Unilingual Inuit left out of federal census: Nunavut MLAs

Quttiktuk MLA Isaac Shooyook says he and other unilingual Nunavummiut — mostly elders — are getting left out of the federal census. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

“Come back with an interpreter.”

That’s what many Inuktitut-speaking Nunavummiut have told Statistics Canada enumerators who surveyed people in Nunavut this winter to collect data for the federal census.

Quttiktuq MLA Isaac Shooyook, who says he speaks “just a little” English, had a recent visit from an English-speaking StatsCan enumerator at his home in Arctic Bay.

The enumerator returned later that afternoon with a local interpreter — on Shooyook’s request — but that shortcoming has slowed the process for many, he said.

“With the extreme importance placed on this census and future funding levels related to the data, including identifying the elders who qualify for senior citizen benefits….many residents decided not to participate in this survey,” Shooyook told the legislative assembly March 12.

Iqaluit-Sinaa MLA Paul Okalik, although fluent in English, asked a Statistics Canada enumerator to come back with an Inuktitut interpreter, just to make a point.

“I have been waiting for approximately a month,” Okalik told the legislature.

“The data they are collecting will be missing a bunch of things,” he said. “If these unilingual Inuit speakers are not questioned, then the data that Statistics Canada collects will be insufficient. It will result in the Nunavut government not getting as much money.”

Statistics Canada hired 20 Nunavummiut enumerators this year, all of whom speak Inuktitut. In communities where the agency was unable to hire an Inuktitut speaker, Statistics Canada said it has hired local guides who acted as interpreters.

“We tried to make sure we had someone who spoke the language at all times,” said Lorne Anderson, a Statistics Canada director for the northern territories. “But there were some places where we weren’t able to hire locally, and then we’d have to get back within one or two days to the household.

“We always gave them the choice to fill out the census forms in the language of their choice, but sometimes it did take them a day or two.”

Anderson said that, to date, 280 household questionnaires have been filled out in Inuktitut across the territory.

“So that’s pretty good intel,” he said, noting that Statistics Canada tries to enumerate every household in Nunavut.

“It’s a challenge to get everyone counted, and to try and catch them at home is a challenge,” Anderson said. “But that’s everywhere across the country.”

In response to concerns raised in the legislature last week, Nunavut Premier Peter Taptuna said he’d take these up with Nunavut MP Hunter Tootoo.

“It’s absolutely critical that Nunavummiut participate in the census gathering by Canada,” he said. “We’ll certainly have that discussion to find out how we can ensure that Statistics Canada gets bilingual Inuktitut-speaking census takers while they’re up north in Nunavut.”

This year, the long-form census is mandatory, not voluntary.

Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government eliminated the long-form census in 2010 and replaced it with the voluntary National Household Survey, which was used in 2011 for survey results released in 2012 and 2013.

But numerous social researchers complained that this made it next to impossible for Statistics Canada to gather reliable data from rural and remote regions, depriving governments of good information to support social and economic policies.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government reversed that decision and brought back the long-form census in 2016.