I’ve been engaged in an interesting debate with some folks in Nunavut who feel that there’s something “racist” about the notion that a post-colonial society might need to take special measures to redress the imbalance between former colonizers and the formerly colonized in the government workforce.

Prior to the creation of Nunavut, the eastern Arctic was run by the Government of the Northwest Territories, based in Yellowknife. Inuit formed a tiny minority of the NWT’s population, but occupied most of its land (and a good deal of its mineral wealth). So decisions on the development their land, the education of their children, the delivery of their health care, the use of language in their hamlets, and the governance of their communities were being made by the large majority of non-Inuit who made up the NTW legislature.

Inuit make up about 85% of the population of their territory. But they staffed a tiny percentage of positions within the GNWT, nearly all at the administrative and secretarial levels. It was argued that most Inuit didn’t have the education or experience for more senior employment, and that was partly true: but of course, since Inuit didn’t control the system, there was nothing they could do about creating an education system that would fix that. Undereducated, so can’t get government employment; under-represented in government, so can’t improve education system. One of those ptarmigan-and-egg situations.

Even educated and qualified Inuit had a hard time finding employment in government.
“Qualified” means possessed of the skills, knowledge and attitudes required to do a specific job. Qualifications are usually one of two types: “Screen” (which means essential - the candidate MUST have it) or “Rated”, which means it’s desirable - the candidate’s level will be assessed against that of the other applicants.

The notion of “qualified” was worked against Inuit in Nunavut in a few ways. Screen criteria were sometimes set unnecessarily high. Note that I said SOMETIMES. No one can disagree that an accountant MUST have a CGA, or a Nurse MUST have recognized certification. But one point I read a Program Officer job description that required a university degree. Useful and desirable? Yes, certainly. Essential? Probably not, depending on the actual function. Certainly at the point in time, it was a clear signal that “No Inuit Need Apply”.

Staffing actions also failed to recognize other skills or knowledge that might have given Inuit an employment advantage. For example, the ability to speak Inuktitut is ESSENTIAL if you’re delivering front line service to older Inuit, especially in the communities. But that wasn’t always acknowledged.

The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement sought to redress that through Article 23, probably the most widely misunderstood part of the Claim, both IN government and by the public. It’s a bit more complicated than “THOU MUST HIRE INUIT”. It requires that all Federal and territorial departments prepare Inuit Employment plans aimed at 85% Inuit employment. But these plans were to represent more than just hiring quotas: the Claim specifies that they also involve comprehensive and long term pre-employment plans and pre-employment training plans. Pre-employment plans were to involve a review of position descriptions and competency analyses, elimination of false screen requirements, and determination if there were any unfair barriers to Inuit employment. (For instance, there were originally no requirement in place that jobs should be advertised bilingually). The pre-employment training plans were to involve an in-depth assessment of needs, a labour market analysis to determine where the major gaps were, and the development of programs to address those gaps.

The idea was good, and the approach was comprehensive. But that critical labour market analysis was never carried out (one of the first of many instances of the Feds - in this case, the Liberals - simply ignoring their obligation). And so most “Inuit Employment Plans” ended up simply being numerical targets.

And that doesn’t work. Engineering a major shift in the demographic breakdown of a territorial government is a HUGE task, one that would realistically require a generation of retooling the education system, development of a wide range of training programs, and slow, carefully monitored transition. If the federal and territorial governments had actually committed themselves to that process in good faith, things might have happened. Instead, both the Feds and GN simply set quotas, failed to meet them, shrugged, set new quotas, failed to meet them, shrugged, set new quotas…repeat ad nauseam.

Fast forward to today.

The Good: a new Education Act is in the works, a new Adult Learning Strategy is in place, and levels of Inuit education and school completion are rising.

The Bad: At least ten major third party and internal studies have accurately said that achieving representative levels of Inuit employment is going to require a massive, long term commitment of funding for education, training and transition. The best and most comprehensive analysis, by Justice Thomas Berger, was submitted to the Federal Government, and has been, essentially, shelved. Then Minister of Indian Affairs Jim Prentice felt it was “interesting”, but that “more study was needed”.

The Ugly: Anger among Inuit in Nunavut is rising. These are folks who traded away their land for a series of federal commitments which are simply being ignored. Levels of Inuit employment have actually fallen in some areas. The Feds have ignored the Auditor General’s direction to review and address their implementation obligations. At the community level, local people remember the promises that were made, but see non-Inuit bureaucrats being hired from the South while unemployment in their hamlet rises - and they’re getting angry. So is NTI, the organization that represents Inuit in the implementation of the Claim.

If representative levels of Inuit employment are going to be achieved, both the governments and NTI have to realize that they’re not talking about a five or ten year process. Becoming a Deputy Minister or a Senior Policy Advisor takes a southern bureaucrat (who probably has a Master’s degree in public administration) a decade or two of experience to achieve – it’s nonsense to think a “trainee” can acquire that knowledge in two years. So how to bridge that gap?

• Make “Beneficiary Status” a rated criterion, rather than a screen criterion, and award points for it during a hiring action: but ensure that all applicants meet the mandatories – otherwise they don’t get interviewed.
• STOP doing what too many departments are doing - hiring unqualified people to satisfy an IEP, or ignoring certain critical job requirements.
• Identify the long term problems that are limiting the number of qualified Inuit available on the labour market, bite the bullet, and start taking long term steps to address them. The Berger report had a lot to say about that; so do studies by Abele, Kulchiski, the RCAP, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and others.
• Inuit organizations should stop blindly applying political pressure to meet the 85% level in an unrealistic timeframe, and commit to a process of joint, long term planning and advocacy, in partnership with the GN, to get Canada back to the negotiating table.

But in the eyes of some of the folks I was debating with, all this begs the larger question. Does the proactive attempt to staff the Government of Nunavut with a representative level of Inuit represent “racism”?

I have my own thoughts (surprised?) But let’s hear yours. And please keep it civil.