Kiviaq goes to court

Kiviaq, the pugnacious Inuk lawer, activist, and municipal politician once known as David Ward, has finally take his longstanding crusade for Inuit rights to the Federal Court of Canada.

Earlier this month, Kiviaq filed a statement of claim before the federal court, alleging that Canada is failing in its fiduciary obligations to Inuit by not providing Inuit with any legal method of asserting their legal identity – which prevents Inuit from getting benefits given to status and treaty Indians.

“I wrote a brief one time in law school called “The Forgotten People,” and that’s what we are as far as Canada is concerned. We can’t define ourselves and we have no legal rights. We legally do not exist in our own country,” Kiviaq told Nunatsiaq News.

Kiviaq said he’s received some moral support from Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik, who told him that the GN is “trying their own approach to get approximately the same thing that I’m doing.”

But although he’s received many calls from individual Inuit, he’s not getting any formal help from any Inuit organizations.

Kiviaq will be represented by lawyer Terry Glancy of Edmonton, and is getting funding from Justice Canada’s Court Challenges program to help him pay the cost of mounting the case.

“I have a cancer now and I have to take a firm stand. I don’t want any more Inuit to die because of this,” Kiviaq said.