“English-only” emergency services for Nunavut

I would like to clarify issues that came up in the original discussion regarding the RCMP emergency services dispatch contract at Town Council on Sept. 3.

The author of the Sept. 10 article in Nunatsiaq News, “Town of Iqaluit can’t find Inuktitut speaking dispatchers,” had tried to contact me to get more background information on the discussion at Town Council, but she was unable to prior to submitting the story. I apologize to her for not being available at the time.

The Town of Iqaluit has been providing 24-hour, seven days a week emergency dispatch services to Iqaluit residents for the RCMP under contract for several years. This service has been provided by the Town in the English language only.

When unilingual Inuktitut-speaking callers have called in during regular working hours, the dispatchers have had to page the RCMP detachment requesting that an Inuktitut-speaking person pick up a certain telephone line. This is actually how the RCMP has dealt with providing “bilingual service during regular office hours.” It’s not the “front-line person” who has the bilingual capability during these hours, it’s the one contacted by the front-line person.

What happens in the next few precious seconds, or minutes, before the bilingual person picks up the telephone line could possibly determine life or death. Is this “adequate service” for our unilingual Inuktitut-speaking elders and very young, I argue?

And, further, when the daytime RCMP employees who speak Inuktitut go home each work day, then are unilingual Inuktitut-speaking callers dealt with?

I note, with great concern, a comment that speaks to this question. It was made by the author of your Sept. 17 letter to the editor in Nunatsiaq News, “Non-Inuktitut Dispatchers Doing Fine.” The author states “I do agree that there should be an Inuktitut or especially bilingual dispatcher, as it would definitely help with understanding many emergency calls…”.

The Town Council motion made Sept. 3 indicated a need for a clause requiring bilingual Inuktitut-English speaking services based upon these basic principles:

1. The working language of the Government of Nunavut is Inuktitut, and

2. The contract is, for the first time, to include emergency dispatch services for other Nunavut communities, where the majority population is Inuit.

I had suggested to the administration that dialogue be re-opened with the RCMP to re-negotiate the terms of the contract to make the bilingual services possible. I had suggested that some plan be devised to implement bilingual services in a transitional fashion. I had suggested that the contract fee would probably have to be re-negotiated, as I saw our low salaries for bilingual speaking dispatchers as being a big barrier to recruiting Inuktitut-speaking capable individuals.

I said that most Inuktitut-speaking individuals probably capable of doing the job and managing the high stress of the job were probably at the government of Nunavut working with a better salary package than we could currently offer.

In any event, the real issue here is: we have many unilingual Inuktitut-speaking elders, as well, we have many unilingual Inuktitut-speaking children who attend school in the Inuktitut stream classes up to Grade 5. So long as we provide English language only emergency dispatch services to our elderly and to our very young, we place each and every one of them at potential risk.

It is tragic that our council felt it necessary to have to accept the administration’s recommendation to continue with the status quo of English language only services in its Sept. 14 council meeting.

I know that my fellow councillors have been concerned about the Town’s inability to provide Inuktitut-speaking emergency dispatch services to Iqaluit residents for the whole two years I’ve been on Council. For some reason, I thought that the request was an easy one for the RCMP to fulfill. Just goes to prove that “you’re not always right!” Amen.

I want to address one other concern I had to the “Non-Inuktitut dispatchers doing fine” letter. Any time I’ve had to deal with our dispatchers currently on the job, they’ve been efficient, friendly and professional. I personally know a couple of the staff who do the job. I believe that this issue has been blown way out of proportion, especially after reading this letter.

Let’s keep our eye on the ball here. My mother and stepfather are two big personal reasons I’m being so vocal on this matter.

In my opinion, the Nunatsiaq News editorial of September 10 was right on in turning this issue into a more global one. Our new government of Nunavut has quite a lot of work ahead of it, but our editor’s point to the government of Nunavut on the issue is important: identify the critical points of contact, and fix them to make them more “user-friendly.”

To the government of Nunavut’s Justice department, as contractor of the policing contract for Nunavut: this new emergency dispatch service not only impacts on unilingual Inuktitut-speaking residents of Iqaluit, but to all other communities of Nunavut that are going to be receiving our dispatch service.

You have an obligation to do something about this. As one concerned resident of Nunavut, I for one, am hoping that you will.

Lynda Gunn
Iqaluit Town Councillor
w/ Acting Mayor status