Does the GN have a fiduciary responsibility?

I recently wrote you about our difficulties in obtaining student financial assistance or a loan from the Nunavut government for my daughter. I am very happy to let you know that our RIO and the NITC came through for my daughter. Thank you.

It was not my wish to make public our personal difficulties as urban Inuit, but we are without representation or leadership, so I opted to use your letters to the editor as a forum.

I have not met any Inuit who voluntarily disenfranchised themselves from their claims when they left their home territories. Urban Inuit originally from Nunavut participate in NTI elections, but have no representation. It is only right that NTI or its affiliates might at times meet in our community to hear our community issues.

Again, thank you, Inuit organizations; the public government could learn from your investments in the Inuit youth.

The Nunavut public government funding criteria for student assistance needs to be simplified. Either, 1) you are a resident for 12 months in Nunavut or 2) you are an Inuk enrolled in the NLCA.

I suggest this criteria because I still believe that not enough Inuit youth are going on to secondary education. Furthermore the question needs to be addressed; what percentage of loans and grants actually go to Inuit youth as a long-term investment?

I want to use our collective guilt as a society to state that the public government still has a fiduciary responsibility for Inuit health, education, housing and economic well-being. Why then, as in the case of education benefits, has the Nunavut government relinquished it’s responsibility and essentially cut former Nunavut Inuit off from receiving educational funds. And in most cases, pawned it off to a beneficiary corporation to fund their fiduciary responsibility?

This polarization of responsibilities is getting very dangerous and confusing as we now seem to have two public governments; one an official public government created by the Nunavut Accord, which serves all people and the other, the informal Inuit government that funds the dislocated, unwashed and unwanted Inuit.

I do not think the creation of the Nunavut land claims agreement was to absolve the official public government of its fiduciary responsibilities. It seems that the Nunavut government has continuously opted to push financial responsibilities onto NTI because they feel that the NLCA transfers from the federal government have been significant and NTI apparently has the ability to pay.

Historically, when we became wards of the state with the federal government, we were well-trained to become dependent on them. Then the territorial government took that responsibility many years later. Are we now into our second wave of transferring the dependency from the public government to the Inuit organizations? What will happen when the Inuit funds are depleted?

This ‘trend’ does not bode well for Inuit rights in general and suggests the apparent polarization of Inuit and non-Inuit in Nunavut itself, with NTI being forced to take on an increasing financial responsibility, but without the authority of a public government.

This is the ‘slippery slope’ that we must pay particularly close attention to or the Nunavut government will become truly a public government with responsibility for no one.

I had intended a short thank you — thank you.

Simona Arnatsiaq
Plantagenet, Ont.