Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy wants to establish a “long overdue” relationship with the Yukon, starting with a request for funding for Alaska Highway improvements.

Eight Iqaluit residents have signed up, hoping to be appointed to fill a city council seat that has been vacant for three months.

The deadline to register to be considered for the seat was Thursday, and the City of Iqaluit released a list of candidates late Friday afternoon.

City council is expected to review the applications at its next meeting Tuesday night, which will be livestreamed, and inform the successful candidate Wednesday.

The seat on the eight-member council became vacant when Jack Anawak, who was elected in the Oct. 23 municipal election, resigned Nov. 6 after he was charged with impaired driving.

The candidates to replace him are Amber Aglukark, Colin Allooloo, Lili Weemen, Matthew Clark, Nicole Giles, Swany Amarapala, Noah Papatsie and Lewis Falkiner-MacKay.

Falkiner-MacKay finished in ninth place in the October election, earning 525 votes compared to 635 for eighth-place Anawak.

After Anawak’s resignation, Falkiner-MacKay said, “I would be happy to take on the position on council if chosen.”

Papatsie, who is legally blind, claimed in November he was unable to run in the municipal election due to the inaccessibility of the Elections Nunavut website. He is a former city councillor.

Amarapala was appointed to council in December 2022, filling Mayor Solomon Awa’s seat after he was appointed mayor due to the resignation of Kenny Bell. Amarapala ran for council in 2023 but finished in 10th place, behind Falkiner-MacKay, with 474 votes.

Under the Nunavut Elections Act, council had two options to fill the seat vacated by Anawak. Councillors can appoint the runner-up from the last election or issue a public call for applicants.

Last year, council directed city staff to formulate a proposal for a policy to be used in filling council vacancies.

Since then, council has rejected two policy proposals. Both drafts included a provision to allow council to appoint a candidate from the last election who was not elected.

Even without a permanent policy in place, council issued the callout for candidates on Jan. 29.

Canada’s highest court has ruled the federal government’s child welfare law is constitutional, affirming Indigenous Peoples’ jurisdiction over child and family services.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Bill C-92, An Act Respecting First Nations, Métis and Inuit Children Youth and Families, reversing a 2022 Quebec Court of Appeal decision that declared the law partially unconstitutional.

Bill C-92 became law in 2019 and recognizes Indigenous Peoples’ inherent right of self-government over the protection of their children, grants Indigenous legislation the force of federal law and outlines national minimum standards of care.

In a Friday afternoon press conference, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Natan Obed spoke about the ongoing tragic reality of the overrepresentation of Inuit children in care across the country.

“Bill C-92 pushes back against those realities, pushes back against colonial attitudes towards taking children away from their families, and pushes the Canadian state to recognize representatives of Indigenous Peoples, Inuit rights-holding institutions and organizations along with First Nations and Metis to take care of our children and to implement self-determination in this field,” Obed said, speaking to reporters outside the House of Commons.

In its 2019 appeal of C-92, the Quebec government argued the law allowed Ottawa to overstep its authority, infringe on provincial jurisdiction and recognized Indigenous Peoples as a third order of government.

Nunavik Inuit organization Makivvik Corp. welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision, calling it a “major victory for Inuit and the well-being of our families, children and youth.”

“The decision reflects what we have always said and known, which is that we have an inherent right to self-determination, especially as it concerns child and family services,” Makivvik president Pita Aatami said in a news release.

“Today’s ruling reinforces the importance of implementing Indigenous rights and respecting our jurisdictions.”

There could be a new Pine Point mine operating in the N.W.T. in about six years, according to the company behind the project — and many South Slave residents are looking forward to it.

The hockey tournament season is returning to Nunavut as Rankin Inlet is set to host the 2024 Powerful Championship for under-13 teams this weekend.

“A lot of talent from out of town is coming, so I think a lot of these games will be close. I’m excited,” said tournament organizer A.J. Curley.

Eight teams are competing this year, in two divisions.

The ‘A’ division includes Coral Harbour, Naujaat, Baker Lake, Arviat and Rankin Rock Black. The ‘B’ division is made up of Rankin Rock White, Rankin Penguins, Rankin Rock U11 and a team of players from both Chesterfield Inlet and Arviat.

Tournament action runs from Friday afternoon until Sunday. Interdivisional round-robin games are set for Friday and Saturday, then the playoff will be held Sunday.

The games are being played at Agnico Eagle Arena.

Organizing the tournament and dealing with challenges like flight delays can be a hassle but in terms of the hockey itself, “it’s always been good,” Curley said.

The goal of a tournament like this is to brings youths from Rankin Inlet and other communities together for fun and competition, Curley said.

“[It’s] to make memories, make new friends, connect with others and ultimately have a good [tournament],” he said.

N.W.T. MLAs voted Friday to postpone a motion for a public inquiry into the territory's wildfire response. The inquiry would establish an independent board of four people to investigate the territorial government's response to the 2023 wildfire season.

A debate among NWT politicians about whether to launch an independent inquiry into last year's wildfires was postponed after the speaker split a 9-9 tie.

Quebec’s Education Ministry is launching an investigation into Kativik Ilisarniliriniq’s governance and administration.

The investigation is welcome, said Harriet Keleutak, director general for the school board that governs schools in the province’s Nunavik region.

“I believe it will provide an opportunity for the Quebec government to better understand our needs and specificities of the environment in which we operate,” she said in a statement released Monday.

The investigation was spurred through a decree from Education Minister Bernard Drainville, as reported in the January edition of Quebec’s official gazette which lists information on provincial laws and legislation.

It will look into the school board’s administration of human, financial and material resources.

According to notes from a December council of commissioners meeting, which the school board organizes four times a year, Kativik Ilisarniliriniq had accumulated a $26-million debt.

The 2023-24 budget approved at that meeting includes a further deficit of $1.4 million.

“The deficit is the result of inadequate funding,” the notes state.

“[This] is particularly evident where material resources are concerned (building construction and maintenance of existing infrastructures), as well as human resources required to provide expert support for Nunavik students.”

Kativik Ilisarniliriniq president Sarah Aloupa is calling for more support from Quebec’s education ministry.

“I am hopeful that this investigation will help us move forward on several fronts,” she said in the statement released earlier this week from the school board.

The Kativik school board told Nunatsiaq News it will not be giving interviews on the topic.

Canada's Supreme Court backed a federal law on Indigenous child welfare, ending a case that caused an argument between the IRC and GNWT.

A coroner’s inquest jury has ruled the shooting death of Attachie Ashoona by police in Kinngait in 2020 was a suicide.

Ashoona, 38, died Feb. 26, 2020, inside his father’s home after being shot in the chest by RCMP Cpl. Jaime Methven. The inquest examining circumstances around his death opened Monday.

The inquest heard Methven and Const. Simon Coutu-De Goede had entered the house that evening after receiving two calls that a domestic assault had occurred and that another assault may have been ongoing.

Methven testified she fired two shots at Ashoona, who was visibly intoxicated and holding a kitchen knife. Ashoona was walking toward her saying, “Just shoot me, I’m going to kill you.”

The officer said she had “no other options” than to shoot him after he got to within about an arm’s length from her.

One shot hit Ashoona, who died soon afterward, while a second shot hit the wall behind him.

The inquest at Kinngait’s community hall wrapped up late Thursday with the six-member jury issuing its verdict just after 9 p.m.

The jury ultimately agreed with RCMP counsel Donna Keats, who submitted Ashoona’s death was a suicide.

She cited Ashoona’s repeated statements telling Methven to “shoot” him and fears expressed by Ashoona’s girlfriend and family that he may have wanted to harm himself.

Coroner’s counsel Sheldon Toner had suggested Ashoona’s death was a homicide, in that it was caused by another person.

A coroner’s inquest is mandatory under Nunavut law when a person has died while detained or in police custody. It does not have the power to recommend charges or to decide who is at fault.

The purpose of an inquest is to instead consider ways that deaths under similar circumstances can be avoided in the future.

The jury offered six recommendations to Nunavut RCMP in its verdict:

1. That all Nunavut RCMP officers receive regular mandatory trauma response training in addition to basic first aid;
2. That the RCMP equip all detachments and police vehicles in Nunavut with proper first aid kits;
3. That all officers be equipped with functioning body cameras that record interactions with Nunavummiut, which can be used as learning opportunities for critical incidents;
4. That the RCMP equip and train officers on the use of handheld ballistic shields, or bulletproof shields;
5. That male RCMP officers deal with male suspects and female officers deal with female suspects;
6. That the RCMP have mandatory orientation programs in place that cover Nunavut culture, language and community.

Nunavut chief coroner Khen Sagadraca presided over the inquest.

The Grand Chief of the Gwich'in Tribal Council is leaving Gwich'in territory to live in Edmonton. He set out his reasons for making that move.

John Scott Cowan said Karima Manji, the mother of Amira and Nadya Gill, entered the plea Friday morning and took “full responsibility for the matters at hand.” 

Inukjuak is the latest Nunavik community to be connected to a new system that forwards emergency calls to dispatchers in southern Quebec.

Last year, Umiujaq became the first community to be connected to this new system as part of a pilot project. Kuujjuaraapik joined in June, followed by Puvirnituq in mid-July.

Inukjuak callers who require emergency assistance should continue to dial 819-254-9111, said Nunavik Police Service Friday in a news release.

When the operator picks up, people are advised to stay on the line until they’re told to hang up. Call centre staff will control the conversation and provide the information to police officers that they dispatch.

The call centre is situated in Saint-Eustache, a suburban city on the north shore of Montreal.

The new system uses Tamaani’s fibre optic internet in southern Hudson Bay coast communities already connected to that service. Akulivik, Ivujivik and Salluit will follow suit as they gain access to fibre optic service.

Ungava Bay communities will have to wait until 2025, when their internet is set to be installed.

N.W.T. Housing Minister Lucy Kuptana said 100 new public housing units are being built in communities across the territory. But one MLA said the new units barely make a dent in her region alone. 

Karima Manji pleaded guilty Friday morning in an Iqaluit courtroom to one count of fraud over $5,000, in relation to Inuit beneficiary status she obtained on behalf of her twin daughters through Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. in 2016.

Manji faced three counts of fraud over $5,000 and her daughters, Amira and Nadya Gill, were each charged with two counts of fraud over $5,000.

The remaining two charges against Manji and the charges against the Gill sisters were withdrawn.

RCMP accused Manji of applying for and obtaining beneficiary status on behalf of her daughters and using that status to apply for scholarships and grants through Kakivak Association and Qikiqtani Inuit Association.

Manji was also accused of attempting to apply on behalf of herself in 2018 but her application was denied, said NTI.

More to come…

Crash Test Dummies have toured through a lot of places in the more than 35 years since the Canadian rock band was formed, but the western Arctic isn’t one of them.

They’ll finally get their chance this week when they fly to Cambridge Bay for performances Friday and Saturday.

“I didn’t think I’d ever go that far north,” lead vocalist and guitarist Brad Roberts said in an interview.

“It’s very intriguing for me to do a gig up there.”

The Friday gig is for the Kitikmeot Trade Show, which is happening at the same time. But Saturday’s show will be for the entire community.

Crash Test Dummies formed in Winnipeg in the late 1980s and achieved mainstream success throughout the 1990s with hits such as Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm, The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead and Superman’s Song.

Current band members are Roberts, Mitch Dorge on drums, Dan Roberts on bass, Ellen Reid on keyboard and backup vocals, Stuart Cameron on guitar and a new member in Leith Fleming-Smith on keyboard.

The offer to play Cambridge Bay came at the last second, Roberts said, adding it’s an exciting opportunity to travel to the far North.

“You travel around and you do a lot of shows … and you kind of see the same old places over and over again,” he said.

“This will be an excellent opportunity to see a place I’ve never seen before.”

Roberts said he was initially intrigued by how a place of around 1,500 people would have enough money to book the band. He credited Kitikmeot Trade Show organizers, who offered to bring them up.

Talia Maksagak, executive director of the Kitikmeot Chamber of Commerce and one of the trade show organizers, said the hamlet has helped attract well-known bands to come to the trade show in the past. Last year, they nearly booked the Barenaked Ladies.

“I know a bunch of people who [listen] to them are excited to see them in the North,” Maksagak said of the Crash Test Dummies shows.

“So that’s exciting.”

The Saturday show starts at 7 p.m. and is a free performance open to the community, the chamber of commerce posted on its Facebook page.

While the band is coming north for the first time, Roberts said if the opportunity had arisen earlier the band would have been happy to take it.

“I think we would have done this in the [1990s] just as quickly as we said ‘yes’ in the [2020s],” he said.

Driving in Yellowknife has been an adventure lately with heavy snow and rutted roads. The city told us what it's doing to try to improve the situation.

At a snow sculpting championship in Minnesota, an NWT team carved caribou leaping through a river as a means of symbolizing last year's environmental drama.

"If I'm available, I'll do it." while a taxi service can be hard to maintain in small NWT communities, a new operator in Fort Simpson said the village needs it.

Dave Lorenzon says his partner Carson Dugal was medivaced to Vancouver on Jan. 28 after he developed an infection after having a tumour removed from his neck. Dugal waited five days for the 30-minute procedure to remove the abscess, which had seemed to grow more serious during the wait.

The Yukon government is soliciting input from residents to update the territory's Residential Landlord and Tenant Act — but some tenants who attended public consultations this week say they left feeling unheard.

The Town of Inuvik says technical problems with water meters resulted in discrepancies that "doubled up" bills for some residents.

The leader of the Gwich'in Tribal Council is leaving his region. Ken Kyikavichik will spend most of his time in Edmonton, now, where he's moved with his family.

Jackie Jacobson says the N.W.T. government's announcement this week that home heating fuel would be exempt from the carbon tax is welcome news — but the former MLA from Tuktoyaktuk says it's not enough to help his struggling community.

An expert in use of force says the police officer who fatally shot a Kinngait man in 2020 had no other viable options to stop him as he approached her wielding a knife.

Attachie Ashoona died Feb. 26, 2020, after being shot in the chest by RCMP Cpl. Jaime Methven, one of two officers who responded that night to multiple reports of a domestic assault.

The shooting occurred inside the home of Ashoona’s father. An inquest examining the circumstances surrounding Ashoona’s death began Monday.

Methven testified earlier that she had “no other option” but to shoot the 38-year-old man after he ignored commands to drop the knife he was holding and walked toward her saying, “Just shoot me, I’m going to kill you.”

On Thursday, coroner’s counsel Sheldon Toner asked Brad Fawcett, a use-of-force instructor and retired sergeant with the Vancouver Police Department, if using one of the other tools Methven had with her — such as pepper spray, a baton or a Taser — was viable in this circumstance.

“Pepper spray only has an effective range of three to 10 feet, and it tends not to work particularly well on somebody who is intoxicated with drugs and alcohol, it tends not to work particularly well if somebody’s suffering from a mental illness or is disorientated,” Fawcett said.

To use a baton effectively, the officer has to get within about 50 centimetres of the target — “close enough to be stabbed,” he said.

And a Taser, or conducted energy weapon, has limited range.

“If your maximum effective rate is 25 feet, then that person is already less than two seconds away,” Fawcett said.

“Weather can affect the batteries, the clothing that a person’s wearing can impact on its effectiveness, the amount of dust in the air, if a person is wearing a down-filled jacket with a lot of air in it,” he said.

“So if your life’s in jeopardy, you tend not to look at the interventions that have a 15, 30, 40 per cent failure. You tend to use the force option that is most likely to preserve your own life, and in most cases that’s going to be a sidearm,” Fawcett said.

Toner then asked if firing a warning shot instead of shooting Ashoona directly would have been an appropriate alternative.

“Firing warning shots in a house is almost never an appropriate thing to do,” Fawcett said.

“Bullets can punch through almost any kind of surface.”

Methven said she fired two shots at Ashoona, one into his chest and another that went into the wall behind him. Toner asked if it was appropriate for Methven to fire more than one shot.

Fawcett said that in firearms training, officers are typically trained to do strings of fire, like firing three shots in three seconds to make a precise shot.

Toner also asked if officers are expected to fight back before reaching the point of shooting someone.

“The short answer is no,” Fawcett said.

Witness testimonies concluded Thursday and Toner and RCMP counsel Donna Keats offered closing arguments.

“In this case, things unfolded very quickly,” Toner said. “Officers were not left with a lot of options, given their training.”

Toner submitted the cause of death was homicide, meaning simply that Ashoona’s death was caused by another person.

Keats contended the cause of death was suicide, noting Ashoona had repeatedly told Methven, “Just shoot me.”

Toner disagreed, saying meeting the threshold of suicide requires clear, compelling evidence.

That Ashoona was intoxicated and saying, “Just shoot me, I’m going to kill you,” to the officer was more likely an impulsive statement.

“He was fairly angry and just had a fight with his girlfriend and father, and was in all probability charged and emotionally reacting to what had happened,” Toner said.

The lawyers offered recommendations to the jury on how deaths under similar circumstances can be avoided in the future.

Toner suggested recommending all Nunavut RCMP officers receive regular mandatory trauma response training in addition to first aid, and that all detachments and police vehicles in Nunavut be equipped with proper first aid kits.

He also said the jury could consider recommending all officers be equipped with functioning body cameras and that the RCMP equip and train officers on the use of hand-held ballistics shields.

Toner suggested that had the officers who approached Ashoona been aware that he had a knife, they might have been able to use a ballistics shield — a tool Nunavut officers currently are not equipped with — to protect themselves, instead of a firearm.

Toner also suggested the RCMP continue mandatory orientation programs that cover Nunavut culture, language and community, which the service introduced in recent years.

The jury broke for deliberations and is expected to return its verdict late Thursday or on Friday.

Not only do water levels across much of the NWT remain at record lows, but the situation is no better in southern areas that feed northern rivers and lakes.

"Does snow count as a natural disaster, or is it different?" Tuktoyaktuk's mayor queried the GNWT's response as huge quantities of snow buried Tuk's highway.

When Liam Gill felt he didn't belong, snowboarding came to his rescue. Diagnosed with a language processing disorder and dyslexia, Gill struggled to understand and make himself understood in school. Toting his snowboard to Calgary's Canada Olympic Park several times a week, Gill would come off the hill buzzing with purpose.

The NWT's finance minister tabled a budget intended to support programs and services from April to June, to give the new government breathing room.

Two government departments are participating in reviews of their response to the 2023 wildfire season. Municipal and Community Affairs Minister Vince McKay said in the legislature Wednesday that his department is taking lessons from the season and working to prepare for the coming year. He said N.W.T. residents should do the same. 

A search team that was deployed four days ago continues to search for two people missing from Puvirnituq since Sunday.

The couple — an 18-year-old woman and 19-year-old man — have not been seen since they left by snowmobile to travel to Akulivik that night. Nunavik Police Services Chief of Operations Jean-François Morin confirmed search teams were sent out Monday.

The distance between the communities is about 100 kilometres.

“We can usually get there the same day when the terrain is good,” Puvirnituq Mayor Paulusie Angiyou said.

The two people, whose names have not been released, reached a cabin that’s about halfway to Akulivik based on traces found there, but have not been heard from since.

“They got to the cabin, but after that we can’t find any trace of them at the moment,” Angiyou said.

Between Sunday and Monday, freezing mist had settled over that area making it more difficult to find tracks, he said.

Currently, search teams from both Akulivik and Puvirnituq are looking for the missing people — a ground team travelling by snowmobile and another conducting an aerial search in a Twin-Otter plane.

Even so, Angiyok said, the Canadian Rangers and provincial police are likely also needed.

“Normally, after a few days of search, we have them help us out.”

More of Nunavik’s homes are seeing an increased need for major repairs, according to Statistics Canada.

The government agency recently rolled out its 2021 population profile for the region. It shows 22.1 per cent of households in Nunavik need major repairs, compared to an average of 6.3 per cent across Quebec.

Marco Audet, general manager of the provincially funded non-profit Nunavik Housing Bureau, said his organization plans to renovate 44 homes this year and 140 next year in 11 Nunavik communities.

These projects come on top of the regular maintenance work that’s provided in the communities by the housing bureau.

The communities involved are Aupaluk, Ivujivik, Kangirsuk, Kangiqsualujjuaq, Kangiqsujuaq, Kuujjuaq, Kuujjuaraapik, Puvirnituq, Quaqtaq, Salluit and Tasiujaq.

“We’re talking about major construction sites,” Audet said.

His team also plans to replace 100 windows in four communities this year.

“We know that there can be vandalism in the communities, and we will put effort into that as well,” he said.

About 98 per cent of the Nunavik population is housed under the Nunavik Housing Bureau, according to its website.

Audet said that until now, the bureau has been more of an administrative body than a developer.

“But we are at the dawn of putting forth a new strategic plan for 2024-26 where the NHB wishes to reposition itself,” he said.

There are challenges specific to Nunavik when it comes to housing, said Audet, including the climate, size of the region and the infrastructure already in place.

That said, he promised the “housing stock and renovation team will be present on the territory like they have never been before.”

“We’re increasing the budgets, we’re increasing the cadence to work on this issue.”

These projects are not guaranteed as of yet, and are waiting for tenders to be issued before work can start.

For the three remaining communities, Umiujaq, Inukjuak and Akulivik, renovations will be done on vacant homes, Audet said.

Statistics Canada also reported that in 18.1 per cent of households in Nunavik there are on average more inhabitants than rooms, compared to Quebec’s average of 1.3 per cent.

This figure is actually lower than what was previously reported in the 2016 profile, when it was 22.7 per cent.

The bureau aims to decrease the amount of people per home by reorganizing the housing already in place.

“We know that people in Nunavik live in homes that are not adapted to their needs,” Audet said, adding some families live in homes with too few rooms while others live in homes with too many rooms for them.

“We want to make an effort to exchange housing units to re-establish a balance between occupation and real needs,” he said.

Months after evacuating in the face of wildfires, some NWT residents say they're still waiting for promised financial assistance from their government.

For the past two months, Dawson City, Yukon, has had 100 per cent ambulance coverage, according to Yukon Emergency Medical Services (YEMS). It represents a marked change from just months earlier when residents were complaining about substantial gaps in ambulance service.

A lawsuit alleging that millions of dollars were taken from companies owned by the Łutsel K'e Dene First Nation (LKDFN) in the N.W.T. has devolved into a battle between two groups of lawyers.

The First Nation, in a notice filed to the Yukon Court of Appeal last week, is asking for a recent Yukon Supreme Court ruling on the Kudz Ze Kayah mine project to be set aside, and for its appeal to be heard on an expedited basis. 

Yellowknife residents can now expect a five per cent property tax increase this year.

Yellowknifers can expect a five-percent property tax increase this year after councillors finished working through the city's draft budget.

Arctic Winter Games organizers say they’re working to accommodate some Canadian athletes who are still trying to secure their passports in time to travel to Alaska.

The Games, which open March 10, have moved the deadline to register to Feb. 21 after an extension was requested by Team Nunavut chef de mission Mariele DePeuter.

“If the passports do not arrive by this date, changes to participant registration details will need to be made by a staff member but they will not be excluded from participation once the new deadline is reached,” said Emerald Kroeker, a spokesperson for the Games, in an email to Nunatsiaq News.

The Arctic Winter Games run from March 10 to 16 in Alaska’s Mat-Su Valley, near Anchorage. All Canadian athletes and team staff will need passports to cross the Canada-U.S. border.

Currently, at least 60 Team Nunavut athletes are still without passports and trying to obtain them, out of the 291 athletes selected for the team.

Last week, Nunavut MP Lori Idlout raised the issue in the House of Commons. In question period, she highlighted the challenges Nunavut team members face in obtaining passports.

In an interview, DePeuter said varying circumstances affect the athletes as they navigate through the process to get their passports.

That includes language barriers for those whose first language is Inuktitut, the distance to a Service Canada outlet in some communities, limited access to photographers who can take passport photos, lack of valid photo identification, and limited access to someone qualified to check over applications to ensure everything is filed correctly.

“There’s so many different agencies and points of contacts that we need to go through just to be able to apply for the passport. And then the length of time it takes for the turnaround, it’s definitely impacting us right now,” said DePeuter.

“Once the application is received by one of Service Canada’s processing centres, it’s another two to four weeks before we actually get the passport.”

In response, Service Canada has assigned a team of staff members to help all Arctic Winter Games athletes through the passport process.

The team is specifically focused on quickly responding to communications with the athletes to address any issues, said Teodor Gaspar, a spokesperson for federal Citizens’ Services of Canada Minister Terry Beech.

Athletes will still follow the same protocols as other applicants, Gaspar said, but the Service Canada team is focusing on ensuring issues are responded to as quickly as possible.

“We understand that the situation for people who apply for passports up North is very different than the realities of people who apply here [in southern Canada]” Gaspar said.

“My understanding is there was this surge of demand because of all the people preparing for the Games, which is atypical for the number of people who apply at the same time from these regions.”

The Arctic Winter Games will bring together Indigenous athletes aged 18 and younger from Nunavut, Nunavik, the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alaska, Greenland, northern Alberta and Sápmi, the traditional homeland of the Sámi people, in what’s now Scandinavia.

In a recent report, receiver PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has been managing the affairs of the now-defunct Minto Metals Corp., says its sales and investment solicitation process for the mine attracted several bids, but only one was deemed potentially viable.

A proposal to increase Yellowknife’s Street Outreach funding for services including a paramedic, a retrofitted van, and more harm reduction and first aid tools was officially rejected by city council on Tuesday.

Representatives of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission say they're concerned about the environmental impacts of a proposed B.C. project that would see work resume at Eskay Creek, a former open-pit gold mine.  Experts say the results of the case could impact Indigenous consultation across Canada. 

Once a mainstay of bush camping, the stoves are a compact, lightweight and efficient way to heat a tent. They've also been increasingly scarce.

Attachie Ashoona’s then-girlfriend says she feared he might try to hurt himself on the day he was shot and killed by police four years ago.

Ashoona, 38, died Feb. 26, 2020, when he was shot inside a Kinngait home by an RCMP officer after reports that a domestic assault was occurring there.

An inquest looking into circumstances surrounding his death heard testimony Wednesday from his then-partner Naviaqsi Qavaau, who had been attacked by Ashoona on the day he was shot.

Qavaau said that on that morning, she and Ashoona were at his mother’s house. The pair had been a couple on and off for about four years, she said, and sometimes had physical altercations where police had to get involved.

At some point before lunchtime, they went to the house of Ashoona’s father where the pair drank some alcohol. Ashoona’s father Goo Kingwatsiak was there, as was Ashoona’s sister.

During the day, Ashoona drank vodka from three mickeys, or 375-ml bottles, Qavaau said.

At some point, the two got into a fight and Ashoona began dragging Qavaau by her hair. She yelled for help and cried, she said, adding she tried to leave through the front door but Ashoona pulled her back inside the home.

When Kingwatsiak pinned Ashoona against a wall, Qavaau was able to flee.

She left so quickly she didn’t put on her boots and was outside in her socks, she told the inquest.

Qavaau went to Ashoona’s mother’s house. When she learned there were police vehicles outside Kingwatsiak’s house, she returned.

She said she was worried Ashoona would hurt himself or that he would die by suicide.

Earlier this week, the inquest heard that at least two phone calls were made to police reporting the assault on Qavaau, one of which was made by Ashoona’s sister.

On Tuesday, Cpl. Jaime Methven, one of two RCMP officers who had gone to the home in response to the calls, told the inquest she fired two gunshots at Ashoona inside the house after he moved toward her holding a knife while saying, “Just shoot me, I’m going to kill you.”

After the shooting, and while police were still at the house, Qavaau, who was yelling, was placed in handcuffs and brought to the police station where she was placed in a sobering cell.

A distraught Kingwatsiak was also arrested when he tried to enter the room where his son Ashoona had just been shot.

It wasn’t until after Qavaau was released from custody that she learned Ashoona had been shot and killed, she said.

Const. Magalie Gourgues, one of several officers who arrived at the house after Ashoona was shot, testified by videoconference Wednesday.

She told the inquest she was unsure when she arrived whether CPR had been performed on Ashoona, who was pronounced dead at 5:27 p.m.

She said she did not ask the officers there whether CPR had been attempted.

The Ottawa Police Service later conducted an investigation of the incident and cleared Methven of any wrongdoing.

Ottawa police Sgt. Derek Wereley said the investigation took several months to complete, due in part to travel complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the failing health of Kingwatsiak, who died before the inquest could begin.

A coroner’s inquest is mandatory when a person has died while detained or in custody. It does not have the power to recommend charges or to decide who is at fault.

The inquest into Ashoona’s death is being held at the community hall in Kinngait. It opened Monday and is set to conclude Friday with the six-member jury’s recommendations.

The Transglobal Car Expedition is back in the N.W.T. — with intentions to circle the entire globe by vehicle now — roughly two years after making headlines for violating airspace rules and sinking a truck.

Dr Angela James, known for her work in language revitalization and education, will be Aurora College's next president from August this year.

Nunavik MP Sylvie Bérubé is supporting a Bloc Québécois bill that would remove the religious exception to the law that criminalizes hate speech and inciting violence.

“It is quite sad that some people use their position of influence, religious or civil, even impunity conferred to them, to incite violence and hatred,” Bérubé, the MP for Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou, said in a French language news release.

The release was issued Tuesday, the day after her party introduced a proposed change to the Criminal Code.

Currently under the Criminal Code, people charged with hate speech or inciting violence can defend themselves in court by arguing they were, in good faith, establishing an argument or opinion based on a religious subject or text.

A private member’s bill, introduced Monday by Bloc MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, would eliminate that defence.

The Bloc’s first attempt to make the same Criminal Code amendment was introduced in November by party leader Yves-François Blanchet.

It was known as Bill C-367 and got first reading in the House of Commons but didn’t move any further through the parliamentary process.

That came after Montreal-based imam Adil Charkaoui said the Islamic god Allah should “take care of Zionist aggressors, take care of the enemies of Gaza,” and used words such as “exterminate” and to “spare none.”

That led the Bloc Québécois to argue this type of dialogue should be considered hate speech, and should be criminalized by the Criminal Code.

Bérubé said her party’s MPs believed Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “grasped the urgency and importance of this issue” when the Bloc proposed the bill the first time.

“Considering the current international context, his inaction is very serious,” she said.

On Monday, the Bloc Québécois tabled the bill again, now renamed Bill C-373, to relaunch the discussion.

“It is about preserving peace of mind amongst Quebecois and Canadians and all communities that hateful words that incite violence should never be protected by the Criminal Code,” Bérubé said.

About 25 Yukon youths and leaders are starting the return journey from a three-week cultural exchange, largely spent in Te Urewera, near the east coast of New Zealand's North Island.