IIBAs should fund women’s shelters?

Mining companies should help fund Nunavut’s women’s shelters as a provision of their Inuit impact and benefit agreements, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said on Nov. 29.

That’s because money that flows from mines into communities results in “access to liquor and so on,” which is a key ingredient to violent disputes in the territory, Aglukkaq said.

Aglukkaq made the comment in response to Joe Allen Evyagotailak, MLA for Kugluktuk, who said his home community has struggled to keep its shelter open, because of inadequate government funding.

“Recently the Hamlet of Kugluktuk received some funding to get the crisis shelter operating again, but the amount was only enough for a few months,” he said.

Health and Social Services provides more than $1 million to fund Nunavut’s shelters each year, Aglukkaq said.

Agglukaq’s suggestion to include shelter funding in IIBAs comes from recommendations drafted at a symposium on violence against women, held in Iqaluit in January, she said.