Education bill stalled
Legislative assembly sitting ends as NTI and ITK call for withdrawal of amendments
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Monday, June 12, 2017
IQALUIT
The tug of war over Nunavut's Education Act continued during the spring session of the legislative assembly.
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami's (ITK) publicly called for the withdrawal of Bill 37 on the first day of the sitting, May 30.
Bill 37 would see the right of Inuit students to receive a bilingual education in an Inuit language and either English or French deferred for Grades 4 to 9 by a decade and indefinitely for higher grades. It would also reduce local control of education, according to opponents.
ITK's board, made up of Inuit leaders from all four Inuit land claims organizations, said it supported Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.'s (NTI) call for the bill to be withdrawn.
"Canadian Inuit encourage the Government of Nunavut to show leadership by taking action to curb the Inuktitut language erosion and loss we are currently experiencing in Nunavut and across Inuit Nunangat," stated ITK president Natan Obed in a news release.
"Bilingual Inuktut education from K to 12 is possible, and ambitious legislation that articulates the right of Inuit to be educated in our language is essential."
On June 7, Education Minister Paul Quassa spoke to his colleagues for almost an hour, describing the work of his department in the areas of literacy, reading materials and kindergarten to Grade 6 Inuktut language arts.
He described how Bill 37 was developed, then revised, and spoke on its benefits, such as providing a mechanism for standardized instruction minutes and more standardized school calendars, and ensuring that there are clear rules and responsibilities for everyone working in the educational system.
"At a minimum we should be able to say to Nunavummiut that we made an effort as a legislature to improve the Education Act," said Quassa.
"I was disheartened listening to it," NTI president Aluki Kotierk told Nunavut News/North. "It came across as a final plea to Inuit. He went through all the different areas - he talked a lot of Inuktut language arts, he talked a lot about guided reading. NTI is appreciative of all the work they're doing on that. But, and but is the operative word, that needs to be happening for all subject areas from kindergarten to 12."
Kotierk says there is a big distinction to be made between Inuktut language arts, which is one school subject, and Inuktut language of instruction.
Kotierk also found it ironic that Quassa spoke of clearly defining the rights of Inuit to get language of instruction at "more than 50 per cent" Inuktut, while days before in a minister's statement he lauded 15 years of French language instruction.
"Why is it that 'more than 50 per cent' is good enough for us Inuit? Yet we're going to celebrate as a territory 15 years of the French school where 84 students receive French mother tongue education. Why are we not expecting that for our Inuit students?"
Quassa asserted in his speech that Nunavut has a bilingual education system.
"But we don't," said Kotierk.
During the sitting, the Standing Committee on Legislation's chairperson Tom Sammurtok tabled the 40 submissions the committee received on various aspects of the Bill 37 - all but one of which were opposed to the bill as it is written.
The committee did not formally recommend during the spring sitting that Bill 37 "not proceed further in the legislative process" as Sammurtok stated it would on May 5.
Further, not one regular MLA broached the topic during oral question period. According to the Rules of the Legislative Assembly, bills do not advance to the next stage of the legislative process unless an action is taken to move them to the next stage. If bills don't advance to assent, they fall off the order paper when the house is prorogued or dissolved.
The final sitting of the Fourth Legislative Assembly of Nunavut is scheduled to begin Sept. 12.
