Who’s stigmatizing who?

You can’t blame James Arreak, the MLA for Uqqummiut, for complaining in the legislative assembly about a Nov. 4 story in this paper revealing that the death of a Clyde River man earlier this year is related to the HTLV-1 virus.

That’s because just about everything the Government of Nunavut has done in response to this situation has served to stigmatize the community and all those who carry the virus. This stigmatization of Clyde River by the territorial government has been reinforced further by those who complain about Clyde River’s having been identified.

More than anyone, health officials ought to know that there’s nothing morally wrong about carrying the HTLV-1 virus, or any other virus, in one’s bloodstream. It’s a fundamental part of nature, and so obvious that it hardly needs to be said. We all carry infectious microbes inside our bodies that, if transmitted in certain ways, could make another person sick. That’s how we get sick from most infectious diseases, from the common cold to tuberculosis.

And that’s why, in the past, territorial officials have released information about outbreaks of tuberculosis, RSV and other diseases in named communities, and no one has complained about it.

So if there is nothing shameful about carrying the HTLV-1 virus in one’s bloodstream, why is the GN, and certain MLAs, acting as if it were shameful? In doing so, they are simply reinforcing the stigma, the false notion that it’s morally wrong to simply carry a virus in one’s bloodstream.

The people of Nunavut are adults. As citizens of a free and open society, they are entitled to be treated as adults. But their affairs, sadly, are run by a nanny government staffed by officials who believe that Nunavummiut should be treated like children, too immature and irresponsible to handle the truth. Like state officials everywhere, they hate the free flow of information, unless it’s they who control it. In doing so, however, they contradict the very mission of the Nunavut government.

The silliest reaction to the whole affair was that offered by Tagak Curley, the MLA for Rankin Inlet-North. On Sept. 21, Curley got up on his hind legs in the legislative assembly to demand an “investigation” by either the justice department or the information and privacy commissioner, as a way of intensifying a GN witch-hunt aimed at revealing the identity of an unnamed government official who corroborated part of the Nov. 4 story. His demand included an allegation that somebody violated Section 59 of the Information and Privacy Act, which provides for fines of up to $5,000 for those found guilty of disclosing private information held by the territorial government.

This demand, however, is based on a grotesque misunderstanding of the Information and Privacy Act.

The privacy act is intended to protect the privacy of individual persons, not communities or any other collectivity. The act governs the practices of territorial government employees who, in the performance of their duties, must acquire information from people. It’s intended to ensure that such information is used only for the purpose for which it was gathered, and is not disclosed to third parties without the permission of the individual persons who supply the information.

Curley’s demand is based on an inane premise. Because if it were true that Clyde River’s “privacy” were violated, then it is equally true that GN officials violated Nunavut’s privacy when they announced the presence of HTLV-1 within Nunavut. And if that were so, then it would be impossible for officials to release any information about any disease at any time.

Of course, no private information belonging to any individual person was ever disclosed by anyone. For that reason, such an “investigation” would accomplish nothing, except to further intimidate officials within the GN’s troubled health department.

That, however, hasn’t stopped GN officials from forcing a long list of senior health employees into signing a document saying they didn’t squeal to the newspaper. Those who actually read the newspaper story will, of course, learn that the principal sources for it are people who live in Clyde River – the community that is alleged to have been “stigmatized.”

Certain MLAs may take pleasure in bullying GN employees. But in a department whose morale is already at rock-bottom levels owing to the departure of all their assistant deputy ministers and the impending departure of their deputy minister, this is a bad idea.

It’s sad, but once again Nunavut MLAs have shown that they are incapable of mounting a serious discussion about health issues in Nunavut. For example, Nunavut’s chlamydia rate is 14 to 15 times the national average, with hundreds of new cases reported every year. We cannot recall any MLA ever asking a question about this.

But if paternalistic officials, elected and non-elected, continue to act as if the people of Nunavut should be kept in a state of infantilized ignorance, the infantilized ignorance will continue. JB