This year’s Nunavut Day marks 30th anniversary of land claims agreement
Barbecues, live music part of celebration of territory’s history across Nunavut
Volunteers handle the barbecue on Nunavut Day in Iqaluit in 2022. This year’s celebration will mark the 30th anniversary of the Nunavut Agreement being approved by Parliament. (File photo by Meral Jamal)
This year’s Nunavut Day celebration on July 9 also marks the 30th anniversary of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, which was passed in Parliament in 1993.
“It’s a significant milestone,” Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Aluki Kotierk said.
Nunavut Day celebrates not only the adoption of the land claims agreement act but also the establishment of Nunavut as its own territory six years later in 1999, when it was separated from the Northwest Territories.
Across the territory on Sunday, there will be events held to commemorate the creation of Nunavut.
To celebrate, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. will be distributing $2 million throughout Nunavut’s 25 communities, said NTI assistant director of communications and lead organizer of Nunavut Day events Ivaluarjuk Merritt.
Communities will receive one million dollars collectively, starting with a base funding of $20,000 each and then each community’s population will determine how much more funding it receives, Merritt said.
One area that funding will help communities with is their Nunavut Day celebrations, Kotierk said.
Hunters and trappers organizations will share the other million dollars.
The hunters and trappers organizations were selected to share the other million dollars, she said, because NTI “wanted to recognize the importance of nutritious, good country food in our communities.”
While the 30th anniversary of the Nunavut Agreement is significant, it is also an opportunity for reflection, Kotierk said.
“It gives an opportunity to pause and reflect on how things have been going and things could be improved,” she said.
For improvement, Kotierk referred to Article 23 of the agreement, which focuses on achieving a government workforce that is representative of the Inuit population.
While approximately 85 per cent of Nunavut’s people Inuit, according to Statistics Canada, Kotierk said the percentage of Inuit employed by the Government of Nunavut is only about 50 per cent.
She said that in a territory where many citizens live below the poverty line and where there is a housing crisis and food insecurity, “having a steady, salaried income would [make] a positive impact.”
NTI will be involved in a significant number of Nunavut Day events as the organization in charge of planning celebrations in Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay, the three regional hubs where NTI has offices.
In Iqaluit, there will be a barbecue from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Igluvut Building, Merritt said.
There will also be an outdoor concert in Iqaluit with performers from each region of Nunavut, including Terrie Kusugak and the band NotEven. There will be a throat singing competition between performances.
In Rankin Inlet, events include a barbecue from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Community Recreation Centre, along with elders games, live music and a traditional dresswear competition.
For Cambridge Bay, there will be draw prizes and a community barbecue at the Municipal Heritage Park beginning at 1 p.m., Merritt said.
Kotierk said she hopes people gets their “dancing shoes and game spirits out so that our communities can have a wonderful celebration.”
Panem et circenses, right NTI?
We were better off with N.W.T., mining wise. Now, the Nunavut government. Is holding it back from its full potential.
The minerals aren’t going anywhere. Our little population is just getting started. When Inuit are the geologists and upper management, a few years away, then we can revisit environment destroying mining.
Amen. ?
NTI laments the low Inuit GN employment numbers. A focus on promoting education would go a long way toward filling GN positions. Aluki knows this. She worked in the GN.
That’s absolutely true! What is more sad is that NTI received 175 million for Inuit training and formed the Makigiaqta Inuit Training Corporation to manage it.
They leave it up to chance to determine who is going to receive a piece of the fund by asking organizations to write hefty proposals and reports.
Education should be the prime investment for Nunavut and Nunavummiut. We’re always complaining that everything is too expensive, non-Inuit workers are always making decisions for our territory.
If the Nunavut children and their parents start really valuing education, then there would be a lot more qualified Inuit to fill the 60% vacant GN jobs, and all the jobs in our territory.
Time to spend on nothing else but education until Nunavut can stand on its feet!
Upgrade the curriculum so students can learn 3 “r”s, not throat singing and drum dancing.
NLCA is a raw deal for Inuit and Government of Nunavut has failed in every department. We were better off with N.W.T.
Bring NWT back.?
The greatest accomplishment of Nunavut has been the thousands of good public service jobs that have come to the territory as a result. Because of Nunavut, Inuit can participate in the wage economy in a huge way that was non existent in the NWT days. Back in those NWT days, there were few jobs for Inuit even in Iqaluit. Living on social assistance was the norm for most Inuit back in this “good old days” of the NWT. Thanks to Nunavut, we now have an Inuit middle class who are homeowners and who can provide a good lifestyle for themselves and their children. Again, none of this existed back in the NWT days. We have much to be grateful for in Nunavut! Let’s celebrate it!!
When “None of it” happened, my sister and her husband, from a different part of Nunavut, they ended up leaving Iqaluit early and on the run as the people in Iqaluit kept telling them “to go back where you’re from. You don’t belong here.”?
Time for Mines has it right on. There are templates around the world, notably but not only in Asia, where Third World peoples have been enabled for the First in a single generation–say 25 years—a number less than 30! Upon independence in 1965 Singapore’s premier Lee became responsible for 60,000 Indigenous Malays living in shocking Slumdog conditions. He delivered a ten-year housing program and intensive education. By the 1990s children of relocates were doing Masters Degrees at Berkeley and Cambridge, in physics and architecture.
And by the way, there are 4 official languages in Singapore but English is not one of them. However, all children receive the entirety of their education in English. Only.
Meantime in Nunavut …
I don’t think there is very much point in comparing a place like Singapore with Nunavut. It is a tiny place with a much larger population that finds itself in a very unique geographic and political context that doesn’t resemble Nunavut’s one bit, and that is the main reason it has developed the way it has. There is basically no other place on Earth that has a comparable set of circumstances to Singapore.
.
There are models to follow and others we can learn from, but Singapore is nowhere near the top of the list to follow imo…
As a child growing up land claims really set up to generational changes and turned up exactly at same time it’s like I grew up with the law. But today, social assistance, no employment, just staying home. It’s not made for mez I grew up when it was finally been on talks 1993, now a teenager 1999 came became a territory. Today income support, applied for work and etc.