Nunavut language watchdog weighs Inuktut skills against beneficiary status

Sandra Inutiq, languages commissioner for Nunavut, left, and Aluki Kotierk, director of strategic planning for the Office of the Languages Commissioner, prepare for hearings before the Legislative Assembly’s Standing Committee on Oversight of Government Operations, Sept. 22. (PHOTO BY PETER VARGA)

Joe Savikataaq, MLA for Arviat South, notes during hearings with Nunavut’s languages commissioner that many Inuit beneficiaries don’t actually speak Inuktitut. (PHOTO BY PETER VARGA)

Even though it enjoys equal status with English and French in Nunavut, the Inuit language is in “a much weaker position” relative to the other two, says the languages commissioner of Nunavut, Sandra Inutiq.

The ultimate sign that the Inuit language has reached the same level as English and French will be the day the territory adopts an Inuktut standard across the territory, Inutiq told MLAs sitting on the legislative assembly’s standing committee on oversight of government operations at a day-long hearing Sept. 22.

The commissioner presented her office’s annual report for 2012-2013 to MLAs at the hearing, describing the most recent strides in preserving and promoting the Inuit language.

“Inuktut” is the term the government now uses to name the Inuit language in Nunavut.

The territory’s Official Languages Act, which came into force April 1, 2013, “talks about how eventually, we could draft laws in Inuktut — and they would have the same weight as French and English,” Inutiq said.

“It would be very difficult to do that until we have a standard language,” she told the committee.

Until Nunavut reaches that long-term goal, the office of the languages commissioner has many short-term recommendations.

Arviat South MLA Joe Savikataaq pointed out that one of the commissioner’s five recommendations in the 2012-2013 report — which she highlighted in a public letter to the premier of Nunavut this past July – seems contradictory.

The office’s fifth recommendation is that government “priority hiring policies should be changed to ensure that they respect all official languages, including French,” Inutiq told the committee in her opening statement.

“There is a mechanism in place to hire people who speak the Inuit language,” Inutiq clarified, adding that such hires are protected by the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.

If employers “don’t hire a Nunavut land claim beneficiary, the default is they’re often hiring unilingual English-speakers,” she said. “We’re saying the default should be [to hire] somebody who is bilingual in English and French. So then you build capacity for being able to provide services in all official languages.”

Savikataaq noted however, that an increasing share of Inuit beneficiaries speak English only.

Inutiq’s office has in fact clearly acknowledged the decline of the Inuit language among younger generations.

“If the government were to do that, understandably that would be good for a place like Iqaluit, where there is a high percentage of French-speaking people,” Savikataaq said.

“But for a place like my own [Arviat], the only people who speak French are the Catholic mission. It wouldn’t seem that proper.”

He pointed out that the purpose of Article 23 of the land claims agreement, which promotes the hiring of beneficiaries first, is to increase Inuit participation in government employment “to a representative level.”

“I would hate it if beneficiaries would start not being hired because they couldn’t speak Inuktitut,” Savikataaq said. “That would defeat the whole purpose of Article 23.”

“I recognize that there is a huge proportion of our young population that do not speak the language,” Inutiq was quick to reply. “Over 4,000, to be quite frank.”

The commissioner said her office estimates about 4,200 Nunavut beneficiaries do not speak the Inuit language.

“I’m not saying that we shouldn’t hire those who don’t speak the language,” she added. The best solution is to give greater weight to applicants who do speak Inuktut.

This could be done through an employment equity act — a set of laws that would safeguard Inuit employment prospects for government jobs, Inutiq said.

The commissioner’s list of recommendations for 2014 includes three other items, which “relate to the need to provide more supports for adult language training,” Inutiq said. These “would benefit the private sector as well as adults generally.”

A fourth recommendation highlights the need to protect and revitalize Inuinnaqtun, an Inuit language in the Kitikmeot region which is in danger of dying out.

The languages commissioner has four roles, Inutiq reminded the standing committee: ombudsman, advocate, advisor and monitor.

As advisor and monitor, the Office of the Languages Commissioner is working with Nunavut’s 25 municipalities to help them meet their obligations under the Official Languages Act and the Inuit Language Protection Act.

The office is also conducting a “systemic investigation” of the Qikiqtani General Hospital in Iqaluit, to ensure it complies with language laws. Launched in March 2012, the investigation is nearing completion, Inutiq said.

This fiscal year, the OLC expects to wrap up a report on the private sector’s compliance with language laws. That report will likely be contained in the commission’s 2014-2015 annual report.

Several MLAs lamented that the use of the Inuit language seems to be declining throughout the territory as fewer youth speak it outside the home.

Joe Enook, MLA for Tununiq, noted that Greenland has managed to retain its indigenous dialect, one that is closely related to Inuit dialects in Nunavut. He asked Inutiq if her office could draw on the island nation’s example to preserve Inuktut.

Inutiq noted that Greenland chose to adopt a standard language, based on a dialect spoken in its southwest region.

A study by her office concluded that “if you try to protect a whole language, the dialects have a better chance of not only surviving, but thriving,” she said.

Asked whether standardization of the Inuit language is the best path to pursue, the commissioner said the question is a “sensitive one,” because communities are protective of their dialects.

Greenland’s solution was to adopt a standard dialect, used in government business and in schools throughout the country, Inutiq said. Communities still maintain their own dialects, which residents speak at home.

Adopting a standard Inuit language “is a discussion that we need to have in Nunavut, in order to protect the language,” Inutiq said.