32.2 million price-tag. Scheduled to open in April 2011, the school will operate with a budget of about $4 million and employ about 14 people, including four administrators. But students won’t get graduation certificates or qualify for FANS money.
• The Auditor General of Canada, Sheila Fraser, issues a new report that finds the Government of Nunavut has made little or no progress fixing its basic financial management failures. “There are not enough qualified staff to properly carry out the basic financial functions,” Fraser said. Finance Minister Keith Peterson said he “welcomes” the report.
• Justice Beverly Browne sentences Tommy Nuvaqiq of Pangnirtung to 18 years in prison for a vicious home-invasion rape and battering of a young woman in 2005. The woman, who was in Pangnirtung to find tenants for the Northern Properties real estate firm, now suffers from an array of disabilities caused by the savage beating that Nuvaqiq inflicted on her.
• Julian Tologanak, 20, of Cambridge Bay, shocks the entire territory when he leaps from an aircraft and plunges 7,000 metres to his death about 185 km southwest of Cambridge Bay. Searchers never find his body. An coroner’s inquest into the incident is to be held in Cambridge Bay next year.
May
• Nunavut health officials go on high alert, as growing numbers of Canadians start getting sick from swine flu. By year’s end, more than 500 lab-confirmed cases are recorded in Nunavut, but a mass vaccination program in the fall protects many residents from a second wave of infections.
• The organization representing ship captains, the Company of Master Mariners of Canada, warns that a major shipping disaster is likely to occur in the waters off Nunavut sooner rather than later, and that governments are ill-equipped to cope.
• Arctic Council foreign ministers, at a meeting in Tromsø, Norway, urge greater international co-operation to protect the Arctic from the effects of increased shipping.
• Graeme Dargo, a consultant hired by Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl, issues a scathing report on the food mail program, recommending that it be taken away from Canada Post and completely restructured by giving transparent subsidies directly to food retailers rather than airlines.
• The stink of raw sewage fills the air in Cape Dorset when 100,000 litres of frozen effluent beneath the Kingait Inn, owned by South Baffin MLA Fred Schell, begins to thaw. GN officials slap a public health order on the business, ordering it closed until Schell and his manager can get the mess cleaned up.
• Despite intense lobbying by Inuit and Arctic organizations, the European Parliament votes to ban the importation of seal products into EU member nations.
• Premier Eva Aariak appoints Bob Long as deputy minister of the Economic Development and Transportation department.
• Premier Eva Aariak announces that North Sky Consulting, headed by former Yukon premier Piers McDonald, will conduct her promised review of the GN’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean demonstrates her solidarity with Inuit seal hunters during a visit to Rankin Inlet, when she kneels down to gut and eat a piece of seal heart.
• Sheila Watt-Cloutier of Iqaluit delivers the 2009 Lafontaine-Baldwin speech in Iqaluit, at an even organized by author John Ralston Saul and his spouse, ex-Governor General Adrienne Clarkson.
June
• Early in the month, GN officials confirm the territory’s first four swine flu cases. By the end of June, the GN reports more than 300 H1N1 infections in Nunavut, the majority located in the Kivalliq and Kitikmeot regions.
• Having reached the mandatory retirement age of 75, Willie Adams of Rankin Inlet, a Liberal, retires from the Senate after 32 years of service.
• In his maiden budget speech June 4, Nunavut’s new finance minister, Keith Peterson, says the GN will post a small $29.1 million deficit in 2009-10, but will spend more than $300 million on infrastucture, a figure that includes about $62 million for construction of new social housing units through the Nunavut Housing Trust.
• The Senate gives Nunavut’s new Official Languages Act a vote of concurrence after receiving it from the House of Commons.
• The Pond Inlet airport closes temporarily on June 5, following a wild shooting spree. Jacopie Maktar, 39, of Pond Inlet, is charged with attempted murder of a police officer.
• The Nunavut Legislative Assembly suspends Enuk Pauloosie, the MLA for Nattilik, for the entire spring sitting, without pay, for failing to attend caucus and committee meetings without reasonable cause.
• Nunavut needs a massive overhaul of its transportation infrastructure, the GN’s latest transportation strategy says. The strategy calls for deep-water ports, small craft harbours, airport improvements and roads.
• Jimmy Stotts of Barrow, Alaska replaces Patricia Cochrane as leader of the Inuit Circumpolar Council.
July
• The Alianait Arts Festival, which brought dozens of national and international performers and artists to Iqaluit for 12 days, wraps up its third and biggest July 1.
• Just before the International Congress on Circumpolar Health meets in Yellowknife, Inuit from Alaska, Canada, Chukotka and Greenland hold the first ever circumpolar Inuit health summit.
• The GN announces that it will spend $168,000 to acquire marketing rights at the 2010 Vancouver winter Olympics
• A middle-aged woman carrying the swine flu virus and recognized as a resident of Alberta and Nunavut dies at an Edmonton hospital. The woman, who suffered pre-existing health conditions, got sick in Nunavut and was medevaced to Alberta.
• Premier Eva Aariak and Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq announce a $2.25 million fix for the Arctic Winter Games arena in Iqaluit.
• A young, pregnant Kivalliq woman described as a “high risk patient” dies of swine flu.
• The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission agree in principle to the creation of an Inuit sub-commission.
• The federal government announces they’ll spend $5 million to help Pangnirtung recover from a flash flood in 2008 that destroyed two bridges and cut the community in half.
• Information gathered in the 2007-08 Qanuippitali Inuit health survey shows that about half of all children aged three to five in Nunavut don’t get enough food to eat.
• Researchers from the Qanuippitali health survey in Nunavut report that seven in 10 families in Nunavut are malnourished. Another study, done by the GN, shows most pregnant women in the Baffin region are malnourished.
• The NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines unveils a proposed scheme that would see all-weather roads, power lines and nuclear power plants in the northern territories within 25 years.
• Supt. Steve McVarnock takes over as boss of the RCMP’s “V” division in Nunavut.
• The federal government announces its long-awaited northern strategy, which covers sovereignty, social and economic development, the environment and improving northern governance.
August
• Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.‘s uranium exploration partner, Kaminak Gold Corp., starts test-drilling at a site located about 200 km inland from Whale Cove. NTI and Kaminak together own a company called the Kivalliq Energy Corp., which controls the property. Company officials brag that it’s one of “northern Canada’s highest grade uranium deposits.”
• Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. continues to unearth kimberlite deposits at its Chidliak exploration site, northeast of Iqaluit on the Hall Peninsula.
• As the territory’s rate of swine flu infection rises to about 500 lab-confirmed cases, Nunavut health officials begin preparations for a mass vaccination campaign to be held in the fall.
• A young mother and two of her sons drown in a swimming accident at a lake near Repulse Bay.
• As world gold prices continue to rise, Agnico-Eagle’s Meadowbank gold mine near Baker Lake races towards completion. The company hopes the $700-million project will go into product within the first half of 2010.
• Prime Minister Stephen Harper visits Iqaluit to observe the 2009 version of Operation Nanook and to “anounce” a series of previously-announced spending promises. He also confirms Iqaluit will host the headquarters of CanNor, a new northern economic development agency.
• An uproar ensues after Nunatsiaq News publishes photographs - taken in July by a young Iqaluit woman - 0f two young boys sleeping on a filthy concrete surface near a garbage can in front of Iqaluit’s Northmart store. Daily newspapers across the country, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and La Presse, reprint the pictures, which appear only a few days before Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s annual visit to Iqaluit.
• Canada’s provincial and territorial premiers, along with national aboriginal organizations, call for a first minister’s meeting on aboriginal issues to be held in November, 2010. This would be the first such meeting since November, 2005 , when provincial-territorial and aboriginal leaders met in Kelowna, B.C. to hear ex-Prime Minister Paul Martin issue a set of promises just before his government when down to defeat in the next federal election.
• Prime Minister Stephen Harper announces that Dennis Patterson, the well-known former MLA for Iqaluit and NWT premier, will serve as Nunavut’s next senator.
September
• Shawn Kayaitok, 23, of Kugaaruk, is sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for 18 years after pleading guilty to murdering a five-year-old girl in March 2006. Kayaitok smothered the girl, had sex with her lifeless body, then tossed her corpse into an old plastic water tank to hide it. Kayaitok was also convicted of raping a seven-year-old boy in 2005, and attempting to rape a 14-year-old boy in January 2006.
• After holding a short annual meeting in Iqaluit, the premiers of Canada’s three northern premiers issue a communiqué saying they want a pan-territorial strategy to help northern Canada adapt to climate change. They say they want to do this by working with aboriginal organizations, researchers and the federal government.
• The Supreme Court of Canada upholds a first-degree murder conviction imposed on Salamonie Jaw of Cape Dorset for killing RCMP Cst. Jurgen Seewald in 2001.
• Resolute Bay residents demand the GN maintain the community’s utilidor system, but the GN eyes a new trucked water and sewage system, claiming it costs less money.
• Stung by competition from Westjet and Air Canada, Canadian North cuts back on flight from Yellowknife to Edmonton, Calgary and Hay River.
• Baffin hunters threaten a revolt over Government of Nunavut proposals to reduce the polar bear quota for the Baffin Bay region. One option would reduce the total allowable catch from 105 to 64 bears each year.
• Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General of Canada, gives the Government of Nunavut a failing grade on its efforts to improve basic financial management since 2005. “The government does not have enough qualified staff to carry out basic financial functions,” Fraser said in introductory remarks before the Legislative Assembly’s oversight committee on government operations.
* The Manitoba Urban Inuit Association, based in Winnipeg, launches a new website and guide aimed at helping Inuit students adjust to life in the city.
October
• North Sky Consulting releases its long-awaited Qanukkanniq report card at 9:00 a.m. Oct. 1. Their report recommends sweeping changes in how the Government of Nunavut does its work: improved communications internally and with the public; better staff training; a review of decentralization; the creation of a program to provide nutritious food in the schools; and a poverty reduction strategy.
• The GN announces a mass vaccination program to protect people against the H1N1 virus, scheduled to start in mid-November. At the same time, GN officials refuse to release information about infection rates in specific communities.
• Led by captain Qimmiataq Nungutsuituq, Cape Dorset hunters kill the community’s first bowhead whale in more than 100 years. Crew member Egeevadluk Suvigak is credited with the catch because it was he who first wounded the animal. The lead harpooner was Daniel Taukie, who handled the penthrite grenade device.
• Nunavut joins the Climate Registry, a North American association of provinces, territories and states, which voluntarily calculates, verifies and publicly reports on greenhouse gas emissions.
• Red-faced Nunavut government officials cave in to public outrage over a $34,000 bill that health officials sent to Mike Gardener, 79 for his eight-month stay at the Larga Baffin patient home in Ottawa, where he had been caring for his ailing wife, Margaret. GN officials agree to pay his bill, but Gardener is required to move to other lodgings. The issue sparks a lively debate over the apparent discrepancy between health benefits available to Inuit and health benefits available to non-Inuit residents of Nunavut.
• A lawyer representing the family of Elispapee Michael of Iqaluit demands a public inquiry after Michael, who suffered an accident on the steps of the Nova Hotel, died after she was apparently refused treatment at the Qikiqtani Regional Hospital in a timely manner.
• Cape Dorset printmaker Ningeokuluk Teevee wins a Governor General’s literary award for her illustrations in Alego, a bilingual children’s book.
• A GN survey shows the Davis Strait polar bear population is likely more numerous that previously thought.
• Thomasie Alikatuktuk resigns as president of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association. In November, he dies in an Ottawa hospital, and the QIA schedules a presidential by-election for Dec. 14.
• The Canadian Pediatric Association recommends that all Inuit babies receive shots of palivizumab, a substance that strengthens the immune systems of babies and protects them against respiratory syncytial virus.
• Two Nunavut communities, Rankin Inlet and Pangnirtung, say no to looser liquor rules in community plebiscites held Oct. 26.
• Nunavut MLAs emerge from a week’s worth of caucus meetings to announce the priorities they’ve developed in response to the Qanukkanniq report card. Their to-do list includes implementation of the last assembly’s education and language laws; a review of decentralization; a new Child and Family Services Act; a children and youth advocate; a new Liquor Act; and better communications and support for business.
November
• The Olympic torch starts its journey across Nunavut in Kugluktuk, when Terry Kuliktana, a blind parathlete, takes the torch to a stage at the community’s recreational centre Nov. 5.
• Nunavut’s mass vaccination campaign against swine flu kicks off Nov.1 in Iqaluit. By Nov. 16, about 60 per cent of the territory’s population is vaccinated.
• Nunavut Sivuniksavut, the Ottawa-based program for Inuit students, contemplates the purchase of a new building in Ottawa to accommodate its expansion plans. In December, Nunavut’s four Inuit associations announce they’ll give NS $1 million to help with the mortgage on their future building.
• The Kitikmeot Inuit Association prepares a plan that would see the KIA and the other two regional Inuit associations take power and money away from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.
• The KIA announces plans to create a company called the Nunavut Resources Corp., which would create Inuit ownership in mining projects.
• Jupi Angootealuk, 17, of Coral Harbour, is rescued from an ice pan about 40 km southwest of his community.
• In a move that puts warms smiles on the lips of ticket-buyers and sends cold shivers down the spines of established regional airlines, Air Canada announces they’ll offer daily flights connecting Iqaluit, Ottawa and Montreal starting March 28, 2010, with one-way fares starting at only $599. First Air and Canadian North respond by matching Air Canada’s fares.
• Nunavut interests get nearly all of a 1,500-tonne increase in turbot quota granted for area 0B, in southern Davis Strait. Everyone’s happy, except for the Makivik Corp., which complains that Nunavik should get more than the 10 per cent of new quota it’s guaranteed under the Nunavik Inuit Land Claims Agreement.
• After a nasty internal battle, Rhoda Innuksuk is ousted from the presidency of the Pauktuutit, the Inuit Women’s Association. Elisapee Sheutiapik, is appointed to serve as interim president.
• The Nunavut Trust reports that the Inuit land claim compensation fund it’s responsible for managing lost $150 million in the 2008 financial meltdown. With less money from the Trust, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. posts a budget deficit of $4.4 million.
• The Arctic medical pioneer, Dr. Otto Schaeffer, dies in Jasper, Alta., at the age of 90.
• Baker Lake MLA Moses Aupaluktuq says he’s not guilty of two drunk driving charges laid Nov. 7, when police found an intoxicated man passed out inside a vehicle in Baker Lake that had backed into a ditch.
• After first saying “Quite frankly, I really don’t care,” in response to a report by Integrity Commissioner Norman Pickell that he contravened the Integrity Act three times, ex-premier Paul Okalik avoids suspension from the legislature by issuing an apology.
• Ex-QIA president Thomasie Alikatuktuk, 56, dies in Ottawa.
December
• The Nunavut Broadband Development Corp. announces big improvements in its Qiniq network as of Dec. 11. About a week or so later, Northwestel announces improvements to its DSL broadband service in Iqaluit.
• The GN drops fuel prices by 10 cents a litre, the third such price drop to be announced in 2009.
• Adamee Komoartok, the MLA for Pangnirtung, apologizes for his behaviour during a drunken visit to Ottawa’s Larga Baffin patient home in November. MLAs also vote to censure him.
• Many representatives from Nunavut and other Arctic regions attend the COP15 gathering in Copenhagen. In reports issued at various side-events, scientists say the Arctic will suffer profound climate change even if global greenhouse gas emissions are cut.
• A big rift develops among pro- and anti-development Inuit attending the COP15 climate change talks in Copenhagen. Greenland’s nationalist premier, Kuupik Kleist, insists that his country has the right to create more greenhouse gas emissions by developing oil, gas and mining projects.
• On the final day of the COP15 conference, U.S. President Barack Obama announces that the U.S., China, Brazil, India and South Africa have reached a watered-down agreement called the Copenhagen Accord, to be followed by a legally-binding treaty within one year. But there’s nothing in it for the Arctic.
• Okalik Eegeesiak is elected president of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association in a vote marked by a woeful turnout of only 28 per cent.
