Today, it has been thirty years since people sat in the Inuksuk high school gym to witness an agreement between Inuit of Nunavut and the Prime Minister of Canada (and others). During that event there was so much hope and expectation exhumed in the room and all of Nunavut. It was our day, as Inuit! A monumental moment. So much work had been done to lead up to this work, decades of negotiating. Even though I had not voted in favor of the agreement (believing there was not enough focus on education to prepare us to take over) I too was excited at the new turn of page. After all this was what Inuit leaders worked towards and voted for. The expectation was that Inuit will now be the decision makers, we will now control our own affairs, our way of life will now be protected including our language.
Thirty years later, have those expectations been realized or is the vision still the primary focus of our energy in the governance systems we’ve adopted?
I have written extensively about the social inequities that exist in Nunavut and racial tension so I will not go deeply into them here (if you want to see them, you can look up my name on Yellowhead Institute’s website).
Even with my critical views I express, I am still hopeful and see people living their true selves, inspiring and supporting others to do the same. It’s important that hope for a better future exists, otherwise, we have lost ourselves.
One of the biggest lessons we have learned in Nunavut with our Inuit employment rates is that in order to protect our culture, language and way of life, we have to do it ourselves. We cannot rely on or trust incomers who are only interested in personal economic benefits from Nunavut and maintaining the system to benefit that economic interest. We have seen the strong resistance to changing this. Where even a Premier was ousted trying to replace a non Inuk staff with an Inuk staff.
What that situation also told us is that there are Inuit strongly upholding the very system that oppresses them. Even though we have almost all Inuit political and leadership positions, the administration still clearly has a grip on our territorial government with key people in political system protecting it with them.
Even if we are to achieve Inuit leading the majority in administrative drivers seat it is still not enough. We have to do it in the context of explicitly shedding colonialism and its grip. We also have to do it with allies of non-Inuit serving the same objective as us (see Qanak Collective’s list of ‘How To Be a Good Ally’ on their Facebook page). We must define the relationship with non-Inuit on our terms while defining the agenda for Nunavut. This is our homeland. We have to be aware of how colonial systems maintain power dynamics not in our favor and work diligently to reverse that. This means education and awareness to our colonial past, how it works, and continually asking how the system is working against us and what taking charge of our own lives means for us because conditions and society changes. So do colonial forces!
The education and awareness to colonialism has to recognise how conformity is maintained. How is it that we are made to just go along with the colonial or neo-liberal agenda? Conformity has three elements: informational signals, who are the trusted experts or sources of information, including who defines what success means; reputational signals, social pressures and standards to be accepted by our social grouping(s); social cascades, which is social movements. (These are from a book called Conformity by Cass R. Sunstein). A very strong part of conformity for us is how we obtain and maintain privilege being proximity to whiteness, a whole other discussion in itself.
Remember that great efforts were made to make us conform to the colonial cause. Shifting everything from education of our children, labour, land, mobility, knowledge, spirituality to serve monarchy and state. It will have to take as much effort to reverse conformity, and reverse power dynamics so that we are serving ourselves. Gate keepers to colonial system include Inuit and non-Inuit. It is very difficult to deal with our own who are gatekeeping to make sure the system is maintained as it is. We also have Inuit and non-Inuit alike who are skilled at denying, deflecting and distracting from our truth therefore accountability to shift power dynamics and serving in our favor. We need to learn to call these out collectively.
So, today what are we conforming to? One way of looking at whether systems are representative of Inuit is to look at it from an inclusion and exclusion terms. Even though it is over-simplistic, it still poses a good basis for questioning of whether people feel included or excluded from their government in the policies, programs and services they receive. When I speak about government I mean our Inuit organizations, territorial, federal and municipal governments.
Part of the issue though looking at it from inclusion and exclusion lens, is that we have not recognized fully how marginalized we are because we have a history of colonialism and with that have always had substandard level or no government policies, service, programs and policies that represent us.
Some examples are: not having doctors or dental care in communities; not having daycare or school systems fully in our language, protected and supported by the system; not having hunting as an option for a livelihood; not having basic infrastructure like buildings, housing, roads and marine; or more broadly only having policing and correctional systems rather than ensuring children have the best opportunity to succeed in life that will not lead them to criminalization.
If we were to think from an Inuit policy making stance we’d focus on minimising and removing risk for despair, self-loathing, mental illness and create protective factors of culture, language and identity at individual, social and societal level to set our children up to succeed and develop healthy coping skills and strong character to achieve great things.
How do we create a governance or decision-making processes that ensure safe and healthy conversations on where we need to go? What we have is not working. It seems to fragment leadership more than help to create unity. We cannot afford to do this anymore.
The colonial systems are adept at appearing fair and equitable when it is not. For example, our parliamentary system in Nunavut is touted as being a great example of working together because it is a ‘consensus’ government. It is a consensus government because there are no political parties. When it is still a Westminster style government that is based on adversaries where the opposing side sit opposite the leadership, practicing the western way of holding others accountable asking adversarial questions. Which is in the end antithesis to consensus based decision-making.
Our Inuit organizations too run as adversarial system even if to a lesser degree, with their Robert’s rules of order. The outcome to these adversarial systems is red tape to protecting our culture, language and way of life. These priorities end up being treated as a bonus or add-ons because leadership are so busy asking questions to appear legitimate, when system stays the same serving the same interests.
Once we start questioning how the colonial system maintains power, and start to know better, we will do better to protect and serve our interests. But let’s ask these tough questions without tearing each other down.
Really, we are still maintaining systems of destruction on our people. One of the saddest effects of social inequity and widening social and economic gap between Inuit and non-Inuit in Nunavut is the visible increase in substance use and mental health problems. We are seeing it in our families and communities. It is very distressing dealing with it and to be exposed to it constantly. We too might experience mental health issues. The mental health and substance use also leads to self-harm and criminalization of people needing help. With the housing and food security crisis, many families are experiencing the pressure cooker effect. Sadly, often it is Elders who are left to deal with mental, physical and economic abuse.
The proposed treatment centre and the increasing Inuit centered counselling approaches are signs of hope. However, we are still not having the discussion of what recovery from colonialism means and what wellness means for us in this context.
If we are to define looking after ourselves on our terms what would this look like? To start planning in a systematic way, a wellness and healing plan. Part of this process is the need to deal with the legacy of sexual abuse by teachers and priests. You just need to look at the crime rates, mental health issues and suicide rates in communities to know which ones have been most impacted by not only these ugly legacies but sexual abuse in general.
Adding to the pressure cooker dynamic is our housing crisis. This seems to be a current political priority with promises of building more houses. We will see if it will meet the needs and release some of the pressure that lack of housing leads to.
Another is that Nunavut has the highest food insecurity in Canada, three quarters of children go hungry every day. How are we not seeing this as an emergency? It is a staggering statistic!
The most important aspect to food security is the economic means to feed ourselves. Handouts and charity are not a sustainable and dignified way to deal with food insecurity.
This leads to a discussion about economy, and what it means for us. If we are to define our own economy, what could this look like? So that we’re not just passively responding to the outside defining what our economy should be i.e. exploiting and destroying our lands, and waiting for outside companies to open mines that will only peripherally benefit us (compared to the companies).
Economy should center on Inuit protecting tgeir way of like and being self-sufficient to get food, not just from the grocery store but also access to country food. Including having the means to go hunting, harvesting and fishing. Also shifting to making country food more accessible in communities.
There is really no good reason we cannot go and buy fish or seal meat by the pound somewhere in our community. Imagine if all our hunters and trappers had social enterprise arm that sold and distributed country food? Or have a tannery so we can access fur or pelts, sewing and hunting supplies including major items like machines and boats at a reasonable price?
Even with the system still set up to destroy us, there is still so much beauty in Nunavut. Through the people, who look after each other, inspire and encourage each other, and tap into the land to center themselves. Those that create art, tools, businesses, and projects centered on Inuitness are slowly becoming a critical mass. When I am away from home I miss the sense of community, often through food sharing. It is still so strong in defining who we are. Nunavut is a beautiful dream, to protect our culture, language and way of life and be our true selves, let’s not lose sight of it.