NTI’s 4-year strategy aims to elevate quality of life for Inuit
New plan includes measures directed at housing, language protection and food security
Jeremy Tunraluk, president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., announced the corporation’s new four-year strategy on Friday at the organization’s office in Iqaluit. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. introduced its new strategic priorities for the next four years Friday, signifying what president Jeremy Tunraluk calls a “transformative shift” in its approach.
“The strategy is more than a document. It is a vision, a commitment and a call to action,” Tunraluk said during the announcement at NTI’s office in Iqaluit.
This was his first four-year strategy report since being elected in December to lead the corporation that’s responsible for ensuring obligations made to Nunavut Inuit under the Nunavut Agreement are upheld.
As part of the 21-page strategy — entitled Inungnik Makipalliatittiniq, which Tunraluk said can be translated as people’s recovery — NTI aims to create better living conditions in the territory where life is getting worse for Inuit “by all social indicators,” the strategy says.
NTI vows to build pathways to “meaningful collaboration” with federal and territorial governments while continuing to assert Inuit leadership, according to an NTI release that summarized the report.
Over the years, NTI has initiated several lawsuits against the federal and territorial governments, including the ongoing legal battle with the Government of Nunavut over Inuit-language education.
Tunraluk said he is not anticipating any new legal actions in the near future.
“We’re making sure that moving forward, our partnership [with the governments] is much better, so we can meet halfway on different issues around Nunavut,” he said in an interview after the announcement.
Still, Tunraluk said, NTI’s main priority is preserving Inuktut, which is rapidly declining in Nunavut.
“Without intensive action, the erosion of Inuktut — and the associated impact on Inuit culture — will have irreversible social and economic consequences for Nunavut Inuit,” NTI’s strategy says.
The plan includes creating language learning resources and launching a public awareness campaign on the importance of preserving Inuktut.
On the housing front, NTI’s goal is to deliver $280 million in funding that will help to provide affordable rental housing units at fixed prices and not tied to any employer.
The strategy doesn’t specify how many houses will be built as part of the goal.
Other priorities include embracing a “culture of excellence,” finding solutions to food insecurity, and improving education, employment and community well-being.
Any plan to get them nti workers to show up to work on a regular bases?
Until you have a specific plan that spells out how you will use the resources you have so as to achieve your objectives, you have the same aspirational dreams we’ve seen for the past 30 years. And we can expect the same results.
Here’s why Inuktitut is dying and now beyond revival. Having failed to educate Inuit professional and managers, as opposed to figureheads, it’s not the language of business or governance—as is, for example the Creole of Jamaica and Barbados in parallel with English. Where are the Inuit doctors or dentists, engineers or geologists, chartered accountants or anyone else actually doing the managerial and professional work—say, at Baffinland?
Yes, Inuktitut could have flourished in parallel with English, like many minority languages. Thanks to decades of Inuit navel-gazing and maladministration, is it’s too late now. Next generations need enabling for the exciting opportunities in the high-tech economy. That’s a real-world “strategic priority”. Life-support for Inuktitut sidetracks that foremost need.
One of the most detrimental effects we suffer today is the lack of proper education for our youth. hindering them to become viable members of Nunavut’s work force in all categories. The GN Education’s “Social Passing System”, where students from Kindergarten to Grade 9 are passed from 1 grade to the next, based on age and not on achievement is not working. By Grade 10, they get used to going on to the next grade without having to put any effort, and unfortunately, the grade passing system is finally applied because a minimum of 100 credits is required to graduate. This is when most Nunavut students drop out due to the inability to read or write even basic Inuktitut and English. Long gone are the days when we would be inundated with tons of homework and minimum 500 words essays without plagiarizing. Am asking and hoping my fellow Nunavummiut to collectively push for the abolishment of the social passing system and restore the actual grade school passing system that was in place prior to the creation of Nunavut. We must all do this for the sake and betterment of our Nunavut youth today.
It’s not the GN that has kids in grade 7 reading at a grade 3 level. That doesn’t start in the classroom. That starts at home with parents unwilling to read to their children. Parents that don’t send their child to school EVERY DAY so they have the same lessons and education as their peers. Teachers and the government aren’t parents. They’re teachers and a government.
You need to take ownership of your life and your children if you want to see their future expanded past Co-Op Cashier.
It is the GNs fault, unfortunately. Before 2000, the school boards of education used to deliver education. The DEAs used to provide education, including inclusive education. But their powers were stripped away by the dissolution of divisional boards. Before dissolution, the Minister established standards while the DEAs delivered. It was a proper accountability system. The Inclusive Education Policies of 1993 and 1996 were developed with partnership of the DEAs, implemented by the divisional boards. Social passing was introduced in 1996 before Government of Nunavut. Both the NWT and Nunavut parents complained about social passing and its effects. The NWT responded with enhancing Inclusive Education with functional grade level requirements. The Government of Nunavut didn’t. They just kept ignoring the problems year after year after year since. There is no longer accountability because the school boards and the DEAs don’t have any powers to implement and deliver education based on Ministerial standards and directives on inclusive education. There are no school board authorities in Nunavut, no inclusive education policy, no accountability, no means to effect change that parents have been asking for, for ages. It is entirely the GNs fault.
Isn’t it sad we have such a large population without jobs! Why? Child tax, education, etc. what is the average grade of most of the people without work? Need more housing! But for what ?Have you seen some of these homes on tiktok? Missing doors, windows boarded up, cupboards and kitchens in disaster, That is your home, sure its public housing, but its your home have some pride in what you are given. wish I could pay $45 bucks a month for rent too……
Is there a plan to respond to questions and concerns from Nunavut beneficiaries or is NTI going to continue ignoring correspondence from their beneficiaries?
We can’t get any information, we can’t get a response out of NTI, it’s like no one there will respond to you.
We are finding out NTI has so much new federal funding for the last 3-4 years, yet we hear very little about what all these new funding will be used for without any consultations with Nunavut beneficiaries. How does NTI know where and to who all this new funding will be used for?
JEREMY! my old army cadet friend.
Part of the problem in Nunavut is that Inuit are just too nice. They are easy push overs.
Nobody reads books anymore, it’s just phone social media craze.
I agree 190% with Francis Piugaattuk.
The education system needs to be completely revamped. Take any Inuit programs out of the schools, language, land programs.
A separate school, parents can choose the stream they want their children to attend.
I agree. A separate school or even a separate stream that starts in elementary school.
Give the kids that want an education a chance to get one.
Agreed.
An elder once said to me”The Inuit way of life is going. Along with language. Too, education will be the way to be. We need to adapt. Stay in school…”
Glad I did cause I was seventeen years old and “knew everything”.🤪😂
NTI has a job vacancy for an “inuit knowledge advisor” that pays 6 figures without requiring any credentials. When will people wake up to the fact that these fabricated job titles don’t offer anything besides a continued ethos that inuit somehow hold some integral superhuman ability due to their bloodline. Hopefully one day our leaders will call this for what it is, nothing short of fiction
The GN is similar in this. I recall a few years back a pamphlet at HR which said something to the effect that because you are Inuit “You are special” … in other words, you “know things” … LOL
Yes, special knowledge, special insight into how a bureaucracy should run, no doubt. It’s funny and sad, because as you said, it creates an entirely fabricated sense of worth based entirely on ‘blood magic’.
If you start focusing infrastructures in each Municipalities to identify needs such a new Daycares, Trades, Youth/ Elders Centre, Housing, Education (Academic Programs), Tourism Establishments, Small Crafts Harbors, SARS programs, Food Bank establishments, Dog Team clinics/ Nunavut SPCA programs, Health Care & regular community visits this will certainly raised issues on the table where many issues needs to be address to socio-economic development & infrastructures!