The Nunavut government has finished a new education curriculum for students from kindergarten to Grade 6 that’s rooted in Inuit language and culture – and it’s set to start rolling out next school year.

The new bill enshrines rent control, requires landlords to provide a specific reason for ending a lease, and sets out distinct rules for mobile homes, among other changes.

Kotchilea, originally from Behchokǫ̀, narrowly lost the 2021 federal election to Liberal MP Michael McLeod. At the time, he suggested another run might be in the wings. This week, he said in an interview he's feeling fairly confident about his chances of securing the seat.

A project that aims to create Inuit-led child services in Nunavik has taken a step forward with the signing of an agreement with other institutions in the region. 

A woman who formerly helmed the Kataujaq Society women's shelter in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, has been charged with fraud over $5,000 and breach of trust.

A former executive director of the Kataujaq Society in Rankin Inlet has been arrested in connection with an allegation over missing funds, Nunavut RCMP announced Friday afternoon.

Joyce Kent, 54, was arrested at her home in Winnipeg on Tuesday and charged with breach of trust and fraud over $5,000.

“Ms. Kent used her position of trust to misappropriate funds that were otherwise destined for the work of the women’s shelter and the daycare in Rankin Inlet,” Cpl. Rodney MacIntyre of the Iqaluit RCMP’s general investigations section said in a news release.

Last August, Kataujaq Society filed a complaint to the RCMP alleging missing money. Police opened an investigation which ultimately led to Kent’s arrest.

She was released and is scheduled to appear in court in Rankin Inlet on June 3.

Members of a 30-person crew shooting scenes for a feature film around Apex and Iqaluit this week are keeping details of their $8-million production close to the proverbial sealskin vest.

The crew is on its third day of an eight-day local shooting schedule for In Alaska, a production by Dutch director Jaap van Heusden, co-written and co-directed by Iqaluit-based filmmaker Vinnie Karetak.

“It’s a co-production between the Netherlands and Canada so we’ve got some Canadians and we’ve got some Dutch folks on the crew,” said line producer Nach Dudsdeemaytha, of Vancouver-based Experimental Forest Films, in an on-set interview with Nunatsiaq News.

The film’s plot centres around a 17-year-old youth from a small Alaskan village who becomes a wanted terrorist after shooting a hole into the trans-Alaska pipeline before escaping to Nunavut, where he reconnects with his Inuk mother’s roots.

Dudsdeemaytha would not discuss many other details of the production, including how and when people will have a chance to see the completed film.

The names of the two actors featured in Friday afternoon’s shoot along the mouth of the Niaqunguk River on Frobisher Bay, next to Simonie Michael Lane in Apex, are also a secret.

He did, however, identify one of the actors as coming from Nunavut and said the settings being shot this week will represent Nunavut in the film.

Karetak, the co-director, was more forthcoming, revealing the identity of a third, uncredited character in the film.

“In my mind, the land is a character in itself,” he said. “Part of the things that we wrote as directors is using the landscape.”

The land was ready for its close-up as shooting began midday Friday amid sunny, -19 C conditions.

“The weather has been co-operating,” Karetak said. “Everything’s going well. It’s been beautiful and sunny for the last three days.”

The production schedule is on time, he said.

“We’re pleased and happy with how open and willing the people here in Iqaluit have been,” he said, apologizing to residents for the crowd of trucks and equipment that descended on Apex at around 11 a.m. on Friday. The road was closed to non-local traffic until 6 p.m.

After the Nunavut scenes are finished next week, shooting will resume in B.C. later this year, Dudsdeemaytha said.

The film is funded by the Netherlands Film Fund and Telefilm Canada, among others.

The sentencing of a Pangnirtung man found guilty of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl has been paused so that he can mount a constitutional challenge to the mandatory minimum sentences for his convictions.

Mark Mosesee was found guilty March 14 on charges of sexual assault, sexual interference and sexual solicitation of a person under the age of 18, in relation to an incident that happened Oct. 21, 2023.

He was charged Nov. 1, 2023, said RCMP spokesperson Cpl. George Henrie in an email to Nunatsiaq News.

The victim’s identity is protected by a court-ordered publication ban.

At a hearing for Mosesee in Iqaluit on Tuesday, Chief Justice Susan Cooper said that if the sentence had not been challenged, Mosesee would have been handed the mandatory minimum of one year in custody for the first two charges and six months for the third, to be served concurrently.

Defence plans to argue the mandatory minimum sentences in this case contravene Section 12 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which deals with cruel and unusual punishment.

Mosesee’s lawyer Sharon Sabourin will ask Cooper to consider Mosesee’s sentence would hypothetically be considered a breach of the Charter.

“The challenge corresponds with similar challenges in other provinces and territories that asks the court to strike down the mandatory minimum punishments set out in the criminal code,” Sabourin said in an email.

“If she accedes to the request [it] would be binding on other courts below in the territory of Nunavut,” she said.

Mosesee has 395 days’ credit for time served in pre-trial custody and would have been released with a probation order after his sentencing. This means the Charter challenge will have no effect on the sentence Mosesee serves.

“He was released pending the sentencing as he is likely in a time-served position,” Crown lawyer Jessika Withers said in an email to Nunatsiaq News. “This will ultimately be the judge’s decision but he is currently out on release.”

Mosesee is under an order to reside at his mother’s home in Pangnirtung.

He is prohibited from contacting the victim and coming into contact with anyone under the age of 16 without another sober adult present.

Cooper’s written decision, released Monday by the Nunavut Court of Justice, says that during Mosesee’s March 7 trial, the victim testified that she was playing with two other children at their home on the day of the assault.

They were in a bedroom watching TV at around 11:30 p.m. when they fell asleep. The door to the bedroom was locked by one of the children prior to them falling asleep.

“The complainant told police that during the night, the accused dragged her by her legs out of the bedroom and across the hall, into his room. He said to her that he wanted to ‘touch her’ for $40 and showed her a $20 bill,” Cooper said in her decision.

The girl managed to escape and sneaked out of the home with one of the other children.

In a videotaped statement to police a few days after the incident, the girl said Mosesee wanted to touch her “private parts,” said Cooper in her decision.

“He wanted to touch me for $40 but I didn’t, I said no,” the girl testified.

The defence argued that while there was an assault, the evidence didn’t clearly show that it was sexual in nature, the decision read.

Cooper rejected the defence’s suggestion that the request to “touch” the girl could have been for an innocent purpose.

“The words uttered, accompanied by the physical dragging of the complainant into a separate bedroom where the two of them were alone, leads me to the conclusion that the only reasonable inference is that the accused intended to have sexual contact with the complainant,” Cooper wrote.

Mosesee’s next court date is to be determined.

Rebecca Alty, the current mayor of Yellowknife, will be the Liberal Party’s candidate in the N.W.T. in the upcoming election, the party said Friday. 

Joseph Handley says he often did not see eye-to-eye with the government on many issues, including the college's plans to become a polytechnic university, and its recent decision to close community learning centres.

Rebecca Alty – Yellowknife's mayor since 2018 – will be the Liberal Party's NWT candidate in the coming federal election, the party told members.

Nunavut can now borrow up to $1.05 billion if it needs to do so.

The federal government has increased the territory’s borrowing limit, up from $750 million, Nunavut Finance Minister Lorne Kusugak announced last week in the legislative assembly.

“We have carefully managed our borrowing under the previous limit, ensuring funds were used wisely,” Kusugak said in a statement to MLAs.

“With this new limit, we and future governments can better plan for investments and address Nunavut’s infrastructure needs.”

The federal Department of Finance sets out how much the three territories can borrow. Nunavut has the lowest borrowing limit of the territories. The Northwest Territories’ limit is $3.1 billion and Yukon’s is $1.2 billion.

The last time Nunavut’s borrowing limit was increased was in 2020, when it rose to $750 million from $650 million.

In documents provided by Nunavut’s Finance Department when the budget was introduced Feb. 24, the total amount borrowed was listed at $339.6 million as of 2024-25. The total borrowed amount is projected to be lower for the 2025-26 fiscal year at $308 million, or just under one-third of the territory’s updated federal limit.

The territory’s budget lists borrowing separately from the $2.8 billion in federal money the Government of Nunavut is expected to receive for this coming fiscal year.

In the legislature last week, Kusugak told MLAs the increased limit isn’t an opportunity to take on “unnecessary debt.”

“The Government of Nunavut will continue to borrow responsibly, focusing on key projects that benefit Nunavummiut,” he said.

“This expanded capacity allows us to invest in housing, transportation, and other essential infrastructure, while keeping our finances sustainable.”

With a territorial election set for Oct. 27, Kusugak said he doesn’t expect the current government to tap into that larger pool of money.

The next government will have that debt cap available to draw on “should the need arise,” he said.

An Edmonton law firm that's accused of helping Ron Barlas defraud a First Nation in the N.W.T. of millions of dollars has mostly failed in its bid to have the claim against it thrown out of court.

China is no longer describing itself as a “near-Arctic state” and might be redefining its northern policy against the backdrop of a warming U.S.-Russia relationship.

“The Chinese have stopped using that term [near-Arctic state] and I think we’ve seen a withdrawal or a significantly lower Chinese interest in the Arctic,” the South China Morning Post reported March 16.

The story was later picked up by various Russian state-controlled media outlets.

U.S. President Donald Trump has redefined his nation’s foreign policy since taking office Jan. 20, making it more aligned with Russia, the country’s traditional adversary.

With that, China’s push in the region has declined, reported South China Morning Post.

Beijing announced its Polar Silk Road strategy in 2018. It envisioned China’s deeper involvement in Arctic governance along with mineral and scientific exploration of the region.

Since then, China has proclaimed itself a “near-Arctic state” despite not having any territory in the polar areas.

“One could almost argue this is something similar to what the British did in their colonial period when they set up trading blocks and supported them by the British Navy,” said Rob Huebert, an Arctic sovereignty and security expert from the University of Calgary, in an interview with Nunatsiaq News.

China is one of the 13 countries with observer status at the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental organization that includes all eight Arctic nations: Canada, Unites States, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden.

Arctic affairs should be a concern of a “global village,” China’s ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, said during his visit to Iqaluit in August.

At the time, he said China would like to continue to invest in Canadian Arctic, including the mining sector.

In 2020, Chinese state-owned Shandong Gold Mining Co. expressed interest in buying the Hope Bay gold mine complex, near Cambridge Bay. The deal was rejected by the federal government later that year after a national security review of the transaction.

Huebert said there is not enough information to determine whether China has indeed started backtracking on its Arctic ambitions from a “rhetorical perspective” and whether that will spell out into real actions.

“They tend to be quiet,” he said, adding, however, that he does not see the country completely withdrawing from Arctic affairs.

Until there is more information, China downplaying its Arctic ambitions could be an attempt to aid U.S-Russia negotiations on the war in Ukraine, Huebert said.

“One possibility is that this is an attempt to create a positive form of news stories for the particular American president to be able to point and say, ‘Oh, see, my strategies are working,'” Huebert said.

“But these are games within games at the highest level, so it’s a little bit difficult to know with any certainty exactly what’s driving them.”

Yellowknife announced a closing celebration for its old pool with a new aquatic centre set to open. Take a look inside the new building and get some details.

The NWT's flu season started later this year than last. Anecdotally, there's quite a bit of sickness circulating – and some data bears that out.

The NWT's privacy commissioner says the territorial government must learn from a privacy breach affecting thousands as it wound down the Covid-19 Secretariat.

Hand games, dog sledding and tea boiling. It's spring carnival time in the NWT – here's our guide to events coming up across the territory.

Fort Nelson First Nation is for the first time sending a women’s team to compete in a prestigious Indigenous hockey tournament in Whitehorse.

People in the N.W.T. have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to various scams in recent years, and 2021 saw the biggest losses. 

Nunavut RCMP Cpl. George Henrie told CBC News because the case is still under investigation, no further details will be released. 

Tony Green, a deeply respected elder from Paulatuk, N.W.T., is being remembered for the extraordinary depth of his traditional knowledge and his dedication to protecting the land.

The Yukon and federal governments have signed off on a deal that will provide universal access to birth control and diabetes medications for Yukoners.

“We’re cold,” said Edward Tapardjuk Sr., during an interview with Nunatsiaq News on Thursday morning.

He said his family’s three-bedroom public housing unit on the southeast side of Igloolik was without heat overnight Wednesday into Thursday afternoon, as the temperature outside dipped to -19 C.

“I tried turning the heat back on last night and there was a huge spark on the furnace and we have not had heat since,” Tapardjuk said.

“I’ve requested to move out of the house for a while now because it’s not safe.”

It’s not the first time his family’s home went cold this winter. A few weeks ago, the furnace was out for three days.

“The heat has gone out just about every week since December,” he said.

However, an unreliable furnace is not the family’s only issue with the house.

There’s the electrical system that “crackles,” a broken door frame that lets in cold air, a toilet off its moorings, a window broken by a neighbour that was patched up three years ago with wood and a garbage bag, and damaged pilings that caused the floor to tilt.

Those are the structural issues Tapardjuk wants fixed, after what he says are years of fruitless complaints to the Igloolik Housing Authority.

Tapardjuk shared evidence of his correspondence with the housing authority dating back to October 2024 with Nunatsiaq News.

A crew works on the power lines next to Edward Tapardjuk’s home in Igloolik Thursday. (Photo courtesy of Edward Tapardjuk Sr.)

And there is also the matter of his $46,000 in rent arrears, according to his bill from the housing authority. Considering the state of the house, he believes he’s being overcharged.

Frustrated with the lack of maintenance on the home and questioning the $1,700 monthly rent he was charged by the housing authority, Tapardjuk said he stopped paying rent five years ago.

As a single parent caring for three sons, Tapardjuk said he had trouble balancing the demands of work and parenting.

He left his job with the local hunters and trappers organization due to stress in September. That led to the housing authority eventually lowering his rent to $675 three weeks ago, he said.

“It should still be a lot less than that because I can’t afford that,” he said.

Tapardjuk and his three sons, who are 16, 20 and 24, moved into the house seven years ago and some of the building’s problems were evident even then, he said.

“It was already in bad shape. It smelled pretty bad and the walls were filthy,” he said.

After viewing photos that showed the repairs needed in the Tapardjuk home on March 10, Donna Crooks, a spokesperson for Nunavut Housing Corp., replied to Nunatsiaq News on March 13 saying the repairs will be undertaken.

“(Nunavut Housing Corp.) is providing support to the Igloolik Housing Authority to resolve the issues that have been identified,” she said.

Crooks declined to comment on Tapardjuk’s tenancy and his rental agreement with the housing authority.

At about 1 p.m. Thursday, a crew including an electrician and an oil burner mechanic arrived to fix the furnace. The heat was back on by 2 p.m.

Otherwise, none of the repairs to the interior of the house or the piling underneath had yet been addressed, Tapardjuk said.

Michelle Wolf was charged with one count of assault after an incident at Sakku School in 2023. A Nunavut judge has acquitted her, saying she believes Wolf's actions were "reasonable" and for "corrective purposes."

Ryan Leef, who served a term as Yukon MP a decade ago, has been selected as the territory's Conservative candidate in the upcoming federal election.

It has been six months since the N.W.T. government introduced its revamped extended health benefits (EHB) program, which provides additional health coverage but also deductibles for some higher-income patients.

Canada’s plan to build an early warning system to protect the Arctic is being welcomed by some who work in and study the North. 

Yukon's coroner has called an inquest into the death of man who was shot and killed by an RCMP officer near the Whitehorse airport three years ago.

A new land-based healing program offered by Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation (LKFN) in Fort Simpson, N.W.T., is helping participants reconnect with nature, traditional skills, and themselves.

Though conditions are now improving, blizzards in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut have dumped piles of snow on several communities and hampered municipal services over the past week.