Nunavut language laws a “priority,” Aariak says

Amittuq MLA Louis Tapardjuk put questions to Nunavut Premier Eva Aariak and Culture, Language, Elders and Youth Minister James Arreak about the status of the territory’s language legislation. “To date, I have not seen the legislation being enforced,” Tapardjuk said. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

The implementation of Nunavut’s Official Languages Act remains a “priority” for the Government of Nunavut, Premier Eva Aariak told the legislative assembly Oct. 28.

But one of the main goals of the act prevents it from being fully implemented.

That’s because until the GN increases its number of fully bilingual officials involved in its enforcement, the act can’t be enforced.

“We are trying to increase the number of multilingual speakers as this will speed up the implementation of the legislation,” Aariak said Oct. 28, responding to a question from Amittuq MLA Louis Tapardjuk.

“This is extremely important and we sometimes have to wait for the translation into Inuktitut or Inuinnaqtun.”

In the meantime, GN departments are “putting proper plans together.”

But, Aariak said, it’s too soon to say when the act will be fully enforced.

It’s been more than three years since MLAs voted unanimously to support the new languages act in June 2008.

Nunavut’s previous language laws were based on the Northwest Territories’ Official Languages Act, which included Nunavut until 1999, and included five languages not spoken in Nunavut.

So Nunavut’s new act established the Inuit languages — Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun — and English and French as Nunavut’s official languages.

The Inuit Language Protection Act was also approved in 2008. It guarantees the right to Inuit language education, defining specific obligations for public services, private businesses and protecting unilingual and bilingual employees of the territorial government who choose to work in Inuktitut.

During the summer session of the legislative assembly, the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth released Uqausivut, a comprehensive roadmap for how GN departments and agencies could meet their targets under Nunavut’s new language legislation.

The plan lays out ways to keep Inuktitut prominent – particularly in the delivery of government services.

“One of our goals is to have fully fluent Inuktitut speakers who can also apply for careers and any profession they want,” said CLEY Minister James Arreak, at the legislative assembly Oct. 27.

“We’re trying to urge the hamlets to work with us as well as other government departments who can try to utilize Inuktitut as much as they can.”

In September, Arreak said the Taiguusiliuqtiit Language Authority was established as an arm’s-length committee and given the mandate to work on Inuit terminology.

But, he said, there are still many parts of the law waiting for action.

“We are being cautious by not being hasty in our planning as we want to ensure we have a good plan to implement the legislation at the department of CLEY,” Arreak said.

“The legislation has started to be implemented… but we’d also like hear actual details as to which aspects of the legislation [Nunavummiut] feel haven’t been implemented.”