(April 20, 2018 – Iqaluit, Nunavut)  In a historic first address to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues this week, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated’s president, Ms. Aluki Kotierk focused on the need to ensure equitable public services that other Canadian’s enjoy, for unilingual Inuktut speakers in Nunavut. With the creation of public government of Nunavut in 1999, Canada has a majority public language jurisdiction that is not English or French, but rather is Inuktut. Canada must ensure that the Inuktut majority public within Nunavut receives the same public services and legal protections that other Canadian’s enjoy.

President Kotierk stated,“Inuktut must be recognized as a founding language of Canada, and must ensure that our language is sufficiently and robustly supported, through resources, so that Inuit can receive public services in their language.”

Article 13 and 14 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) state that nation states have to take effective measures to protect Indigenous languages.  For the past 19 years Canada has had a public jurisdiction with a majority of tax-paying citizens who speak an Indigenous language, but Canada has not taken the necessary steps to support Inuktut as it does English and French.

Canada delivers $8,189 per francophone for language programs in Nunavut, while providing $186 per Inuktut speaker—meaning the federal government spends 44 times more on French in Nunavut than it does on Inuktut.

Speaking under agenda item 4 on the implementation of the six mandated areas of the Permanent Forum with reference to the UNDRIP, NTI president focused on the necessary action needed in preparation for 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages.