Nunavut government decision to take over Cambridge Bay’s shelter sparks municipal backlash
“We need a place for women to go”
Here’s a look at the empty building in Cambridge Bay that the Government of Nunavut plans to renovate into a six-bedroom shelter for women. (Submitted photo)
The mayor and senior administrative officer of Cambridge Bay say they’re confused and worried by the Government of Nunavut’s decision to stop funding the women’s shelter that the hamlet operated for more than 10 years.
The GN decided in April to convert a former youth group home into a future facility for women fleeing domestic violence rather than continue to support the hamlet’s St. Michael’s Crisis Shelter.
The GN said some concerns had surfaced about whether the shelter was open 24-7, as it was supposed to be, after the state of emergency was declared on March 18 in Nunavut due to COVID-19.
But Cambridge Bay Mayor Pamela Gross and SAO Marla Limousin said that is untrue, and that the shelter was continuously open.
Gross said the GN decision to stop funding now leaves the community of about 1,800 without a local shelter.
And it means women seeking shelter must either stay at a safe house in the community or travel outside Cambridge Bay, when many travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic are in place, Gross said.
A local women’s shelter is “a very important need” for the community, Gross said.
She referred to the call from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls for more Inuit women’s shelters, which Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada recently repeated.
“We do need to have space available,” Gross said.
The GN should consider a shorter agreement with the hamlet to operate the shelter until the new space is renovated, she suggested.
“We could be interested,” Gross said. “We want it to be good for both parties. We need to be there for people. We need a place for women to go.”
In the year leading up to this past April, 82 women and children received services at the two-bedroom shelter.
This is the two-bedroom house that the municipality of Cambridge Bay had operated as the St. Michael’s Crisis Shelter for more than 10 years. (Submitted photo)
Both Gross and Limousin said that the GN decision to stop funding the shelter came as a surprise to them.
They said they had to close the facility down in early April during the height of uncertainty about the course of the pandemic in Nunavut.
On April 7, Arijana Haramincic, Nunavut’s executive director of family services, informed the hamlet that the GN would no longer support St. Michael’s Crisis Shelter.
“After considering the information provided, circumstances regarding closure of the shelter, change in shelter services and modifications in the proposal, the Department decided not to enter in a future contract with the Hamlet,” Haramincic said.
“The services for women and children will be provided directly by the Department of Family Wellness and will continue being available 24/7.”
Gross said she only learned about the GN’s plans to renovate the former group home a week later, in an April 14 letter from Yvonne Niego, the deputy minister of the Department of Family Services.
Gross said the hamlet had been negotiating with the Department of Family Services for nearly a year leading up to the cancellation of the shelter-funding agreement.
“We were underfunded for years, and we were hoping we would be fully funded going ahead and not go into a deficit,” Gross said.
The cost of operating the shelter during the 2019-20 fiscal year ended up leaving the hamlet with a deficit of $31,000.
“We had several conversations with the Department of Family Services throughout the year as we slid further and further into debt,” Limousin told Nunatsiaq News. “These conversations were with assurance that the department would provide the funding.
“Over many years, there have been many promises made by staff with regards to providing adequate funding, which, in the end, has never materialized, leaving us under incredible stress to balance our municipal budget, because of course, the deficit in the shelter affects other operations of the municipality.”
The shelter had never been closed, Limousin said.
“I would like to set the record straight as the accusations made by the department are inaccurate. We did not lie,” she said.
But looking ahead to the 2020-21 contract, the hamlet had designed a shelter program within the budget the GN was able to provide: there would be two shifts of shelter workers for the most vulnerable times, evening and night, while shelter clients would have access to the wellness centre’s programs during the day.
This is beyond ridiculous. It makes no sense that they would completely stop funding the shelter while the other is still so far from being ready. I am absolutely outraged that a shelter for those seeking protection from domestic abuse and violence is being closed. Nunavut has the highest rates of domestic violence across the country, yet we can count the number of women’s shelters in our territory on one hand. The Government should be working towards having operating shelters in EVERY COMMUNITY, not shutting them down, even if only temporarily.
Do they think family violence will all of a sudden just take a break until the shelter opens? Oh, no, sorry, that’s right, they don’t since they have a contingency plan. Not provide the funds to continue operating what is already available and in place. That just makes too much sense. Instead the government should up-end the lives of these vulnerable women and their children even further by cutting them off from their support systems by spending thousands to send them to another community.
I don’t know, perhaps when looking at the bottom dollar, that would be cheaper, but in my opinion is certainly not cheaper when you weigh in the cost of how this move affects the lives of these women, their children, and the community at large.
I am never surprised with the GN anymore, its more of disbelief and disappointment.
This is not the spirit Nunavut that we were seeking, the Nunavut we worked so hard to get has gone on a very different direction.
Copying the same government system as other parts of Canada and not making its own way and not being the Nunavut we wanted. We keep seeing these type of things that would normally be straight forward and easy to remedy, with open discussions, instead top heavy decisions with little to no dialogue or discussions.
Is there still time to go back to what we wanted? Is there still time to fix the damage and realize our dream of Nunavut?
It has gone on a Wrong direction for So long now that it seems to be just part of another government system as in the south. That does not work very well.
This is the sort of crazy the GN is known for. You were told by someone the place was not open 24/7, so you shut it down completely until you get around to setting up a new place???
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No. This is a power trip.
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We cannot have someone esle providing service in Nunavut. Everything has to be controlled by the government.
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Someone in Iqaluit needs to stomp on any local initiative.
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No – to the locally run Elders’ facility in Kugluktuk.
No – to the locally run shelter in Cambridge Bay.
Who will they stomp on next?
No to arviat and Baker lake elders care homes…
This is what happens when you have civil servants running Nunavut ,and politicians sitting back letting it happen. Remember yEllowknife same thing .and less people understand what’s happening in Nunavut. And when you get a couple of community’s Try to move forward stomp them into the ground.where are all the new young leaders we hear about not a peep