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24 January 2011

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Inuit Living Conditions

are Substandard

 

The social ills that afflict the Inuit who live in the

Arctic have existed for a long time; there seems to

be a lack of political will to do much about the situation

 

 

A shocking photo of two 10-year-old boys sleeping rough outside a supermarket in Iqaluit was published across Canada in August 2009.

 

Many Canadians asked how it could be that, in one of the world’s richest countries, children were homeless in an Arctic community.

 

There’s nothing new about this kind of tragedy; social conditions among the Inuit as well as most other Native Canadians are appalling and have been for decades. But many Aboriginals live in places that are isolated and remote from the probing eye of the news media.

 

Reports on Inuit Living Conditions

The shelves of social agencies are groaning under the weight of reports outlining how badly Canada’s Native People are doing.

 

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1996 is an example. Writing in The Globe and Mail (August 2009), Marie Wadden pointed out that the Commission questioned, “How can Canada claim to ‘own’ the Arctic when it can’t provide adequate housing, health care, and schooling for our Inuit, who number only in the tens of thousands?”

 

A decade after the Royal Commission the YWCA released a report, You Just Blink and It Can Happen: A Study of Women’s Homelessness North of 60. The November 2007 report said, “A pan-territorial study on homelessness paints a disturbing picture of the despair many women in the North are facing on a daily basis.”

 

The report quotes one of the participants of the study: “In winter, lots of women move from place to place, couch surfing. It’s not really safe but we can’t sleep outside and there’s no place else to go.”

 

Kelowna Accord an Attempt

to deal with Social Dysfunction

These and many other studies have identified the problems. Doug Cuthand, sums it up in The Saskatoon Star Phoenix (August 2009): “High unemployment, alcohol and substance abuse coupled with poor living conditions have created a society in crisis.”

 

An attempt to address the troubles was made with the signing of the Kelowna Accord in November 2005. This was the result of lengthy consultations among Native People and various levels of government. It was to inject $5 billion over 10 years to improve the education, employment, and living conditions for Aboriginal peoples.

 

However, as the Toronto Star reported in July 2008, “Shortly after coming to power in early 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government shelved the Kelowna agreement.”

 

Inuit Children among the Worst Sufferers

The social dysfunction in many remote Aboriginal communities brings a heavy burden on the young. The Saskatoon Star Phoenix article comments “Our young people are committing suicide at a rate that’s anywhere from five to six times that of the general population. One-third of all deaths of Aboriginal youth aged 10 to 19 are attributable to suicide.”

 

Among Inuit youth the problem is particularly deplorable with a suicide rate that is 11 times higher than Canada’s national average. This, writes Doug Cuthand, gives young people of Inuit descent the dubious distinction of having the highest suicide rate in the world.

 

Image credit

Sheila Steele

 

Sources

“Life on the Mean Streets of Iqaluit.” Anna Mehler Paperny and Sara Minogue, Globe and Mail, August 14, 2009.

“Fund Inuit, not Canadian, Arctic Sovereignty.” Marie Wadden, Globe and Mail, August 18, 2009.

“Treat Suicide Epidemic among Young as Priority.” Doug Cuthand, StarPheonix, August 21, 2009.

“Revive Kelowna Accord, Leaders Urge.” Sean Gordon, Toronto Star, July 17, 2008.

“Canadian Inuit Want Action on ‘Catastrophic’ TB Rate.” David Ljunggren, Reuters, March 10, 2010.

 

© Canada and the World, October 2010

Updated January 2011

All rights reserved

 

“The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) organization, citing official data, said the tuberculosis rate for Inuit in 2008 was 185 times higher than for Canadian-born non-aboriginals.”

 

Reuters, March 2010

 

 

 

“In Nunavut...the number of suicides among boys aged 15 to 19 is 40 times higher than in the rest of Canada. Although the rate of suicides for that age group decreased from 850 to 415 per 100,000 from 2003 to 2008, the suicide rate more than quadrupled for 10- to 14-year-old boys over that same period - from 25 per 100,000 to 103.”

 

Globe and Mail, August 2009

 

Writing in The Globe and Mail (December 13, 2010) Patrick White reported, “This week, Nunavut recorded its 98th case of tuberculosis in 2010, the most logged in the territory’s 11-year history.”

 

Nunavut’s infection rate for TB is 62 times higher than the average for the rest of Canada. Most of the problem can be traced to poor quality housing.