Ontario reading material comes to Nunavut

A mega-booklift will likely become reality by the end of the year, as Nunavut Commissioner Peter Irniq and his counterpart in Ontario, Lt. Gov. James K. Bartleman, work together to fly planeloads of books from Toronto to Nunavut schools.

“It’s a way of uniting Nunavut and Ontario,” Irniq said.

Bartleman, a member of the Mnjikaning First Nations, an author, and a former diplomat, said in a telephone interview from Toronto that he’s been a book lover all his life.

“If I hadn’t had access to library books I never would have had a university education or gone on to be a Canadian ambassador,” Bartleman said. “Books were very important to me and that’s why I’m pushing it very hard. If kids are getting access to literature, it helps in community development and also with mental health.”

Bartleman said he has set three priorities for himself for his next three years as lieutenant governor: helping aboriginal youth, fighting mental illness and fighting racism. Bringing books to communities that don’t have as many as they should seems a way to reach his goal.

“I was shocked when I traveled to northern Ontario because in southern Ontario, the First Nations communities are much better off, but I was shocked to find that in the fly-in communities there were no libraries and the schools had only textbooks. Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised because milk is $12 for three litres and people can’t afford books.”

Bartleman said he wanted to give people in those communities the same chances others have, so last January he launched a book drive throughout Ontario. He expected 60,000 books, and ended up with 1.2 million, which were sorted down to 850,000.

“Here, in Ontario, people buy a lot of books, then they throw them away or put them in garage sales and sell them for 25 cents. And yet that same book might cost $25 for a school board. I wanted to channel those books to good homes,” Bartleman said.

The campaign provided books to all First Nations schools and friendship centres in the province. The schools are twinned with non-First Nations schools, so they’ll be able to maintain and improve their new libraries.

Transplanting the book drive to Nunavut came out a visit from students from Sanikiluaq who told Bartleman they could use some more books at their school, too.

“Why don’t we extend it to Nunavut?” Bartleman then asked Irniq.

The two came up with a plan that would see books go to Nunavut, by matching schools in Nunavut with schools in Toronto. Schools in Toronto would hold book drives. At the same time, students would link up as pen pals and through exchanges,

Toronto’s mayor, as well as many Ontario-based organizations, have already offered to support and assist the book drive to Nunavut.

The books-to-Nunavut plan could kick off shortly with a shipment of 25,000 books, which have already been donated by a bookseller.

Bartleman urges interested any schools to get in touch through his web site at www.lt.gov.on.ca.

“They can get in touch and I will do the matchmaking.”

A plus, according to the Lt. Governor, is that no government money is involved. To date this year, $20 million of books have been distributed, “without one cent of government money.”

“It’s going to be [through] the goodwill of people on the native and non-native side. Once they establish their links, they should last indefinitely,” Bartleman said.

A lack of space for a formal library in some schools shouldn’t discourage participation because “you can always find room for books.”

“All you need is some boards and some bricks and you have your library. It’s as simple as falling out of bed.”