Nunavik crime-fighting money benefits hockey, healing

Two fundamentalist Christian missionaries, Vae Eli, originally from Samoa, and Roger Armbruster from Manitoba, were in Quaqtaq in 2009 for the opening of the Aaqqitauvik healing centre, a project that continues to receive money from Nunavik’s Ungaluk safer communities program. (FILE PHOTO)

Michael Cameron, middle, a new executive member of the Kativik Regional Government’s regional council, recently resigned as coordinator of the Ungaluk safer communities program. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

The Nunavik Youth Development Hockey Program and a Quaqtaq healing centre were the big recipients of Nunavik’s Ungaluk crime prevention money this past year, says a report tabled at the recent Kativik Regional Government council meeting in Kuujjuaq.

The Ungaluk Safer Communities program doled out $14 million to 125 projects in 2009-10.

A 2006 deal with Quebec, which traded the construction of a provincial jail in Nunavik for about $300 million, means Quebec pays Makivik and the KRG more than $10 million a year until 2030.

The money coming to Ungaluk, whose name means the first ring of snow blocks at the base of an igloo in Inuttitut, should be “a flexible tool designed to prevent and combat crime, to promote safe and healthy communities.”

The money should pay for “culturally appropriate measures” to the social environment, help crime victims and improve correctional activities for Nunavimmiut.

“Part of the criteria is to try and assist in trying to stop the repeat offenders or first time offenders from going back through the justice system, such as police station, court, detention and penitentiary, “ said Michael Cameron, who recently resigned as Ungalak’s executive director.

The money is also supposed to lower the crime rate and help victims to get support, Cameron said.

But Ungaluk is re-evaluating what priorities need to be funded and programs needed in the region, he said in a March 15 email.

And consultants are now evaluating the Ungaluk program, with their report expected to ready by the end of April.

For the past three years, a committee named by Makivik and the KRG has determined what the regional needs are and decided how to spend the money.

Although Quaqtaq is one of the Nunavik’s smaller communities, it received 19 per cent of the $4.9 million that the KRG hands out for community projects. Quaqtaq came in second only to Kuujjuaq, which was approved for 20 per cent of the money earmarked for community projects.

Quaqtaq’s healing centre received more than $400,000 to expand the centre’s services in its second year in operation.

Part of that money went to a 2010 healing workshop at the Christian-based healing centre, healing sessions for the centre’s staff and the development of a second similar centre in Nunavik.

Aaqqitauvik, which has links to fundamentalist missionaries Roger Armbruster of Canada Awakening Ministries and Vaeluaga Eli, a Samoan dancer and evangelist with the New Waves Ministry, received $350,000 in 2008-09.

Eli and Armbruster are part of a loosely affiliated network of independent preachers who have nurtured and influenced the spectacular growth of an Inuit-run fundamentalist Christian revival in Nunavut and Nunavik.

Armbruster’s ministry, Canada Awakening, is devoted to “building the indigenous church in Canada’s north,” a church that respects Inuit traditional cultural values and Inuit leadership.It’s one of several ministries that have helped the Inuit Christian movement in Nunavut and Nunavik grow by leaps and bounds since the 1990s, sometimes with the help of municipal governments.

KRG approved another $120,000 was approved for Quaqtaq’s Men Arise healing and support conference last year.

Scheduled speakers at that conference included Andy Koornstra, a fundamentalist missionary connected with Arctic Missions. Koornsta wrote a book called “Homosexuality-Getting Free, Staying Free” about his determination to change from homosexual to heterosexual behavior through religious means.

The men’s conference was open to all men in Nunavik.

Makivik Corp. distributed about $5 million to finance Nunavik-wide programs.

Of that, almost $3 million was funnelled into the Nunavik Youth Hockey Development’s select program, headed by former NHL star and Olympian Joé Juneau, is in its fourth year.

Juneau has spent the past three years trying to promote hockey, education and good citizenship in Nunavik through the region’s youth hockey development program.

The latest batch of money was used to send different levels of select hockey teams to compete in Quebec region tournaments earlier this year.

The Ungaluk program will have distributed $300 million in provincial money to Nunavik projects when the money hand-outs cease in 2030.

Nunavik organizations have already made 182 requests for Ungaluk money in 2010-11.

So far, “the program has been very useful,” said Cameron, who resigned his position to take over as executive director of Salluit’s Qaqqalik landholding corporation, leaving Betsy Palliser as Ungaluk’s interim director.

Speaking to regional counsellors at the recent KRG meeting, Cameron suggested that communities or organizations send in their proposals three months before the start-up of their project to allow enough time for the committee to evaluate the request.

Councillors, who told Cameron that they needed clearer guidelines for how Ungaluk approves projects, received a booklet of application guidelines at the KRG’s March meeting in Kuujjuaq.

But some councillors say that the program’s reach also needs to be broader.

“A lot of people need support,” said KRG chair Maggie Emudluk. “People need something to keep them busy, to give them peace of mind.”