Nunavut’s year in review

Nunavut residents will always remember 1996 as the year when Ottawa finally came through for their beloved Nunavut territory.

But besides Ron Irwin’s landmark announcement last March that confirmed Canada’s support for Nunavut, many Nunavut residents will remember 1996 as a year of hardship and difficult change.

That’s because of GNWT cutbacks and restructuring activities that caused many Nunavut residents to lose jobs and income.

In spite of those material hardships, it was a time of spiritual healing and regeneration for many, as Roman Catholic Bishop Reynald Rouleau made a long-awaited apology for abuses committed at his church’s school in Chesterfield Inlet, the High Arctic exiles accepted a compensation deal from Ottawa, and Anglican priest Paul Idlout become Canada’s first Inuk bishop.

January

* The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board decides that Coral Harbour will be the site of Nunavut’s first “legal” bowhead whale hunt. Later in the year, however, NWMB members change their mind and move the hunt to Repulse Bay.

* Deputy Premier Goo Arlooktoo tells Baffin leaders that the GNWT’s projected deficit has ballooned by $30 million.

* Etuangat Aksayuk, a beloved Pangnirtung elder, passes away at the age of 96, shortly after he had received the Order of Canada.

February

* The GNWT awards a $90 million fuel resupply contract for the eastern Arctic to the Northern Transportation Company Limited ­ which is owned by the Inuit of Nunavut and the Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic. That contract had been the subject of a conflict of interest scandal involving a former territorial deputy minister of transport.

* Former NWT teacher Maurice Cloughley was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to nine counts involving sex offenses against Inuit and Dene children. Cloughley had originally gone to trial on 22 charges of indecent assault and sexual assault alleged to have occurred between 1959 and 1987 in six NWT communities where Cloughley had worked as a teacher.

* NWT Education Minister Charles Dent approves the transfer of Nunavut Arctic College’s Management Studies program from Iqaluit to Rankin Inlet, and the transfer of the college’s Social Services program from Iqaluit to Cambridge Bay.

* Public Works Minister Goo Arlooktoo announces a one-year delay in construction of a controversial $15.6 million tank farm project in Rankin Inlet. The GNWT then asked Kivallivik MLA Kevin O’Brien to head up a committee to probe the idea and report back to the legislative assembly.

* MLAs bring in changes to the NWT Public Service Act giving unionized employees a limited right to strike.

March

* Roman Catholic Bishop Reynald Rouleau goes to Igloolik to apologize on behalf of the church for physical and sexual abuse committed against Inuit students at Chesterfield Inlet’s Joseph Bernier School in the 1950s and 1960s.

* The High Arctic exiles reluctantly accept a deal worked out by negotiators from the federal government and the Makivik Corporation that gives them $10 million in compensation money. Makivik negotiators fail, however, to win an apology from Ottawa. Makivik now has power of attorney over a special fund set up to manage the money.

* Jose Kusugak won a close victory over Cathy Towtongie to retain the presidency of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated. Raymond Ningeocheak was also re-elected as Nunavut Tunngavik’s second vice-president.

* Nunavut is hit hard by GNWT wage cuts and layoffs announced by Finance Minister John Todd.

* Inuit in Nunavik attending the Makivik Corporation’s annual general meeting say drug use is the biggest problem in their region, as they deliver a stern lecture to Makivik officials.

April

* The NWT’s chief coroner launches an inquest into the deaths of two young Igloolik men who committed suicide after escaping from police custody.

* Rosemarie Kuptana quits her job as president of the financially crippled Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, after the organization finds itself teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. She keeps her second job ­ the presidency of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. Meanwhile, former vice president Mary Sillett is stuck with the job of cleaning up ITC’s mess.

* Ottawa and the GNWT withdraw promised financial help for the NWT’s credit union movement ­ but Arctic Co-ops Limited and other credit union supporters say they won’t give up, again.

* Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin announces that Ottawa will spend $149.9 million on the creation of Nunavut between now and the year 2000.

Most of Nunavut’s buildings, however, will be paid for with an extra $120 million that will come from Canadian banks and other private lenders. Irwin promises that Ottawa will guarantee the loans.

Soon after, the Nunasi Corporation and the three regional birthright development corporations of Nunavut strike a deal with Ottawa under which the Inuit corporations would build and own all of the Nunavut government’s new buildings.

They form a company called the Nunavut Construction Corporation, which will build and then lease the buildings to the Nunavut government.

May

* Paul Idlout, 62, becomes Canada’s first Inuk bishop.

* Jackie Koneak, a former vice president of the Makivik Corporation, is charged with assault after a Kuujjuaq woman is medevaced to Montreal with a dislocated jaw.

* Finance Minister John Todd announces a budget for the 1996-97 fiscal year that contains about $130 million in spending cuts. He says it’s part of a two-year deficit reduction plan that will lead to a balanced GNWT budget.

* After a two-day meeting in Arviat with Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin, Nunavut leaders accept that $150 million is all they’re going to get from Ottawa to create Nunavut.

* The Makivik Corporation of northern Quebec announces a surprise claim to mineral-rich areas near Voisey’s Bay in Labrador, many miles away from northern Quebec. Labrador Inuit Association officials, who are already involved in sensitive land claim negotiation with the Newfoundland government, aren’t pleased.

June

* Nunavut celebrates as Crown prosecutors drops charges against three Igloolik men who in 1994 had killed a bowhead whale without an official license. The three men had caught the whale to fulfill the request of a beloved Igloolik elder, who died soon after.

* Preston Joe, a 29-year-old Micmac from the Conne River Band in Newfoundland, dies after the helicopter he was piloting crashes north of Igloolik.

* Michael Murphy of Pangnirtung, 47, is charged with arson in connection with a 1995 fire that destroyed the Imavik fish plant.

* Larry Audlaluk of Grise Fiord travels to Israel and, thanks to Israeli television, becomes the Holy Land’s best known Inuk.

July

* Some pranksters from Yellowknife and Iqaluit concoct a unique method of satirizing the way most western NWT residents have clung to the name “Northwest Territories.” They launch an Internet-based campaign proposing that the new western territory be called “Bob.”

Thebacha MLA Michael Miltenberger doesn’t get the joke, however. He attempts to launch a witch-hunt for the perpetrators of the “Bob” campaign, claiming its a Nunavut plot to make the west look bad.

* Most western members of the Union of Northern Workers vote Yes to a new wage and benefit deal that hurts GNWT employees in Nunavut much harder than their western counterparts. Soon after, UNW members in Nunavut tell the Nunavut Implementation Commission that they want a separate union for Nunavut government workers.

* Tired of waiting for the GNWT, the people of Pond Inlet say they want to open their own unregulated credit union.

* The GNWT finally reveals how it will carry out its community empowerment policy: they say communities won’t become “empowered” unless they’re ready for it, and they promise block funding with few strings attached.

* Nunavut residents celebrate Nunavut Day on July 9.

August

* Dr. Richard Bargen, the medical health officer for the Baffin and Keewatin regions, uses emergency powers granted to him by the Public Health Act to impose a ban on smoking in most public places effective January 1, 1997.

Later in the year, however, Bargen is fired by the GNWT, but not until after the Keewatin and Baffin health boards adopt alternative anti-smoking public education strategies.

* A CF-18 fighter jet crashes and burns on take-off, sending a mile-high plume of toxic smoke into the atmosphere around Iqaluit. Officials from the GNWT and the federal government are still pondering environmental and public safety issues raised by the crash.

* A group of women’s organizations, which includes Pauktuutit, bands together to fight child sexual abuse in the Northwest Territories. They’re inspired by the jail cell suicide of Carol Kalluk, who had been sexually abused..

* Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin says yes to Canada’s first diamond mine near Yellowknife.

* Nunavut residents celebrate the first legal bowhead whale kill in Nunavut for more than 20 years. But the hunt is a messy affair and officials say they’ll do it differently next time.

September

* Iqaluit residents reel in shock after two 11-year-old boys put gasoline on a five-year-old Bernard Naulalik and set him on fire. Many residents ask hard questions about why social service officials ignored previous problems displayed by the two boys, who are too young to be charged with any criminal offenses.

Bernard Naulalik is now back in Iqaluit, recovering from burns that covered 40 per cent of his body.

* The eight-nation Arctic Council comes into being, after an elaborate signing ceremony in Ottawa. The international organization is expected to work on circumpolar environmental issues.

* Iqaluit’s Jerry Ell emerges as the “winner” of a Sept. 17 election to choose a new president for the Baffin Region Inuit Association. But it turns out that ballots in some communities weren’t counted properly.

After several weeks, red-faced BRIA officials announce that Lazarus Arreak, not Ell, is the real winner of BRIA’s presidential election.

* The GNWT’s Department of Health says they want NWT residents to help them figure out how to help them save money, as they prepare to cut services and place more emphasis on healthier living.

October

* Roland Bailey, the GNWT’s top bureaucrat, finally announces that he’s quit his job as secretary to the Cabinet and deputy minister of the department of the executive.

The announcement followed months of denials by GNWT officials, who said Bailey hadn’t resigned.

* Ordinary MLAs vote to censure the territorial Cabinet for changing the GNWT’s capital plan behind their backs. Many spending projects were cut from ordinary member’s constituencies, while new spending projects turned up in Cabinet minister’s constituencies.

* The GNWT finally dumps Dr. Richard Bargen from his job.

* Environmental eggheads from around Canada converge on Iqaluit for a conference on Arctic contaminants convened by the Canadian Polar Commission. Many use the event to lobby for continued funding of contaminants research in the Arctic.

* Ardicom Digital Communications Inc. ­ a consortium made up of Arctic Co-operatives, Northwestel, and four aboriginal development corporations ­ wins a GNWT contract to build a high-speed digital communications system in the Northwest Territories. When completed, the new system will allow people in every northern community to use videoconferencing, telemedecine and the Internet.

* An auditor tells Baffin Inuit Association board members that their books are in such a mess, he can’t offer an opinion on their financial status.

* Delegates at Nunavut Tunngavik’s annual general meeting in Baker Lake get down to work, focusing on training and jobs for Inuit.

* The Qikiqtaaluk Corporation BRIA board members are presented with several options for dealing with BRIA’s $1.4 million blue dome building in Iqaluit. One option considered by QC is to tear the building down and use the lot for another purpose.

November

* John Amagoalik, the chief commissioner of the Nunavut Implementation Commission, releases “Footprints 2” a follow-up report to the commission’s 1995 “Footprints in New Snow” document.

* The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is found guilty on two charges of breaking a court order. CBC radio staff had reported the name of a sexual assault complainant in two radio broadcasts. Judge Michel Bourassa said CBC staff committed the crime out of “institutional conceit” as he hit the corporation with a $6,000 fine.

* Most Nunavut leaders at a summit meeting in Iqaluit say they support the Nunavut Implementation Commission’s two-member constituency gender equality plan.

December

* Private Inuit business people say they might go to court to fight the deal on building Nunavut’s infrastructure worked out between NTI and the federal government.

* CBC North cuts 33 jobs, the result of budget reductions imposed by the corporation’s Toronto head office.

* Mike Ferris of Iqaluit wins a national search and rescue award.

* As 1996 draws to a close, the short-list for the Nunavut interim commissioner’s job is reduced to six people. They include Iqaluit Mayor Joe Kunuk, Nunatsiaq MP Jack Anawak, former NWT government leader Dennis Patterson, and former Baffin regional director Ken Macrury. Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin said in November that he would prefer to appoint an Inuk to the job.