Who serves Nunavik best?

In recent years, Quebec provincial dollars have flowed into Nunavik like spring-time melt-water from a mountain stream.

As a result, the 14 Inuit communities of Nunavik are receiving public services that, with a few notable exceptions, now surpass what Nunavut’s Ottawa-funded government is able to provide.

It’s hard nowadays to find an elementary school classroom anywhere in Nunavik with more than 15-20 students. In cash-strapped Nunavut, it’s hard to find a classroom with fewer than 30.

In the spite of that province’s well-publicized health care woes, Quebec’s provincial government has still managed to create a health care system that is superior to Nunavut’s. With a population of only 9,200 people, about one-third of Nunavut’s, Nunavik boasts two hospitals and at least 14 resident general practitioners.

While Nunavut groans under the burden of a crushing social housing shortage, Nunavik residents will see the construction of 42 new social housing units this year. Other than a few replacement units, Nunavut residents will see none this year, and few, if any, in the future.

In achieving self-government, Nunavik is well on its way to catching up with Nunavut. When officials from Quebec City, Ottawa and the Makivik Corporation sign the Nunavik Accord later this summer, they will have set into motion a unique process that will lead to the creation of a self-governing quasi-territory within the province of Quebec run by a democratically elected Nunavik assembly.

Much of this is due to the efforts of Quebec’s Parti Québecois government, whose sovereignty project placed them on a nasty collision course with most of Quebec’s aboriginal leaders in 1995. While both Liberal and PQ governments in Quebec have insisted that Quebec’s borders are inviolate, aboriginal people have vowed that they and their lands will remain in Canada should Quebec secede.

Only four or five years ago, this was a stark, black and white issue, beyond the reach of any rational political resolution.

But in health care, education and housing, those crucial bread-and-butter issues of government that most affect the day-to day lives of ordinary people, Bouchard’s government has now surpassed what Ottawa provides Inuit in the rest of Canada. In Nunavik, they are now acting like a national government. And despite Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart’s belated attempt to wave the maple leaf flag in Kangiqsualujjuaq two weeks ago, the federal government is now virtually invisible in Nunavik.

Is Lucien Bouchard’s government attempting to buy the hearts of Quebec’s Inuit? Of course they are. Will they succeed in neutralizing Inuit opposition to Quebec sovereignty? In the short-term, no.

But in the future, they may well succeed in transforming a black and white issue into one that can only be understood in subtle shades of gray. It may one day become possible for Quebec Inuit to at least contemplate what not so long ago was inconceivable — the notion that they might possibly be better off in Quebec than in Canada. JB