Nunavut’s first birthday comes and goes quietly

SEAN McKIBBON

IQALUIT — Nunavut celebrated its first birthday quietly last weekend with a visit from Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, and the investiture of a new commissioner, Peter Irniq.

In contrast to the pomp and fireworks of Nunavut’s creation last year, April 1, 2000 was a much more low-key affair.

Irniq, Nunavut’s equivalent to a provincial lieutenant governor, made little mention of the anniversary date in his English investiture speech, preferring instead to say that he wanted to promote Nunavut’s culture

Other Nunavut leaders downplayed the significance of April 1.

“The Governor General was a birthday present to Nunavut,” said Paul Quassa, the president Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., and the man who on May 25, 1993 signed the land claim agreement that obliged Ottawa to create Nunavut.

Quassa said the visit recognized the legitimacy of Nunavut’s new government, but he said April 1 had been picked as a date for Nunavut’s birth as a matter of convenience.

“It was just a convenient time, because it was the beginning of the fiscal year,” Quassa said .

For Premier Paul Okalik, himself a former land claims negotiator, the one-year date is less significant than the signing of the land claim.

“For one we want to change the day of celebration. We can mark our holiday on July 9, that’s the day the land claim agreement was signed,” said Okalik.

Okalik’s government has recently introduced legislation to move the August civic holiday to July 9, a move opposed by some residents because they’ll lose a long weekend in August.

But others welcome it because the move will end long standing confusion over whether July 9 is an official holiday or not.

“April 1 is not a good day. I’ve played two jokes already,” said Okalik referring to the fact the date is April Fool’s Day.

The Governor General waxed philosophical about the quiet day.

“Maybe you’re getting used to it. Maybe you shouldn’t be thinking, ‘Oh we’ve had one year, oh we’ve had two years, oh we’ve had three years.’ It’s maybe more exciting to people who’ve come from outside and thought of it as just wonderful,” said Clarkson.

But as the Governor General entered the Nunavut legislative building in Iqaluit to watch the investiture of Nunavut’s new commissioner, one of Nunavut’s social problems reared its head.

A homeless man, Joe Teemotee, who lives in a shack behind Iqaluit’s courthouse, met Clarkson with a sign asking for help. He presented her with a piece of paper detailing the woeful housing statistics in the territory

The incident helped to highlight the huge social problems facing Nunavut a year after the territory’s creation.

As of the winter of 1999, the overall unemployment rate is 20.7 per cent — 28 per cent among Inuit, and only 2.7 per cent among non-Inuit.

Okalik said Nunavut needs another year to make a difference. He said this is the first year the government had been able to table a budget of its own design, and that it will probably take another year before the government’s policies would have a discernible impact.

“Things have changed for some people. You run into people that weren’t working this time last year,” he said.

Clarkson who visited Nunavut’s capital 20 years ago as a journalist noticed differences.

“I just remember a few buildings really just around the bay. Now it’s so huge,” she laughs. “And to see it now as the capital of Nunavut is really very exciting.”