As Ottawa appears to be like to make use of navy spending to construct up infrastructure within the Far North, Inuit say they need Canada to take ideas from Greenland — the place a Nordic social mannequin tailored to native wants has constructed well being, housing and schooling providers deemed superior to something in Canada’s Arctic.
“There’s a lot that we will be taught from them,” mentioned Lukasi Whiteley-Tukkiapik, who leads Saqijuq, an Inuit wellness group in Kujjuaq, Que.
Talking final week on a constitution flight from Montreal to Greenland’s capital Nuuk, the place he attended the official opening of Canada’s new consulate, Whiteley-Tukkiapik mentioned providers in his neighborhood — a hub for northern Quebec — are inferior to these out there in Iqaluit.
Nuuk, in the meantime, is “generations forward of us” in offering Inuit-led social providers in well-maintained buildings, he mentioned.
As a self-governing territory of Denmark, Greenland has common well being care and unemployment insurance coverage, free dentistry for kids, sponsored daycare and schooling providers usually supplied with out tuition charges.
Nuuk boasts fashionable faculties and a hospital with 4 occasions the capability of the one in Iqaluit — although Nuuk’s inhabitants is just about 2.5 occasions the scale of Iqaluit’s.
Greenland received 87 per cent of its power from hydroelectricity in 2022, up from 59 per cent in 2000, in line with the British assume tank Ember. Nunavut depends virtually solely on fossil fuels like diesel.
The 2021 census discovered 53.1 per cent of Nunavut’s inhabitants lives in overcrowded housing, whereas a 3rd reside in houses in varied states of disrepair. Nuuk has brightly colored homes, cultural centres and libraries — partly as a result of bedrock is simpler to construct on than the permafrost present in Iqaluit.
The Danish territory nonetheless grapples with suicide and tuberculosis — social issues it shares with Inuit communities in Canada — however Whiteley-Tukkiapik mentioned it’s doing extra to enhance dwelling requirements.
“They’ve the identical social points (however) there’s extra of an significance and it’s extra on the entrance burner for them,” he mentioned.
“Their well being community, the social applications, the best way that they sort out suicide prevention as properly — they’ve plenty of good applications in place and they’re engaged on them.”
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Steven Arnfjord, a College of Greenland professor who leads the Centre for Arctic Welfare, mentioned the most effective features of the territory’s social mannequin stem from Inuit management deciding the way to use social providers funding coming from Copenhagen.
“We educate our personal social employees so that they perceive the tradition, the language, every little thing, after they interact with purchasers. It’s not a social employee from Toronto or Ottawa or anyplace else that flies up or comes up and has to readjust,” he mentioned.
“This isn’t a territory. This can be a nation.”
Greenlanders get most of their medical providers at house, with no need to fly to Denmark, Arnfjord mentioned. After they do want to go to Copenhagen, Greenland Inuit keep in culturally acceptable lodging run by Inuit organizations, much like providers supplied in Ottawa and Winnipeg.
From the mid-Nineteen Fifties till the early Seventies, Denmark made strides on combating tuberculosis by sending a specialised ship alongside Greenland’s shoreline to supply X-ray screenings. The boat introduced sick sufferers to a specialised facility in Nuuk for remedy earlier than sending them house with a radical restoration plan.
Arnfjord in contrast that to the previous apply in Canada’s Far North, the place individuals suspected of being contaminated with tuberculosis have been as soon as routinely despatched to southern hospitals, typically in cramped circumstances. A lot of these sufferers by no means made it house as a result of they died down south or ended up staying there.
Nonetheless, Arnfjord mentioned, Greenland’s social system isn’t as responsive correctly to modifications within the inhabitants, in comparison with mainland Denmark or Sweden, the place the federal government is consistently tweaking social welfare methods to handle new issues or altering demographics.
He added Greenland’s social providers nonetheless put an excessive amount of emphasis on the person in addressing issues like dependancy or homelessness, ignoring the influence of prolonged Inuit households.
Arnfjord mentioned he attended a parent-teacher convention in Greenland that was framed the best way it will have been in Denmark — with the coed having major accountability for studying. He mentioned that clashes with the Inuit ethic that expects the household to work collectively to help a toddler’s schooling.
“It’s not the group or the collective or the household we’re speaking about. The entity turns into the only particular person, and that’s hurtful for an Indigenous neighborhood,” he mentioned. “As a result of it’s an put in model of welfare, it has this colonial historical past about it.”
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Natan Obed represents Inuit from 51 communities throughout the Canadian Arctic, the place most cancers care and childbirth virtually at all times require flights to hospitals within the south.
Whereas there’s a scarcity of comparable knowledge, Obed mentioned Greenland has way more medical doctors per capita and extra medical providers than Canada’s Arctic.
“We glance to Greenland and see extra indicators of fairness — particularly social fairness — and the hallmarks of sustainable communities in a manner that we now have but to materialize fully right here in Canada,” Obed mentioned.
Andrea Charron, director of the Centre for Defence and Safety Research on the College of Manitoba, mentioned Ottawa might want to enhance infrastructure in Arctic communities if it desires to increase its navy footprint — as a result of navy bases and airfields solely operate properly in areas with sufficient housing and providers.
She cautioned that Inuit communities are accustomed to empty guarantees from the federal authorities. She mentioned a navy buildup will solely profit locals if it respects Inuit sovereignty and presents devoted funding over years.
Ottawa, Charron mentioned, tends to get enthusiastic in regards to the North each few years earlier than getting sidetracked.
“We want sustained consideration and funding to this infrastructure, as a result of what we are likely to have is what I name Arctic distraction dysfunction,” she mentioned.
“It’s a must to be very clear about what the cash can and can’t present.”
Charron mentioned higher infrastructure additionally would shore up Canada’s safety within the North towards the chance of territorial or political incursions from international powers.
“Rising, wholesome communities are a bulwark towards international interference,” she mentioned. “If you’re missing entry to wholesome meals and also you don’t have web and also you don’t have clear consuming water, then it’s a lot simpler for nefarious actors to say, ‘Nicely, we’ll present this for you.’ But it surely typically comes with strings hooked up.”
Arnfjord added that Greenlanders have taken on a brand new appreciation for his or her social security web within the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s calls for for possession of the territory and Washington’s discuss of paying residents hundreds of {dollars}.
“The extent of belief and funding in a very good welfare system, the advantages from that type of factor — that’s one thing you can’t complement with a lump sum of cash,” he mentioned.
He recalled seeing dire remedy of Indigenous individuals and widespread homelessness whereas visiting Alaska in 2022.
“That’s not one thing that can be tolerated in Greenland.”
