No consensus on many big issues

It could be many months before Nunavut MLAs get to vote on final passage of the Government of Nunavut's proposed new language laws, as GN law-drafters continue to do battle with Inuit organizations over what those laws should say.

This means that Bill 6, the proposed new Official Languages Act, and Bill 7, the proposed Inuit Language Protection Act, will not get third reading during the current session of the assembly.

Meanwhile, the Ajauqtiit standing committee of MLAs, which held two days of public hearings in Iqaluit last week, will hand in an "interim" report during the current assembly sitting, Ajauqtiit's acting chair, James Arreak, said last week.

Sometime after that, Ajauqtiit will likely tour communities to hear from Nunavut residents outside Iqaluit.

Last week, Ajauqtiit heard Inuit organizations and other witnesses, including language commissioner Johnny Kusugak, say they cannot support the GN bills in their current form.

The hardest-line position came from the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, who suggest that Baffin Inuit want a duplicate version of Quebec's controversial Bill 101 adopted in Nunavut.

"Inuit had high hopes that the Official Languages Bill would make the Inuit language the official language of Nunavut in the same way that Bill 101 in Quebec made French the official language of that province," the QIA's president, Thomassie Alikatuktuk, said in a letter to the GN's culture minister, Louis Tapardjuk.

"Instead the new bill says that ‘the Inuit language, English and French are the Official Languages of Nunavut,' even though in Nunavut, English and French are minority languages," Alikatuktuk said, asserting that Section 35 of the Constitution allows it.

The Nunavut Act states that any new or amended version of Nunavut's Official Languages Act may not become law until Parliament passes a resolution concurring with it.

The Nunavut Act also states that the Nunavut legislature may not pass language laws that diminish the legal status of English or French or any rights that may be held by English or French speakers.

But so far, no leaders have talked about what kind of Nunavut language legislation might be acceptable to federal parliamentarians.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. takes a softer line than QIA, but also said they cannot support the bills in their current form.

Paul Kaludjak, NTI's president, slammed "the media" for suggesting that NTI wants the GN's language bills to be torn up and replaced.

He then gave MLAs a lengthy submission that proposes numerous changes to the two bills: on education, daycares, the right to work in the Inuit language, the organization of a proposed Inuit language authority, the powers of the language commissioner, and a timetable for implementing Inuit language rights.

James Arvaluk, the MLA for Tunnuniq, questioned Kaludjak about the cost of some of NTI's recommendations, such as the translation of all Nunavut laws and regulations into the Inuit language, compulsory Inuktitut lessons for all GN employees, and a rapid timetable for K-12 Inuktitut instruction.

"We can't take away from essential services… we have to consider other impacts on government operations," Arvaluk said.

Kaludjak replied by warning that NTI will "use our lawyers" if its demands aren't met.

"I don't think we should be concentrating on the expense part of it," Kaludjak told MLAs.

Johnny Kusugak told MLAs that a language legislation steering committee set up by the GN to work on the two bills is now "ten months behind where they should be."

The work of that committee, which is made up of officials from NTI, the GN, the federal government, and the office of the languages commissioner, has been slow and acrimonious.

Kusugak said one member of the committee – who he did not identify – staged a walk-out several months ago and that Kusugak acted as a mediator to get the person back into their meetings.

"We really did have a hard time getting to where we are today," Kusugak said.

Under Article 32 of the land claims agreement, government must provide Inuit with an opportunity to participate in the development of social and cultural programs and policies – which is why Inuit organizations participate with GN officials in writing and re-writing the bills.

Kusugak said the steering committee recently reached consensus on one big issue: the legal status of Inuit language versions of Nunavut laws, and the translation of Nunavut laws into the Inuit language.

Right now, only the English or French versions of Nunavut laws are "legally authoritative," which means they can be used in court. Any Inuit language version of a law has no legal status.

Critics say that the Inuit language will not achieve real equality with English and French until Inuit language laws also become legally authoritative, as they are in Greenland.

Kusugak told MLAs that the language steering committee has "come to a consensus" on that issue, and has agreed to the idea of developing a schedule that would see all Nunavut laws published in the Inuit language.