I know I view everything from strictly an aboriginal point of view, I cant help it (Im an Inuk).

But, for the sake of argument, if this was an Inuk RCMP officer, and he did this to a white guy, can you imagine the backlash and anger that would ensue?

In the north we get way too much of this crap. And because RCMP officers regularly transfer in and out of Nunavut, and this case illustrates just how long it can take to get “justice”, too many of these overzealous cops get away with it.

You Inuit guys are just SO sensitive. Jeez, a few hundred dogs slaughtered, a few dumb communities relocated, a few guys beaten up by cops, a few Land Claim commitments completely ignored by the feds, housing available to First Nations denied to Inuit, worst health standards and the highest rate of suicide in the country, and you start complaining.

I’m thinking I’ll join you in some emailing wideye.

Dear Mr. Henderson,

After reading a story at CBC north, “Mounties won’t face discipline, says Nunavut CO” (www.cbc.ca/north/story/rcmp-violence-27012006.html) I felt compelled to write and express my extreme dismay at your callous disregard for the basic human rights of Darryl Qaqasiq. Asking the two guilty officers to take a refresher course on police principles and guidelines is an insult. It does make me wonder though if the behaviour of those two officers is perhaps more systemic than the incident being an isolate one.

I am writing too, because until people complained about the disappearance of hundreds of Aboriginal women nothing was done by the police. I am writing because until people complained about Aboriginal men being abandoned to the middle of nowhere on cold prairie nights by the police nothing was done.

I want you to do something with this letter. I want you to have the courage to take suitable and disciplinary action against the two officers in question. If we are to believe in or trust in our officers-of-the-law then justice must been seen to happen. The punishment must fit the crime. Two RCMP assaulted a man after breaking and entering his home and did this in front of a child. It’s not just Darryl who was harmed that day.

Please act accordingly.

Respectfully.

Thanks, Wideye…you motivated me. I’m sending one too.

I hear a story almost every week about some misdeed that didn’t warrant “disciplinary action”. I’d go along with a change back to a more punitive society, but I guess that’s up to the people who “progressed” us to where we are today.

This kind of crap makes me want to rip my own hair out by the fistfuls. Fists-full. Whatever.
I remember listening to CBC when the whole water issue came out : 100 Native communities on boil water advisories. A chief was asked by the announcer why he hadn’t made that a priority in his last meeting. His response? The fact that everyone was living in condemned housing, which was his greater priority.
Sometimes, a letter doesn’t feel like nearly enough.

How old are those houses? I live in a house which is over 60 years old, and it’s never even been close to being condemned. How did they get into a state requiring condemnation?

And dont forget using housing designs that are inappropriate for the geography of the region.

IrC: You haven’t seen the shit the Fed’s used to put together and call “new housing” in Aboriginal communities have you? I worked in the social housing field in the arctic for 12 years and some of the stuff the government contractors built and the government inspectors passed was crap from foundation to roof - but it was expedient, in a remote Aboriginal community, “better than nothing”, and they didn’t have to live in it so what the hell ‘eh?

Mmmmmmm yes that must explain why we see soooo many urban dwellers contstantly tearing down existing homes in order to build their own….Why rely on the home from the previous owner, why count on the developer providing qulaity homes when we can just do it all ourselves! Silly us to expect quality products for contracted work eh?

crikey Balbulican! Who needs code-compliant houses? We in the south can throw up our wig-wams, tee-pees, long houses and what-nots and the guys in the north can live in igloos.

There…housing problem solved al la wideye (with some prodding and coaching from Balbulica and IrC)

“Would you buy a house without checking it first? I’m not suggesting each person build his own specific home; collectively, if the people in a particular region know what the environment requires, they should hire contractors to build to their specs and inspect the work themselves. ”

lrC, you might want to research the process by which housing contracts are tendered in northern, native and reserve communities. There’s a good deal of information CMHC’s sites about it (Rural, Remote and Native Housing Programs(: there are also some pretty good discussion papers online at AFN.

Where things DO work seems to be on reserves where the band has the authority to select contractors, participate in the definition of specs, and approve final construction. That’s not the case everywhere, and those are the instances we’re talking about.

For instance: in a northern community where I lived and worked, the design and construction of social housing units was contracted by CMHC to a Montreal based contractor. There was no local design review and approval, no local supervision, and sign-off was by a fly-in inspector.