Nunavut residents respond to symbols request

IQALUIT — Suggestions for Nunavut’s official symbols are begining to trickle in from the public.

After receiving a number of inquiries from different places in Canada as to what the official flower of the territory is, the speaker of legislature Levi Barnabas sent out a request to the public to come up with suggestions.

“A lot of provinces have an offical tree, but we don’t have any trees here in Nunavut,” joked Stephen Innuksuk, a legislative assembly spokesperson. He said people are free to write in with as many suggestions as they want for official symbols.

The Northwest Territories has an official bird (the gyrfalcon), tree (jack pine), mineral (gold) and an official tartan. Some U.S. states have official dinosaurs and even insects.

Inuksuk said the suggestions for official emblems will be considered by MLAs in the legislature and then they may choose to make motions in the house or bring forward legislation identifying a particular animal or plant or object as an official emblem for the territory.

Innuksuk said the Northwest Territories’ Floral Emblem Act was not inherited by Nunavut because it was specific to the Northwest Territories.

Innuksuk said he hadn’t considered what would happen if people chose an emblem that was already being used by another province or territory.

“So what if we have something the same. It would just mean we have something in common,” he said.

“Symbols help people to define themselves,” he said.