ITK president responds to La Presse series on Nunavik

Inuit know that we face a variety of gut-wrenching social problems.

Family violence, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, inadequate housing, lack of employment, confusion over identity — these things hit us hard. Very hard.

In the small communities of Inuit Nunangat, and in the Inuit communities within southern cities, these problems are not mere statistics. They are highly visible and highly personal: each has a well-known face.

Such problems are not unique to Inuit, of course; pain and heartbreak are the same across all cultural divides. But their scope and severity amplify the necessity and urgency of making things better for us. Not slightly, but better — radically better.

The editor of Nunatsiaq News writes that denial will not help. No one can disagree. The truth is a valuable thing, however unhappy and unsettling it can be sometimes. From our history of colonization and our struggles of decolonization, Inuit have learned that lesson better than most.

Since first being elected as president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, I have tried to make telling the truth my most important job. Particularly, speaking truth to power.

In virtually every public speech and presentation I have given, I have spoken as candidly and as persistently as I can about the fundamental social and economic difficulties that we face. I have placed unwelcome facts and realities at the front end of speeches and presentations, not buried them in the footnotes.

I have spoken in front of audiences who get it. And I have spoken in front of audiences who do not appreciate hearing about problems that are, for them, out-of-sight and out-of-mind.

But, whatever the level of empathy and interest, truth must be the cornerstone of all our Inuit politics and policy making.

Denial can be more than a delusion; it can be dangerous and destructive.

It is dangerous when it is assumed that merely continuing the kinds of public sector programs and services that we now have will bring about a major improvement in the daily lives of most Inuit.

It is dangerous when Inuit are told that treating the symptoms and consequences of deep rooted social and economic problems, rather than their causes, will deliver, as if by magic, good and reliable results.

It is dangerous when the obvious and chronic lack of basic infrastructure in such things as mental health treatment and the rehabilitation of prisoners is put in the too-hard-to-do pile.

It is dangerous when national policy for the Arctic is charted on the premise that multi-billion dollar commitments in national defence and resource development projects have a legitimacy and priority that far outweigh, and eclipse, making Inuit communities sustainable.

But if denial can be dangerous, so, too, can the absence of hope. In one of the La Presse articles, a Nunavik teacher, Rolland Glaude, says: “It’s confidence that matters.” He is right.

Truth is not well served when the complexities of community life are reduced to only one side of a picture. Alongside the sad, heart-breaking accounts of family and personal tragedy and self-destruction, are other stories.

Stories of determined and courageous efforts to come to terms with the contemporary world while at the same time sustaining our very unique identity as a people. A people with a history, language and way of life distinct from all the other peoples that make up our human family. Good journalism requires the opportunity for fair comment; but it also imposes the responsibility of providing fair context.

One aspect of the La Presse articles rings very true: the emphasis on the role of education, and its importance, for better or worse, for our future — not just for individuals, but for Inuit society as a whole.

In the field of education, there should be no room or patience for battles over turf or ego; there is more than enough responsibility to go round.

Students, parents and wider families, educators, communities, and all levels of governments must work together to tackle shared challenges imaginatively and effectively.

Given the crucial importance of education, I was disappointed at the lack of reference in the articles to one of our most important breakthroughs in recent years: the adoption in 2011 of the first National Inuit Education Strategy.

If I had been contacted by any of the writers of the article before they filed their stories, I would have had plenty to say about the future of Inuit education and the urgency of implementing the Strategy. I was not given that chance.

Nunatsiaq News has a long history of contributing to the life of Inuit Nunangat by not shying away from difficult topics.

The articles in La Presse take the same approach. While I do not, and probably never will, see our world in quite the same way as professional journalists do, I believe that a fair and free press plays an essential role in provoking public discussion and debate.

I hope this particular discussion and debate generates some light as well as some heat.

Mary Simon
President
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami

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