Mad Mom’s mad about building security

Mad Mom here. Everyone knows not to tangle with an angry mother!

What am I angry at you wonder?

It’s about all the locked doors and high security by all the people who are supposed to be serving us Nunavummiut.

My question is: when did all the civil “servants” stop being civil? I can recall, several years back, the anger that resulted about the mental health unit, located on the second floor of the hospital, having a locked door.

People did not like it at all. They wondered who was being locked in or out. Remember?

Then, along came the new Nunavut government, which was supposed to be “more user-friendly and different,” and a strange thing began to happen. All the government offices began to do the same thing — to get locked up tight! What were the “servants” so uptight about?

Several people and I took part in that initial space planning exercise with the space planners. We northerners all said we wanted to create an inviting atmosphere with welcoming coffee machines and chairs for those who came to GN offices, as we were supposed to be serving them.

Now, as a result of this lock-up move, our atmosphere mostly avoids them by preventing them from getting to us. Is this what we wanted? Who are they afraid of?

When did it become easier to serve people without ever having to deal with them? God forbid they could find their way in with a wonderful idea, meaningful insight or other useful contribution! Horrors, no! We are having none of that!

It is odd to listen to the rationale put forward by civil servants about this.

“We need to keep out any threats.” “We need to protect our staff.” “We can’t allow just anyone in here.” “How could we do our work if people just dropped in?” “Why should we leave ourselves open to problems?”

It truly amazes me what these excuses say about how the people of Nunavut are viewed. Are we a problem, a threat to their carefully run systems and decision-making?

Are we Nunavummiut just people to fear, to want to avoid? Do we have weird thoughts and behaviours that might do damage to their meticulously crafted policies?

Do we represent a serious challenge to what they are up to? Are we so to be feared, that it is just better to keep us out?

Sad to say, it is possible to be a civil servant today and forget to serve. Colonialism is alive and well in the GN.

Even more sad, it is possible to be a senior civil servant today in Iqaluit and live on a plateau, ridge or valley and never have to come into contact with an Inuk or a long-term northerner who will be the recipient of your decisions, made in such isolation.

It causes me to wonder — who is afraid of whom these days? Are the people and their desire for change, getting ahead of their own government?

Are the wrong people in charge? Think about it and remember all those locks on all those doors at election time!

Mad Mom
Iqaluit

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