The children of Nunavut deserve a secure future

NICOLAS PAOKTUT ARNATSIAQ
Special to Nunatsiaq News

Before I boldly dive into my logic and reasoning for this article, let me share with you the hardly promising situation of Nunavut with respect to its youth and children today, in terms of their employment prospects now and in the future.

A report put out by Conference Board of Canada, covered by Gabriel Zaraté of Nunatsiaq News on Feb. 5, 2010, confirms that reality.

“Nunavut’s youthful population faces many years in which economic growth will fail to yield enough jobs for everyone, according to a new report – Northern Outlook,” the story says.

“Forty per cent of Nunavummiut are younger than 15 years old – compared to 17 per cent for Canada. That means over the next 10 years more people in Nunavut will be in their economically productive, working years of life…

“However the territory’s youth will enter the workforce to find the unemployment rate still in the double digits, because of the limited jobs opportunities for young people… due to the small size of Nunavut’s economy, a single mine has a large impact on the territory.”

May I also ask you to take a peek through the window next time our children are at recess and realize how many of them there are.

There are so many of young and enthusiastic little children eagerly learning at school, preparing for the future when it will be their turn to guide the wheel that we currently steer.

May I also remind you that we adults of today are forever saying or stating that our youth and children of today are our future leaders.

May I further ask you this: how are we preparing them for their leadership role in the future with such an unenviable unemployment rate?

The employment rate will become more depressed 15 years down the road, according to the report of the Conference Board of Canada, if we don’t seriously start looking now at ways and means of accommodating our children and their future to gain employment, so that they will be actively contributing to their society.

However, looking at the current realities and at our depressed economic development possibilities, if we don’t start seriously exploring what options we have for future developments, I fear that dependence on welfare and the public sector will become rampant – which you and I don’t ever want to see.

We would prefer — and we try to be optimistic— that our children and ourselves will be living and contributing to society and being part of the economic development of our times.

Taking into account the well-being of our children and their future, we must seriously look at what we have now in terms of economic development and employment.

At least in the public sector, we can say that youth of today and the children of tomorrow will take over positions that are currently held by aging and most likely soon-to-retire employees of the government.

That is all well and good. But there are a limited number of jobs in the public sector, not enough to satisfy the numbers of jobs that will be required 15 years or so down the road, given the rapid population growth in Nunavut.

Let us realize that Inuit are proud people, and if we had our way we would sooner not rely on government welfare or social assistance for our needs.

I could say, without a doubt, that no one in a right state of mind would want to rely on government for such things. Rather we want to be out there earning our own wages and making a difference in our society and our communities.

People become dependent on social assistance when they run out of options of ever getting a job, but in most cases simply because there are no jobs to be had.

We can’t help but feel for the elder Inuit. They are strongly tied to their environment: the land, sea and wildlife.

But, as is the case for all things, time did not stand still for them, and lot has changed over the last 40 to 50 years in the North and in Nunavut.

Though they may wish that things could remain as they were before, that can never be: we must move forward as we were all intended to do.

By the force of evolution, as it were, we have become part of the international community whether we like it or not, and we can no longer be secluded from it.

We are even now feeling the negative impact from our international neighbours as concerns sealing — and only God knows what else will pop up along the way, producing a negative impact on our daily lives.

And given that reality, we now rely on wage economy to survive, just like the rest of the international community.

But we in Nunavut are lucky to have been given large resources of gold, diamonds and iron ore.

The time may have come for us to change our outlook on resource development in Nunavut and fully utilize it— thus creating employment and benefits for the people in Nunavut now and in the future.

We have Baffinland Iron Mines Corp., with its world-renowned iron deposit. Baffinland has done all that is required to get a mine running, by working closely with the Qiqiktani Inuit Association, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, and the Government of Nunavut.

What is attractive about the Baffinland project is that it is multi-generational, that there is something in it for us, and, most importantly, there is something in it for our children.

As noted before, the time may have come for us to change how we look at resource development in Nunavut.

It seems to me that given the inevitable situation with respect to Nunavut’s current and future economic development, we must realize that we have very few options for us, for young people, for our children and for their children for the employment and benefits that they should enjoy.

We must also recognize that our children do not live like we did. Their world is iPods, CD players and whatever little gadget they want that is available on the market. This is truly right in the 21st century, when their food is waiting to be bought at the local store.

In closing, I ask that we not let our ignorance be the future downfall of our children. They need us now and they will need what we have prepared for them in the future.

Editor’s note: Nicolas Paoktut Arnatsiaq is employed by the Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. as a community liaison worker in Igloolik.