What is the gun registry’s human cost to Inuit?

It is not surprising to the Inuit of Nunavut that the auditor general has found that the cost of implementing the federal Firearms Act is impossible to calculate at this time.

Canadians should know that the costs will go far beyond the $1 billion now predicted, since the true costs to Inuit will not be known for generations.

Hunting is essential to the Inuit way of life — a way of life that the Firearms Act criminalizes despite our treaty, which was designed to protect our harvesting rights.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. represents the Inuit of Nunavut, as set out in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. We are now seeking an injunction to stop the act’s registration requirement from applying to Nunavut Inuit.

If our injunction is not granted, many Inuit may risk criminal charges when harvesting wild game for their families and communities after Jan. 1, 2003.

How do you calculate the costs to a community denied its traditional source of protein and must rely instead on expensive meat flown in from the South?

What is the cost to our children of not being allowed to learn to hunt at an early age, as we have always done?

How do you calculate the costs to a community that is forced to give up our custom of sharing country food?

Too many of our Inuktitut-speaking hunters have already been adversely affected by the Firearms Act because they do not have the English-French possession certificate that allows the co-op to sell them ammunition.

The federal government is ignoring the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. A law designed to protect urban dwellers will deny Inuit our right to spend time together out on the land, harvesting for our social, cultural and economic well-being.

I hope the auditor general will remember to take the true costs to the Inuit of Nunavut into account in her final report on the Firearms Act.

James Eetoolook
First Vice President
Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.