Evidence of meeting #39 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was training.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
Okay.
Regarding Nunavut Arctic College on education, I think the Berger report suggested that the education system was in big trouble--and you mentioned the lack of graduates--and suggested that one of the major reasons was that there was not bilingual education in Inuktitut and English up till grade six or something.
First, do you agree that that's the major cause? Second, does Mary Simon's educational task force agree with that recommendation as the major reason? Third, do you agree?
President, Nunavut Arctic College
First off, you're asking me to speak in many ways about an area that's under the Department of Education, because we're talking about basic education. That's a separate ministry.
President, Nunavut Arctic College
What I will talk about is the response that, first of all, the Berger report is an important report that needs to be implemented. Part of that implementation, in fact, is being carried out by the Government of Nunavut through Nunavut Arctic College. That's why we have a B.Ed in elementary education. It is a very interesting and unique degree, I suggest, because our graduates are bilingual.
The government has a stated goal that by certain years elementary and secondary education in this territory will be bilingual and communities have three options of degree of bilingualism to choose from. Increasingly, there is a drive to include more and more Inuktitut, not only in our B.Ed program but in all programs. We're also trying to get it into the nursing program. But in the B.Ed program in particular, the vast majority of our students are bilingual on entry, and all of them have some degree of bilingual fluency upon graduation, in line with the Berger report.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
Great.
Mr. West, you talked about Canada being cut off at British Columbia. I know it's cut off in Nunavut. What do you suggest we connect--which railroads to where, which roads to where? Or is it just better airports and harbours? What do you suggest would be the connection that would make it the equivalent of British Columbia's connection to Canada?
President, Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce
I know that the mining industry is looking at railways.
President, Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce
I couldn't say for sure, but it's from Churchill right around the top. I would say the ports, airports, the port facilities themselves.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
Okay.
With regard to arts and crafts, are you talking about Inuit-wide authenticity or just Nunavut authenticity? The Inuit are much wider-spread than just Nunavut.
Executive Director, Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association
It's just Nunavut authenticity.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
There's no benefit to having wider authenticity to give you bigger economies of scale and everything?
Executive Director, Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association
It's already bigger with the igloo tag. What we're trying to do is augment the igloo tag so that it complements the authentic Nunavut tag as well. It's in partnership.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
Thank you, Mr. Bagnell and witnesses.
Now we'll go to Mr. Dreeshen for five minutes, followed by Monsieur Gaudet.
Mr. Dreeshen, go ahead.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'll go back to Ms. House, and then I'll add a couple of other comments.
I'm just wondering if you could explain the role of the arts and crafts development program and how your organization fits into advocating for art.
Executive Director, Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association
The Government of Nunavut currently has an artists development program under the economic development and transportation division. We access that funding through helping artists get to locations to market their artwork. If it's an art market in Korea, then we would access the funding for them to attend. A portion of their costs would be covered by the development fund. The other portion of their costs would be paid for by the artist up front or through fundraising, through my responsibility as the executive director.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer, AB
Thank you very much.
Ms. Dupuis, this perhaps ties into the same type of thing. I'm interested in the role that your organization has with the Canadian Tourism Commission and how that relates to cooperating in the marketing of Canada's north to international tourists. Could you fill us in on how that works?
Chief Executive Officer, Nunavut Tourism
We take advantage of some of the CTC international campaigns. As I mentioned, we do a joint campaign with the Yukon and NWT into the German market. That, right now, is the only CTC international campaign that we buy into with the other territories. We are looking at possibly buying into the French market.
In the past few years, we have done some international marketing on our own. That has not been widely successful and that has been stopped. Our marketing is taking a new direction. Right now our organization is going through a bit of a transition and is on a very positive upswing. Our membership has almost doubled in the last four months. They realize that some of the initiatives going on will actually benefit a lot of communities and a lot of infrastructure.
So we take advantage of the CTC. We work with them very closely in terms of programs for 2010 in Vancouver and some other things. We make sure our website and so on is available to them and meets their needs.
At our AGM a couple of weeks ago, we had speakers from the CTC come up for the first time to talk about the new rebranding, the new Canada brand, that they are pushing, and how Nunavut fits into that brand. That material has gone out to all of our members, and hopefully they will take advantage of it.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer, AB
Okay.
Perhaps we'll get an opportunity to ask this when we go to the Arctic College tomorrow, but I know that some knowledge infrastructure funding has been made available to the college. I'm wondering if you could fill us in on what the plans are for the funding that you see and how that might fit into future plans that you would have for advocating for university status for the college.