Goodbye RCMP, hello GN
After a stellar career in policing, Yvonne Niego joins Department of Justice
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
BAKER LAKE
For Sgt. Yvonne Niego, home and work are inseparable and that's not bound to end with her appointment to the position of assistant deputy minister with the Department of Justice beginning Sept. 21.
Yvonne Niego leaves the RCMP after 24 years of service to take an appointment with the Government of Nunavut as Assistant Deputy Minister with the Department of Justice later this year. She begin with the GN in September 2015. This photo was taken as part of a museum project. - Scott Wight Photography - |
Niego has been the face of the RCMP, serving as media specialist responsible for the RCMP V Division's territory-wide communications, as well as part of the police organization's crisis negotiation team and head of their drug awareness program.
But after 24 years of service, and a recent international police award, she retires from the RCMP to join upper management at the Government of Nunavut.
Niego says it is and it isn't a big life change.
"My current role in the RCMP is community policing, so dealing with positive, proactive programs for policing in Nunavut. A lot of what I do day-to-day has to do with networking, building programs and strategizing on how to address priorities of the RCMP and in moving to this ADM Justice position, I see it as an extension, " she said.
"But in a way it's a bit way out there just because I'm leaving an organization that I grew up in. I was 19 when I applied to join."
Niego was raised in Baker Lake. She traces her career with the RCMP back to her father's influence.
"Of course, he was born in an iglu, on the land. He moved into the community when the Hudson Bay post was set up in Baker Lake from the Chesterfield Inlet area - it was moved in. He was raised under an Inuk family but, also, within the Hudson Bay Company family. Through that, he became a community leader, greeting new people to the community. He did this into adulthood.
"He would introduce people into the community. The police were one of them. He would make sure that the members felt welcome but also knew that the community and the people have a history and a culture and to start that relationship on a good foot."
As a child, Niego would attend these meetings with her father and the RCMP.
"That's where I got a sense of the Mounties, the iconic Canadian figure, honourable, strong identity. People that want to help. But also having been from the community, understanding the community issues, being raised there, I naturally felt that the officers needed more of the tools to be able to help."
A summer job with the RCMP during her university years eventually led to full-blown training. Niego is the first Inuk woman to complete the RCMP depot training academy, as well as the first to be promoted to the rank of sergeant.
She was posted to Iqaluit in 1993. Jimmy Akavak, who retired in 2012, was her trainer.
Niego is a married mother of three - two children have recently finished high school and one is in Grade 11. She considers herself a workaholic of sorts.
"The work I do is who I am. When I'm at home parenting, it's about human development. It's about raising social issues, about being aware of others and how to make life good for everyone. I always talk with my kids about things going on in the community, what the social issues are for them at their age level. It helps inform my work at the adult level.
"Wherever I am, I'm likely working. At home or out."
She is ready to tackle the new challenges that will come her way.
"You learn a lot about what's happening in the community from a very unique perspective when you're conducting interviews in the most intimate points of people's lives where they're affected deeply by crime, whether it's victim, witness or suspect."
That intimate knowledge, along with the program work she's been doing, makes her uniquely skilled to be able to work "on the other end."
Although the specific job description is not yet finalized, Niego will be working in the areas of community justice, the relationship with policing and corrections.
"It's about aligning people. Aligning community justice workers, people in that justice specialist area, programs of the RCMP and community justice together with corrections. There's a lot of work needed both operationally and administratively."
She adds, "It all links together - how to better prevent crime through social development."
"It goes back to my reasons for joining ... recognizing the good in people who come here but also recognizing the community values and the good in the community and trying to bridge those."
