RCMP shouldn’t investigate itself

The letter, “Bossy bosses” by someone from Iqaluit in the May 27 issue, is right on in its criticism of Tagak Curley and his religious views.

I agree with the view that a politician’s religious beliefs should not be forced into the public, and especially so, now that the same-sex law is finally giving breathing space to the sector of Inuit society that has been marginalized for so long; ever since we Inuit emerged ourselves in Christianity. As Inuit, we have been known to be tolerant of individual differences, a tradition so eloquently articulated in “Arnaasiaq…”, by Karla Jessen Williamson, in Nunatsiaq’s April 29, 2005 issue.

In the larger picture though, what I would like to press to “name withheld” is that his or her criticism of “Bossy Bosses” misses the entire point.

For one thing, Tagak Curley’s views on religion are his, and it is up to the public to accept them or not. For another, I did not tell the RCMP what to do, and nor did I tell them to not conduct the investigation.

However, my criticism of the RCMP conducting an internal investigation into its killing of qimmiit is quite legitimate. Any police force investigating itself cannot be regarded as doing a proper investigation and it is sure that the Canadian population is in agreement with this. We should all be rolling our eyes about the Liberal government’s decision to not conduct a proper public investigation headed by a judge. This type of investigation would at least be impartial to the RCMP point of view and to the Inuit point of view.

An impartial decision, which would prove to the government that the dog slaughter happened, would indeed make it necessary for the Liberal Government to act on the past wrongs the government did in the 1950s up to the 1970s. Namely, it would have to apologize to the Inuit and compensate them for the loss of their dogs. This is what we are aiming for, for the Inuit of Nunavik and Nunavut.

Pita Aatami
President
Makivik Corp.
Kuujjuaq