Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In relation to opioids, Inuit Nunangat has many challenges when it comes to addictions. The opioids challenge, though, is not as acute as it might be in your jurisdiction of British Columbia. That is not to say that it isn't very important. Also, the pandemic is changing the way

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thanks for the question. Maybe I'll start with the natural resource sector. In some of the scenarios across Inuit Nunangat, Inuit and all residents of jurisdictions, say, in Nunavut haven't been working at the larger mine sites since the outbreak of the pandemic. It's because t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, absolutely.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. It's great to see everyone. Tunngasugitti. Welcome, everyone. ITK is the national representational organization for approximately 65,000 Inuit in Canada, the majority of whom live in Inuit Nunangat, our homeland, which encompasses 51 communities, nearly one-third o

Public Safety committee  I don't have any specific position, as in ITK we haven't considered the issue within our board structure. I would like to pass it to President Kotierk for that. I would say, however, yes, absolutely; in a distinctions-based way, there needs to be a consideration of Inuit policing

Public Safety committee  In each of the four Inuit Nunangat regions there will be different paths forward in self-determination and policing. Some of our land claim agreements have self-government appendages that allow for Inuit to provide policing directly and some don't, but definitely we need to have

Public Safety committee  Perhaps I'll start. As the RCMP is an extension of the federal government, in many cases all the different human resource requirements and the training become barriers for Inuit to become RCMP officers or to work within the RCMP administrative structure itself. Our language, I

Public Safety committee  Yes, very recently in Nunavut there was the example of a man who was fatally shot in his home in front of his common-law spouse, and he was still handcuffed after he was shot and was not provided medical attention right away. These are the stories that we hear. Unarmed Inuit who

Public Safety committee  We need to empower communities. We need to end systemic racism, but that also starts with social inequity. We need to ensure that we have relationships within our communities that uphold our traditions, our laws, the way we interact within our society. That is the first place we

Public Safety committee  Aside from the statistics that I presented around examples of police violence, I would have to get back to the committee. On the statistics that we do have about retention and the length of stay for RCMP officers, I'm sure that this information is available. I pledge to follow up

Public Safety committee  I apologize. If that was a follow-up question for me directly, I didn't hear the interpretation of it.

Public Safety committee  I'm referring back to the first recommendation that I put forward: A thorough review, an independent review, a review that also holds Inuit governance and Inuit as central to policing in Inuit Nunangat would be a great place to start. There could be an explicit consideration of t

Public Safety committee  President Kotierk, do you want to take this?

Public Safety committee  Very quickly, I think what we're seeing is policing through stereotypes. Without a relationship between the RCMP and the community, Inuit aren't seen as people, but we're seen through all the negative lenses that perhaps general Canadian society thinks of when they think of Inuit

Public Safety committee  I'll just give some clarity on the statistics as we know them. As of September 2019, three out of 131 RCMP regular officers in Nunavut were Inuit. At the same time, only three officers in Nunavik out of 70 were Inuit as well—we don't have the data for the other two regions—whic