A “plan” you say?

By NUNATSIAQ NEWS

The principles and vision statements contained within the Nunavut government’s Pinasuaqtavut document, also known as the “Bathurst Mandate,” certainly appear to express what most thoughtful Nunavut residents would wish for their new territory.

But it is not a plan. One day it may lead to the creation of a useful plan, but in its current form, the Bathurst Mandate does not deserve to be distinguished by such a name.

One of its striking features is a rosy collection of vision statements setting out what Nunavut may look like in 20 years. Here’s a small sample:

“In 2020, Nunavut is a place where:

Health and social conditions and indicators are at or better than the Canadian average;
Families and individuals have fair access to a range of affordable housing options.
If Nunavut government officials are interested in 20-year visions, however, they may wish to take a close look at Greenland, which achieved its home rule government 20 years ago, in 1979.

How did Greenland fare over the subsequent 20 years? In May of 1998, Aqqaluk Petersen, a Greenlandic researcher, said in a speech before the Congress of the International Association for Arctic Social Sciences in Copenhagen that despite the political autonomy brought about by home rule, Greenland’s social problems have escalated dramatically over the past 20 years. He said, for example, that the suicide rate in Greenland has escalated from an average of about seven deaths a year in the 1960s, to 49 in 1997.

Here are some excerpts from Aqqaluk Petersen’s speech:

“The Greenlandic political establishment has to wake up to the fact that these social problems are our own making, although there is still a powerful movement in the Greenlandic society for more independence from Denmark, implying that in the process, our social problems will be solved.

“If these purely Greenlandic problems are not solved, we’ll continue to create circumstances where we displace a large group of our fellow citizens to a life that is apparently not worth living.”

Will Nunavut’s social pathologies follow the same trajectory as Greenland’s over the next 20 years?

If the Nunavut government’s specific “plans” are as insubstantial as those set out in the Bathurst Mandate, there is every likelihood that they will.

In housing, for example, the Nunavut government’s five-year objective is to “Open and maintain a public dialogue on housing issues” — a fancy way of saying that they want to talk about it a whole lot more — “while developing and implementing long-term plans to respond to housing shortfalls as one of the two primary commitments of this government’s mandate” — a fancy way of saying that they intend to produce more paper, but not necessarily more housing.

The production of talk and paper is a wonderful way of filling up a bureaucrat’s working day. But it is no substitute for action.

And if action is not possible because of the lack of money, which is Nunavut’s real problem, then honesty is always the best alternative. JB

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