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NUNAVUT
Nearly two weeks after Nunavut legally required municipalities to provide documents and services in Inuit languages, it appears all are complying.

In fact, prior to the Sept. 19 enforcement date, languages commissioner Alexina Kublu said she had only received one complaint, which came to her office last year.

"There was a concern about someone having to go in and be an interpreter for their father at a municipality," she said, declining a request for more details because the complainant had passed away. "There was no service being provided for the father, and so we had to say 'this section pertaining to municipalities has not come into force yet, so we're not able to deal with the matter. But we did notify the community that this concern was raised with us."

Kublu said the section of the Inuit Language Protection Act is designed to protect the Inuit language in the long-term, and offering such services is common sense.

"The municipalities as a whole have always tended to communicate with the public in a language understood by the majority, even without being legislated to do so," she said. "If for whatever reason that stopped happening, the people have the legislation to say, 'No, we can demand service in Inuktitut.'"

Pond Inlet's acting senior administrative officer, Colin Saunders, said it's not a difficult law to follow for his hamlet.

"Our executive secretary can translate, and our radio announcers are bilingual," Saunders said, noting that if someone came through the doors and needed an answer in Inuktitut, they could get one, "definitely."

But Inuktitut is well-used in his hamlet, whereas in the Kitikmeot, where Inuinnaqtun is in decline, councillors were happy to be reminded of the law's impending enforcement when Kublu visited Kugluktuk three years ago.

"They said it was good to know because they were going to have a new building made, and so they were going to order the signage right away as per the act," she said, noting their sign was originally going to be in English only. "They were going to have to order signage anyway, so rather than have a sign and then find it does not conform, they were going to take that into consideration."

Kublu noted the Official Languages Act, which is yet to come into force, will eventually require municipalities to offer services and written materials in any official language - Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, English or French - if there is significant demand.

"I think English is prevalent enough everywhere," Kublu said when asked if a municipality could currently go without English signage, "and I think for safety, you'd have English on a stop sign, but not necessarily French."

If a municipality fails to comply, the act allows the languages commissioner to take a municipality to court to enforce the law.

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