Are we safe?

Rumors abound in our community that the RCMP have ignored death threats given to our high school principal by a local teen. What isn't rumor is that our principal has had a tough year (as I'm sure many do), but is still fighting the good fight, and we commend him for his efforts. But his professional and personal hardships aside, what is a teeny bit more serious are these threats on his life...

We in the community have heard through the rumor mill that the local RCMP officers have dismissed these threats as "benign" after confronting the individual and giving him a stern warning and informing him of the "gravity of the situation". Personally, this is insulting. Why isn't he under arrest and in jail? He's broken the law! Twice now actually because the threats have continued. We shouldn't have to wait and see if he decides to act on those threats! By that time it's too late! According to a google search, here is the laymans legal definition for death threats:

Threaten death or bodily harm

Under the Criminal Code, it is an offence to knowingly utter or convey a threat to cause death or bodily harm to any person. It is also an offence to threaten to burn, destroy or damage property or threaten to kill, poison or injure an animal or bird that belongs to a person.

Penalties

The offence of utter death threat may be prosecuted by summary conviction or by indictment. If prosecuted by indictment, the accused person is entitled to elect trial by jury and upon conviction is liable to up to five years jail. In most cases, however, the offence is prosecuted by summary conviction, requiring a trial before a lower court justice. In this case, the maximum penalty is 18 months imprisonment.

It seems pretty obvious that this young man should be in custody and awaiting a trial. But that's not the point of this post. The question I'm asking is why? Why aren't the RCMP doing their job? Is it because they are young, inexperienced officers that are afraid to take on Inuit-White violence? Is it because they are understaffed and overworked and don't have the time and resources to deal with an apparently "minor" offense? Or is it because these things happen all the time in larger cities and they just go unnoticed? Personally I would be really scared if someone were threatening my life, and I would hope the RCMP would take these threats seriously. It certainly doesn't seem all that unreal of a possibility that these threats would be affirmed, given the drunkeness, and history of crime in these small communities.

I for one hope that our principal gets on a plane, gives Nunavut the finger as he's boarding his $1500 flight home (First thief of the north), and contacts every newspaper, blog, and RCMP head office he can to inform them about this.

Your thoughts?

-Anon

Welcome to Nunavut, now go home!

Awhile back, we got into some trouble over what we had written on our blog. In a meeting with our superior we were told that we are visitors here and that we should behave as such. After the adrenaline wore off from the meeting, it hit me. Visitors? Visitors!? I couldn’t believe what I had heard. Did he really say that? A glance at my notes confirmed it. I know that we live amongst people of another culture and that qallunaat are the minority in the north. But are we not still in Canada? I was born and raised in Canada. I am Canadian. Nunavut is in Canada, no?

What the dilly?

Almost 3 years ago I saw a job opening. I applied for the job. I got the job. I moved. I work, live, pay taxes, and vote in Nunavut. I left my life in the south to live here. To LIVE here. And it doesn’t matter how long I live here. One year, 5 years, 10 years – as long as I live here I am not a visitor. I know we won’t live here forever. This might be our last year, I don’t know. But that shouldn’t matter. If I moved to Alberta for 3 years would I be a visitor there? Would I have to watch what I say so as not to upset the Albertans? When Inuit move to Ottawa are they visitors? No way! So WHY am I a visitor here?

Since that meeting, other things have irritated me. One of them being when someone asks “Are you going home for Christmas?” I’m guilty of it too, don’t get me wrong, and I kick myself every time I make that error. The other thing that bugs me is when kids ask me where I live. I point to the house and they say “No, I mean where do you really live?” The fact that the kids also see us as transients hits me. I can, however, understand it coming from them. They have seen so many qallunaat come and go, after all. But from an adult? It didn’t hurt; it made me angry.

So I genuinely want to know. Can someone explain this to me, please? Is it because we live in a territory protected by a land claim agreement and since I’m not a beneficiary of that agreement, that makes me a visitor? I guess I could sort of see that explanation. But if I am called a visitor just to protect the sensitivities of NLCA beneficiaries so they don’t think this land is anything less than theirs… is there any question?

- J.M.

Are we guests or inmates?

There's a time-honoured tradition in Nunavut that I'm ready to see the last of. That tradition is the doubling-up of strangers in hotel rooms and B&B's.

I had the misfortune of being booked into a B&B for a few days in one of the communities last fall. It was either that or the hotel, so I asked the travel agent to make sure that I would NOT be sharing a room, and to choose for me accordingly. I was also quite willing to not travel if I would not be guaranteed a private room for the duration of my stay.

The agent checked and said the B&B would guarantee me a private room. So, optimistically, but still doubtful since I'm not new to travel in the north, I had them make the booking.

Well, I can hear the squeals of laughter of the Arctic Agent readers from here. You guessed it. As soon as I arrived, I was told that the person previously in the room had decided to extend their stay, so I'd be sharing.

So, here I am put on the spot, as we are all put on the spot. "It's the way of the north". "It's winter in the Arctic, what do you do?".

Well, I've had enough of it, so I made the difficult decision to be a bitch. I knew there were other rooms available in town (more expensive), and I had the earlier booking, so I refused to share. It was so hard! The pressure should not have been on me. The person I was kicking out was not happy, although they did not blame me (I don't think!). If I had been the displaced person, I would have forced the B&B owner to make up the difference of having to switch to a different room after having changed my travel plans on the condition that I could extend my stay, but that was not my decision to make.

This is just so wrong. It's bad enough expecting strangers to share rooms, but to do it to someone after they had gotten a guarantee of a private room is just unethical.

I took an informal poll in the days following, and I was shocked at how many endorse the sharing of rooms. Everyone has been convinced that there is no other way to do it, that you can't throw people out in the cold.

Well, I am here today to call bullshit on that notion.

Let's face it. There are no unplanned arrivals to the communities in Nunavut. You book in advance (unless you're stupid, but face it, the travelers in the north are either well-heeled tourists or transient workers. We're not stupid, we make plans, we can't drive into town on a whim). If your plane arrives, the weather is OK, so the person scheduled to vacate your room is generally not stranded, unable to leave the community (Arctic Bay is an exception due to wierd flight schedules, and I should mention that the B&B there is wonderful, I've stayed there too and it wasn't that one!).

The reason people are doubled up are because we put up with it. We're nice. We don't want to be labeled as snobby or demanding southerners, or "culturally insensitive" at these "misunderstandings" (definitely not a misunderstanding in my case, although that card was played), so we suck up the "tradition" of sharing, due to the "shortage" of rooms.

Guess what causes the shortage of rooms? Well, I run a small business, and it's a no brainer. If you can sell the same product twice, at double the profit, and the customer bears the inconvenience and not the business, it starts looking pretty darn lucrative, doesn't it? Further, not only do the inconvenienced customers not complain, everyone just says it's the way of the north. Heck, the hotel operator is practically a hero for offering this unique cultural experience, and the pushovers- oops, I mean guests- are left to dine out on the tales of roughing it in the north. Hardly a big incentive to expand rooms when you can double the profits on the ones you've got.

I'm not a tourist looking for a unique experience though. It's not 1957 any more, and I've had enough.

I also have the solution. If rooms have to be shared due to lack of space due to "emergencies", pass a law that the guests are each charged half rate in that situation. That way at least they get a financial break for having had to sleep with (or worse, not sleep at all) the snoring stranger with the questionable hygiene who might be out on parole for all they know. The hotel operator loses nothing, their room is still rented. And you know what? If the hotel or B&B operator is denied the double income, I think the number of rooms will suddenly increase.

After all, room rates in the north cost are higher than the south, for far fewer of the amenities. Sure, it's expensive to build in the north, but the room prices reflect that, and they don't need to put in the conference rooms, the pools, or the parking lots to attract guests, so it does work out. The demand is there, otherwise, what is that stranger doing in my room?!?

Stop trading my sleep and privacy for your profits! The innkeepers of the north are not going to do anything unless we stop being such good sports about being treated so deplorably.

-- F.St