Ottawa announces $1.6M for Pond Inlet therapeutic justice program
Public Safety parliamentary secretary Jacques Ramsay joins Nunavut MP and GN ministers for the announcement
Nunavut MP Lori Idlout speaks at the Nunavut legislature announcing federal funding for a therapeutic justice program in Pond Inlet while parliamentary secretary Jacques Ramsay, left, and GN minister of justice George Hickes listen. (Photo by Mosha Folger)
Jacques Ramsay, the parliamentary secretary to the federal minister of public safety, was in Iqaluit with Nunavut MP Lori Idlout today for a news conference to announce $1.59 million over five years in funding to adapt and deliver a therapeutic justice program in Pond Inlet.
The program will provide an alternative to court proceedings and focus on healing, accountability and support, a Public Safety Department news release issued Friday said.
George Hickes, Nunavut’s minister of justice, said at the news conference a pilot project has already delivered the therapeutic justice program in Cambridge Bay and Arviat, where it has worked with 160 clients since 2019.
“The therapeutic justice program is designed to address some of the most pressing challenges in our justice system,” Hickes said. “The overrepresentation of Inuit in the criminal justice system. The need to reduce recidivism. The importance of strengthening mental health and trauma supports.”
The federal funding is administered through the Crime Prevention Action Fund, which is part of the National Crime Prevention Strategy.
“The goal of this fund is to support evidence-based crime prevention initiatives,” Ramsay said. “It specifically targets programs that address known risk factors associated with crime among vulnerable groups, especially children, youth and high-risk offenders.”
Hickes did not give specific details on why Pond Inlet was chosen for the program.
In September 2025, Pond Inlet’s then-MLA Karen Nutarak said there was an “escalating crisis” of suicides in the community and that the GN’s response prevented further tragedy.
“We look at the caseloads, we look at the number of calls,” Hickes said. “We look at the types of calls working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and we look at where we felt it’s going to be the most impactful.”
Hickes said the program will be delivered by the GN’s Justice and Health departments.
“Mental wellness is shaped by culture, family, language, community and connection to the land,” Health Minister Janet Pitsiulaaq Brewster said at Friday’s news conference.
“Programs like this demonstrate that clinical care and you acknowledge are complementary not competing approaches to supporting mental wellness.”
Hickes said he would like to see the program delivered in every Nunavut community, but there are no plans in place to do that yet.
“When we’re looking at calls for service and the types of criminal activity in communities, it can fluctuate, it can change,” Hickes said.
“When we have an opportunity to roll this out to another community, those factors will be taken into consideration to choose the next one, and hopefully there is the next one. I do want to continue to build on this.”
Therapeutic justice sounds good in theory, but what happens when someone keeps reoffending? At some point, repeated chances stop being rehabilitation and start looking like a revolving door. Victims deserve justice too, and communities deserve to feel safe. If a program isn’t changing behavior after multiple attempts, there needs to be accountability and consequences—not just another referral to treatment.
MORNING COFFEE!!
I wish this therapeutic justice program the best. I really do. However, over the last 40 years, so many of these programs have come and gone in what is now Nunavut that it would be hard to count them all. For decades, politicians have come in with feel good announcements of these programs, and yet sadly the substance abuse, the hopelessness and the violence is as epidemic today as it has ever been.
Unless you give people some hope of participating in the wage economy and a reason not to sleep all day and drink all night, I don’t think that the violence and the suicide will come down. A therapeutic justice program just isn’t designed to offer people a fulfilling job, hope for the future, and a reason to get up in the morning and go to bed sober at night. So, while I hope it helps, I’m not terribly optimistic.
“Ottawa announces $1.6M for Pond Inlet therapeutic justice program”
Why? What is not working properly that needs to be changed?
How will this $320,000 of annual spending create improvement in the lives of humans?