Say that again? Our favourite quotes of 2019

Words. They’re the tools we use to tell our stories, day after day, week after week.

Some of the most powerful words we encounter come directly from our silver-tongued sources. So here’s a collection of some of our favourite quotes of 2019, lifted from the pages of Nunatsiaq News.

“Rest easy, my friend. You will be missed by us all.”

— Premier Joe Savikataaq on the death of Tununiq MLA Joe Enook, the Speaker of the Nunavut legislature.

“Self-government doesn’t come from a report commissioned by some southern white consultants. It starts with us, right here, right now.”

— Iqaluit’s outgoing mayor, Madeleine Redfern, telling Iqaluit city councillors that more young Inuit should run for municipal office.

“It gives me so much hope. I’m really holding on to that hope and wanting to continue with the work we’re doing now.”

— P.J. Akeeagok, the president of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, on the federal government’s apology for the wrongdoings exposed in the report of the Qikiqtani Truth Commission.

“At the end of the day, he gets to wash that off. But this is something so many people experience all the time because they do have darker skin, because they’re brown or black. It’s not something that can be washed off.”

— NDP candidate Mumilaaq Qaqqaq on Justin Trudeau’s blackface scandal.

“Eating, sewing and talking: these are the best ways you can maintain your language.”

— Iqaluit elder Alacie Joamie, speaking at a conference on language.

“He was not easily reachable. He was on a satellite phone, but I exchanged text messages with him, sort of excitedly, to express my own excitement that the wellness centre, the treatment centre that he’s been working on for a long time will be built, and frankly will proceed very quickly.”

— Dominic LeBlanc, then the northern affairs minister, on how he told Nunavut Premier Joe Savikataaq about Ottawa’s promise to pay for a treatment centre in Nunavut.

“We have so many people here who don’t eat three meals a day.”

— Gaetan David, a cook at Kuujjuaq’s homeless shelter.

“Our ice is melting, our oceans are at risk, and our planet is on fire.”

— Dalee Sambo Dorough of Alaska, international chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council.

“Sometimes bullies don’t even know they are bullies.”

— Iqaluit-Niaqunngu MLA Pat Angnakak.

“Now, my rights are protected under the Nunavut Human Rights Act. I feel more comfortable with myself and the community I live in now that this is so.”

— Kieran Drachenberg of Iqaluit, writing in Nunatsiaq News about the addition of transgender rights to the Nunavut Human Rights Act.

“We need 30 more members in Nunavut.”

— Mark T. Crowther, the RCMP’s inspector of criminal operations, speaking to Baffin mayors in March 2019 about the impact of rising police calls in the territory.

“Iqaluit gets so much support, that the needs and challenges of Nunavut’s other communities are left by the side of the trail.”

— Aggu MLA Paul Quassa, talking about the lack of homeless shelters and other facilities in the small communities of Nunavut.

“We’re in an experimental situation here.”

— Susan Leech, a consultant for Qikiqtani Inuit Association, commenting in June 2019 on the question marks surrounding Baffinland’s proposed Mary River railway and its impact on migrating caribou.

“My grandchildren are getting beaten up by drunks and RCMP are doing nothing!”

— A protestor in Kugluktuk this past July, alleging police do not provide timely responses to emergency calls.

“Maybe aliens would come here for the 24-hour sunlight, for energy or refuelling. Or maybe because it’s closer to the poles, for some magnetic reason.”

— Filmmaker Nyla Inuksuk on Slash Back, an alien invasion movie shot in Pangnirtung.

“Nothing good ever came out of an overcrowded house.”

— Nunavut Premier Joe Savikataaq.

“I like to think it is an economic development activity the communities could take a look at.”

— Finance Minister George Hickes on the possibility of introducing in-person, over-the-counter cannabis sales in Nunavut.

“It feels like a bomb dropped in our newsroom this morning.”

— A CBC North employee after their employer announced a plan—which it later dropped—to start doing pan-northern morning newscasts assembled in Yellowknife.