Human resources are our greatest strength, Nunavut senator says
Nancy Karetak-Lindell calls for Inuit support in keynote speech to Kivalliq Trade Show
Sen. Nancy Karetak-Lindell delivers a keynote speech at the Kivalliq Trade Show on Tuesday in Rankin Inlet. (Photo by Stewart Burnett, special to Nunatsiaq News)
Sen. Nancy Karetak-Lindell opened her speech to the Kivalliq Trade Show in Rankin Inlet on Tuesday by asserting, “No one can convince me that my father and mother did not have PhD knowledge.”
Reflecting on the trade show’s theme of “Kivalliq in a changing North,” Karetak-Lindell said the difference between changes in the past and today is that Inuit must now be in the driver’s seat for such change.
“We need to be at the tables and decide what changes should be happening to us and everyone that lives in Nunavut,” she said.
And that goes well beyond ticking a consultation box.
Karetak-Lindell, appointed to the Senate in December, challenged leaders and government officials to consider what would happen if the bureaucracy and those with power believed Inuit were capable of being decision makers, influencers and leaders of change?
“I believe human resources is the most critical place to start to change the future,” she said.
She referred to complaints about Inuit who are employed in positions, aren’t supported properly, and end up leaving with the idea perpetuated that they were not capable.
“I get very disappointed when hearing how many Inuit are overlooked for positions they are capable of doing, and someone else, usually from the south, is hired,” she said.
There are so many transferrable skills among Inuit, she said — anyone who can organize a hunting expedition or parents able to manage a family budget clearly have skills that can be used in the workplace whether they have educational credentials or not.
“We have to stop messaging that only those with university and college degrees can do these jobs,” she said.
The way that Inuit have been trained for the past 70 years has not worked, she added.
“We have to start finding different ways of reaching the knowledge that people have and transferring it into a way that works in the job force,” she said, adding employers need to be flexible to incorporate this approach.
There is still a myth that Inuit get everything on a platter or that they don’t pay taxes, she said.
“What’s holding people back from applying for jobs? What’s holding people back from staying in that job and doing their best to help fellow Inuit? I sometimes feel like we need to remind public servants what that means, to be a public servant,” Karetak-Lindell said.
She recalled working as a housing manager in the 1970s and 80s. There were many Inuit housing managers at the time, she said, but there are few now.
“I think we need to do better, especially in our local organizations and committees, that we need to see more Inuit being involved,” said Karetak-Lindell. “I think part of the issue is we now have a culture where people don’t feel comfortable working for their people.”
The challenge today is to make sure young people feel they are up to the challenge, and are armed with both traditional and Western knowledge, she said.
“There are so many things that we have lost as a people, but we are able to take it back.”
By Human Resources she means human beings. I speak in the old language, when earth was still earth not a natural resource.
The earth has always been a natural resource to humans, as it is to all other life. This romantic fantasy you appear to embrace is the filler in a vast chasm of ignorance.
There are so many transferrable skills among Inuit, she said — anyone who can organize a hunting expedition or parents able to manage a family budget clearly have skills that can be used in the workplace whether they have educational credentials or not.
“We have to stop messaging that only those with university and college degrees can do these jobs,” she said.
This statement undermines Inuit even more and also encourage Inuit kids to not finish school because they went hunting with their grandpa. It also encourages Inuit kids to NOT pursue post secondary schooling because according to the Senator, they could still for eg, be a nurse without proper education.
The inferiority complex that denigrates higher education by people who don’t have one is Nunavut’s most intensive industry.
“The challenge today is to make sure young people feel they are up to the challenge, *** and are armed with *both* traditional and Western knowledge ***, she said.”
“We have to stop messaging that only those with university and college degrees can do these jobs…”
What does she have in mind as ‘western knowledge’?
Weve all seen Article 23 hires who can barely use Microsoft Word be given jobs over people with University degrees. And since that job is filled by someone incompetent, then there is a need for expensive consultants to pick up the slack.
The need for quality education cant be ignored, especially since Education is basically giving people high school diplomas that are barely at a grade 7 level of competency. Even though education is not a Federal issue, is it time the Federal government start imposing aptitude tests before letting diplomas be handed out? Start focusing on things with a bottom-up approach instead of looking straight to the top.
Yes and please don’t forget the new comers as well aren’t able to do jobs either, they’re incompetent non-Inuit as well but do they ever get complaints? Nope, it’s because of prejudice against Inuit, it’s ingrained deeply in society and it’s not even easily identifiable, in your face style, it’s covert, in people’s thoughts and feelings… it’s indirect.
There were times employees in the GN behaved or were incompetent but keep on anyway but, I know if they were Inuk, they’d be let go.
It’s good to bring up issues of incompetence within Inuit communities but don’t forget it goes both ways.
GN needs to create a DOGE…
I agree with the Senator Nunavut has enough Inuit citizens. To create a sizable work force. The broken education system is not graduating enough students. With the academic requirements needed to be accepted into. Accredited universities in the south.
Yet the GN gives them jobs that they are unqualified for. This leads to a under skilled public service. That struggles to deliver the services which the people. Of Nunavut relie on.
Keeping the Inuit culture traditions and all the skills to live on the land.
Are very important to keep the culture. To suggest that these skills qualifies an individuals to be accountants, nurses or good administrators. I think the Senator is misleading her listeners.
She appears to have fallen into that bad habit we see when trade shows come around of telling people what they want to hear, all for that rush of approbation from those who might wonder what their Senator actually does for them.
There are far more jobs in Nunavut than there are Inuit of employable age. Why do Inuit fill only 15 percent of the jobs at Baffinland? In his memoirs written in Inuktitut in the 1960s, Peter Pitseolak expected that his grandchildren could become full-fledged medical doctors. Like recently qualified Inuit heart surgeon Dr K. She could never have got anywhere near there by way of schooling in Nunavut.
Look at the unemployment rate in Canada by these who say they do their work. They are just making the Canadians lose their jobs and these Human Resources most of them are foreign workers that are breaking foreign agreements and give the jobs to foreigners. I myself lost my job by these workers in arviat and try to let them investigate. Some day not with these kind of workers who try to silence Inuit. Just like residential school after 100 years will be worked on.