Sanirajak man sentenced to four and a half years for sex crimes

After a series of delays, Simeonie Issigaitok has received a four-and-a-half year sentence in a federal penitentiary for sexually touching children under the age of 16.

Court staff brought the 73-year-old Sanirajak man from into an Iqaluit courtroom Tuesday in a wheelchair. Through an interpreter, he listened expressionless, occasionally nodding his head, as Justice Christian Lyons read his sentence.

“Vulnerability of Inuit children and, in particular Inuit girls, is demonstrated by the persistent and troublingly high per capita rate of child sexual abuse in Nunavut,” Lyons said. “A problem that Mr. Issigaitok has repeatedly and substantially contributed to for decades.”

Issigaitok pleaded guilty in December 2025 to two counts of sexual interference. The first offence occurred in Sanirajak sometime between 1987 and 1989. Issigaitok assaulted a girl in her early teens at her home while her parents were asleep.

The second incident occurred in April 2021. Issigaitok was captured on security video during a community event touching a boy while he was seated with a group of children.

On Tuesday, Lyons said aggravating factors included Issigaitok’s history of convictions for sex crimes dating back to  which dates back to 1988, his 2014 designation as a dangerous offender, and that his victims were Inuit children.

He also said that he considered the fact that Issigaitok attended residential school, where he was sexually abused, a mitigating factor, as well as Issigaitok’s guilty plea, which meant the victims did not have to testify.

Another mitigating factor was that one of the crimes occurred before the first of his 27 lifetime convictions. Therefore, the court could treat it as a first offense.

“This is attenuated somewhat by the fact that Mr. Issigaitok was abusing other children during the period of the offense and had committed a serious sexual assault a few years prior, for which he was sentenced in 1997,” Lyons said.

Crown prosecutors had sought a 10-year sentence, while defence lawyer Alan Regel argued that his sentence should be for time served in jail while his case worked its way through the legal system. Judges usually credit defendants with one and a half days for every day they spend in pre-trial custody. That means Regal was asking for a sentence of about 21 months.

Lyons sentenced Issigaitok to three years for the crime committed in 1988 and one and a half years for the crime committed in 2021.

Issigaitok will remain at the Aaqqigiarvik Correctional Healing Facility in Iqaluit while he awaits his transfer to a federal penitentiary to serve the two years and nine months left in his sentence.

The sentencing saw two delays. In June, Lyons delayed the proceeding to allow time for one victim to submit a statement. In July, Issigaitok was medevaced to Ottawa because of respiratory problems.

There was one more delay, of about an hour, on Tuesday. The scheduled court interpreter was not in town, and court staff needed to videoconference a new one.