Keynote Address – Inuugatta Inuktuuqta Conference
NTI President, Aluki Kotierk
Thursday, March 28, 2019
VISION
“Our elders were starting to feel depression: it was frightening…my question to the Elders was: ‘Is it worth saving Inuit culture? Or should we just discard it and learn white ways? They said: Inuit culture must not be lost. Inuit language must not be lost.”
-Tagak Curley
Language was a motivating factor for Inuit to work towards achieving a land claims agreement which created Nunavut.
Young Inuit had big audacious dreams. Let’s think about that for a moment.
This was a time period where Inuit had just moved from the land to communities, where there were very rapid social changes. Very quickly, Inuit learned a new language, a new governance system and used it to advocate for a land claims.
They spent many years away from family and traveling, advocating for Inuit.
As Inuit of the Northwest Territories we would often hear of what Nunavut would mean for us.
In April 1990, I was a15-year-old girl in Igloolik when a federal minister arrived with the TFN President to sign an AIP for the Nunavut . The excitement was palpable!
At the time, the TFN President Quassa included in his remarks, ‘We assert the right to use Inuktitut in all facets of life in Nunavut. Along with English and French, Inuktitut should be recognized by the Government of Canada as an official language in Nunavut. We insist, too, that our children have the constitutional right to be educated in Inuktitut.’
I believe we, as Inuit, still have those rights to use Inuktitut in all facets of life in Nunavut, especially as it relates to Nunavut’s education system.
Work diligently continued and resulted in the final agreement which was signed on May 25, 1993 – 25 years ago.
This followed with a flurry of activity in advance of Nunavut becoming a territory on April 1, 1999.
Inuit envisioned better services and programs, in our language and reflecting Inuit ways of understanding and being. As we all know, the Nunavut Territory is the creature of Article 4 of the Nunavut Agreement. An agreement negotiated by Inuit and the Crown.
At the time, Inuit chose to have a territorial public government, rather than an Inuit self-government. There were safeguards to ensuring the government would reflect the majority public, specifically Article 23’s development of a representative workforce and Article 32’s involvement of Inuit in social and cultural policy. Inuit believed that the spirit and intent of the 42 articles of the Nunavut Agreement would be lived up to. Inuit have every right to believe this. The Nunavut Agreement is an Act of Parliament. It is law.
The Nunavut Project, a report written by Thomas Berger in 2006, articulated how the objective of Article 23 of the Nunavut Agreement cannot be thought of in isolation but that it inevitably leads to a consideration of a range of issues implicated in the future of Nunavut, especially in the fields of employment and education.
The world looked to the incredible achievement of Inuit! All peacefully, Inuit changed the map of Canada.
20 YEARS OF NUNAVUT
Monday will mark 20 years since the creation of the Territory of Nunavut. Wow!
Such excitement. Inuit were going to make life better for Inuit. Certainly it seemed like things were on the right track. The Government of Nunavut focussed on decentralizing jobs and we know that even today, the majority of decentralized positions are held by Inuit.
The Bathurst Mandate stated,
‘In 2020, Nunavut is a place where:
Inuktitut, in all its forms, is the working language of the Government of Nunavut.’
Personally, as a young impressionable Inuk who had started working at the Government of Nunavut after having spent years in southern Canada getting a couple of university degrees, I remember thinking, ‘Wow! This is what was envisioned by achieving Nunavut!’ I want to tell you briefly about one of those moments. Just because I know that the former Minister, a person I have great admiration for is here, present with us – Louis Tapardjuk.
At the time I was the Director of Policy and Planning. One day, I attending a briefing with the Minister. I never said a word, and even if I had been asked to say something I probably would have been very nervous. As I sat there, listening and taking notes, I had a moment of great pride and excitement come over me like a big wave. You see, I was there listening to a briefing of a Territorial Minister of the Government of Nunavut all in Inuktut. The Minister, the Deputy Minister and Assistant Deputy Minister, the three individuals with the most influence, were all Inuktut speakers. Witnessing and being a part of that felt like I was floating on clouds. This was why so many Inuit sacrificed their family lives and put so much effort into the creation of Nunavut. For a long time after that experience, and even today, I would smile and feel excited about how I too was part of the implementation of the vision of Nunavut.
The Government of Nunavut worked hard and in partnership with Inuit organizations to create and pass the Official Languages Act in June 2008 and the Inuit Language Protection Act in September 2008.This recognized and affirmed Inuktut language rights and it gave Inuit the encouragement.
Over the course of the 20 years, there have been initiatives that aligned with the vision of Nunavut. As governments change, priorities change. I had been a DM for a little over 7 years I started when it was mandatory for non-Inuktut speaking DMs to take Inuktut language training to demonstrate the importance of Inuktut and make progress towards it being the working language By the end of those seven years, this expectation of DMs had long fell to the wayside.
Each government mandate (Bathurst Mandate, Pinasuaqtavut, Tamapta, Sivumut Abluqta, Turaaqtavut) has indicated that they are working towards Inuktut as the working language of the public service.
This is important. A government is in place to serve the public. In Nunavut, the public majority are Inuit and the public majority speaks Inuktut. It only makes sense that the GN work extremely hard to achieve Inuktut as the working language so that Inuit receive programs and services in Inuktut. It is not just because it is a nice thing because language is a part of culture and a part of being nostalgic. In many cases it is a matter of life and death.
In October 2015, the Office of the Languages Commissioner of Nunavut released the, ‘Systemic Investigation Report into the Qikiqtani General Hospital’s Compliance with the Official Languages Act’. This report clearly demonstrated that providing services in one’s mother tongue was not asking for a favour but instead providing basic service needs.
Some of the findings of the systemic investigation included:
- Language barriers have a negative impact on quality of care, patient safety and access to health care services
- Patient-provider communication problems may result in a misdiagnosis and relevant follow-up treatment
- Patient confidentiality rights and informed consent may not be protected
We’ve heard publicly of instances where family identify the lack of Inuktut services as a factor to why a loved one has died in the health care system. The inability to provide Inuktut services has been identified in a coroner’s report.
Most recently, this week, in the news, we hear a call to have Inuktut-speaking RCMP.
This concerns me. It concerns me that Inuit are not receiving equitable public services similar to those of other Canadians.
LANGUAGE LANDSCAPE
As we all know, the current federal government has continued to say that there is no relationship more important than that with Indigenous Peoples.
It was only in May 2016, that this federal government officially finally endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) which as we know, includes provisions to protect the transmission of Indigenous languages.
On December 6, 2016, the Prime Minister of Canada adopted the declaration and committed to enacting a co-developed Indigenous Languages Act with the goal of ensuring the preservation, protection, and revitalization of Inuktut.
We were hopeful and ready and willing to participate in the co-development. As you have probably heard in the news, a proposed Indigenous Languages Act Bill C-91 was tabled in early February. Unfortunately, as currently proposed, this bill does not add or strengthen Inuktut language rights in Nunavut. We however, continue to work diligently with the hopes that the following will be included:
- Recognize Inuktut as an original language of Canada, the original language of Inuit Nunangat, and the first language of the majority of Inuit Nunangat residents.
- Commit to the delivery of essential programs and services in Inuktut in Inuit Nunangat, and
- Provide resources for Inuktut that are sustainable, effective, and comparable in quality and accessibility to the services offered to other Canadians.
With the election of Nunavut’s Fifth Assembly, there was a hope from Inuit. It was particularly promising to see in the vision of Turaaqtavut the words, ‘Inuktut is a living language that is used prominently in our workplaces and our daily lives.’ We welcomed the priority listing under the heading Inuunivut, ‘Strengthening the foundations for a fully functional, bilingual society in Inuktut and English or French’.
Unfortunately, it appears that these initial feelings of hopefulness seem to be dimming.
What might be the reasons for delivering on Inuktut as the working language of the public service, despite the repeated calls for it in consecutive government mandates?
When the Government of Canada and the Government of Northwest Territories met in the wake of the creation of the Territory of Nunavut, to design how to fund Nunavut’s public government and public services, they decided not to fund Inuktut as the language of our government. This was a decision; it was not an accident or an oversight.
In a January 1998 letter from the GNWT Department of Finance to the federal Department of Finance, in response to the question, ‘Are there other items for which determination of funding levels should be left open – for finalization at a later date?’ the statement was made, ‘Yes. A number of items have been identified which we know will have costs associated with them, but the size of the costs is currently not known. The requirement to make Inuktitut a working language of Nunavut is one example.’
More and more, I am of the opinion that the territorial public government was not sufficiently resourced to ensure Inuktut as the working language of our territory. In my view, we need to all demand, in unison, that the equitable amount of resources are made available so that Inuktut speaking Canadians in Nunavut can receive equitable services as other Canadians.
Not one of us can stand by and watch as the government brings in laws that will reduce Inuit rights to Inuktut language of instruction, and Inuit control over education.
Historically, we know that Canada funded buildings and personnel to actively strip Indigenous people of their culture including language, through residential school. Canada should and has the responsibility to fund buildings and personnel to actively rebuild, strengthen and protect Indigenous languages.
Schooling needs to be:
- Delivered in Inuktut, in all subject matters
- With curriculum that is Inuit centric and
- All messaging within the school needs to positively affirm students Inuit identity in a global community
In Nunavut, the majority of the population is Inuit. The majority mother-tongue spoken in Nunavut is Inuktut. As you know, in Canada, nationally, the official languages are English and French.
Nunavut is the only jurisdiction in Canada that has a homogeneous majority language spoken that is a language other than French and English.
According to the 2016 census, there are about 80 French speaking students in Nunavut. They have their own school in Iqaluit with funds from the Canadian government because French is an official language of Canada.
The message is our language is not as important as French and English speaking individuals in Nunavut. They are higher level Canadians.
These settler languages and cultures are protected and promoted and funded and put into schools, put into books, put into curricula. Meanwhile our language has been left outside of Canada’s understanding of Canada and is left to wither and die.
There have been no resources provided to increase the number of Inuktut speaking teachers, even though there are available funds. Bill 20 has been passed which weakens the 2008 Inuit Language Protection Act. This seems especially stark with the backdrop of 2019 being declared the International Year of Indigenous Languages and with the federal government’s recent Indigenous Languages Bill.
It feels like our own government, the government that was created through Article 4 of the Nunavut Agreement, the government that Inuit negotiators envisioned would make life better for Inuit, seems to be working towards slowly suffocating Inuktut out of our lives by weakening the Inuit language rights of parents sending their children to school and limiting their Inuktut to Language Arts and limiting it to the availability of Inuktut teachers, by not making Inuktut training mandatory for territorial public servants.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE – INUIT REMAIN RESILIENT
I have highlighted some areas where I think governments are falling short from supporting Inuktut. I’ve spent sleepless nights wondering who the appropriate person is that I need to speak with, wondering how I can articulate effectively the gravity of the need to support and protect Inuit language rights. I know I am not alone. I know many of us are doing our best to convey and put in place supports for Inuktut to thrive.
It is clear from listening over the last couple of days, there seems to be some general consensus that it is important for us that Inuktut remains strong. I know that, similar to the young Inuit who had a big audacious dream and who, through their efforts and dedication, changed the map of Canada, that we are all part of a movement of big audacious dreams on how we want to see Inuktut used and thriving in all aspects of our lives.
Should we be talking about the decline of Inuktut and the lack of public services in Inuktut as crimes against humanity? Should we be striving to get Inuktut recognized under the constitution similar to the way in which New Brunswick is recognized as a bilingual jurisdiction?
We all can play an important role as individuals in our day to day lives and in our workplaces to strengthen Inuktut and to ensure that it continues to thrive. I have heard so many great ideas throughout the last two days.
- As Inuit, we can use Inuktut. Let’s stop reverting to speaking English. The more we use Inuktut, the more services providers will need to respond.
- Let’s encourage each other to speak and use Inuktut. Let’s create safe and comfortable spaces so that Inuit who are learning feel supported to keep trying. Let’s encourage people who are interested in becoming teachers.
- Let us use our Inuktut names and encourage the use of Inuktut names.
- Let us use every opportunity to point out that Nunavut is unique from all other jurisdictions across Canada. It is the only jurisdiction where homogenously, Inuit are the majority public. It is the only jurisdiction where the majority public speak a language that is different than the two official languages of Canada – French and English. We all need to repetitively state that we expect Inuktut to be recognized as an official founding language of Nunavut – and should be resourced accordingly to ensure that services are available in Inuktut.
- The federal government is currently embarking on a review of their Official Languages Act. They plan to come to Nunavut on May 3rd. l encourage anyone who will be at the roundtable to talk about how, in Nunavut, Inuktut needs to be recognized as an official founding language. The federal government has a great opportunity to correct something that has not been adequately addressed.
- I encourage each of you to write to your MLAs consistently about how you would like to see Inuktut supported and protected across the board.
Let’s go back to the vision of Nunavut and the big audacious dreams. I believe in those dreams. With the Nunavut Agreement, they are law, they are not negotiable. It will make some people uncomfortable. It will make more people proud. Proud to be an Inuk, in our homeland, in our culture, with our language.
“From you, I have learned, over time, about not being afraid About speaking the truth For us to use our language… For us to use our culture as the foundation from which we operate Louis Tapardjuk, thank you” – Aluki Kotierk
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