Provincial funding focuses on crime prevention

KUUJJUAQ — Nunavik can look forward to receiving more than $300 million for crime prevention over the next 25 years, thanks to a new deal between the region and Quebec.

The money is to be “a flexible tool designed to prevent and combat crime, to promote safe and healthy communities.”

It will pay for “culturally appropriate measures,” which improve the social environment, help crime victims and improve correctional activities for Nunavimmiut.

The cash will allow every community in Nunavik to have its own justice committee and will also help fund special projects or groups such as the new Nunavik women’s association and take some pressure off the region’s cash-strapped police.

The deal relieves Quebec’s obligation under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement to build a provincial jail in Nunavik.

During a closed-door meeting last week in Kuujjuaq, the boards of Makivik Corporation and the Kativik Regional Government approved the deal, which will be an amendment to the 2002 Sanarrutik agreement on economic and community development.

Quebec’s cabinet is to give its final approval before the National Assembly adjourns for the summer.

The deal says Quebec will pay Makivik and the KRG $10 million this year and annually until 2030. The annual amount will be indexed and tax-free.

A committee of no more than eight, who will be named by Makivik and the KRG, will determine what the regional needs are and set priorities for spending the money.

About$1 million – that is, not more than 10 per cent of the money – can be spent on the KRPF.

This money will be taken as an increase in Quebec’s contribution to the KRPF’s annual budget when the new agreement on Nunavik’s policing is signed by March 31, 2008.

The deal won’t affect any other programs or services from Quebec and it guarantees continued funding for the Makitautik Halfway House in Kangirsuk.

However, the deal means Quebec will not build an even larger detention facility in Nunavik.

This facility was called for in the 2002 Sanarrutik agreement and in Section 20.0.25 of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, which says, “Inuit should not be, unless circumstances so require, detained, imprisoned or confined in any institution below the 49th parallel.”

This long-awaited 40-person jail was to be built in Inukjuak at a price tag of more than $40 million, not including $20 million for housing and an additional amount for training.

When Quebec’s native affairs minister Geoff Kelley spoke at Makivik’s recent annual general meeting in Kangirsuk, he said building a jail closer to home wouldn’t be a solution to Nunavik’s rising crime rates — particularly at a time when the federal government is considering more severe penalties for violent crime.

“The police can continue to arrest people and put people in jail, but that is just dealing with the symptom,” Kelley told the AGM.

Kelley said he would like to see more supports in place for Nunavimmiut who want to see “a change in their life and go forward.”

“I’d like to come up with a solution that can answer all of these needs,” he said. “We’re very concerned about the challenges that the villages and the police are facing.”

Peetah Inukpuk, a regional councillor from Inukjuak and a member of the KRG’s executive, is disappointed the jail won’t be built in Nunavik.

Inukpuk said he would like Nunavik to have a jail because it serves as a deterrent to crime.

“Detention should be prevention,” he said. “We are not being allowed to practice that.”

Inukpuk said the government believes building the jail, like building more social housing in the region, is an expensive solution.

“But if you keep depriving people, they remain unproductive,” Inukpuk said.

Inukpuk said he nevertheless supports the decision of the two leading councils in Nunavik because it was made in a democratic way.

The deal was negotiated with the assistance of former KRG chairman Johnny Adams.

Last week Quebec announced Adams’ appointment as “Chevalier” to Quebec’s honorary society, l’Ordre national du Québec, for his contribution to more harmonious relationships between Inuit and the Quebec government and between the North and the South.

Adams will be inducted into the order on June 20. By this date, the new amendment to the Sanarrutik agreement may also be ready for an official signing by Kelley and Jacques Dupuis, the minister of public security.