Meeting of the Mayors

*Note: I'm back in Edmonton now but I have many more things to write about that I didn't get the chance to at the time they happened, so stay tuned for more blog posts!

I was very lucky this summer because the annual Qikiqtaaluk Socio-Economic Monitoring Committee (QSEMC) Meeting coincidentally took place in Pang. Mayors from various Nunavut communities as well as employees of the Mary River Mine Project gathered at the Hamlet Office to discuss socio-economic development, and I got to sit in on the meeting.

Nunavut has multiple official languages: Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, English, and French. During the meeting, both Inuktitut and English were used and participants were able to speak in either one or switch between the two if they wished. But how would this work? Was everyone at the meeting bilingual? The answer is no.

You can see all four languages here!

As I learned over the summer, meetings in Pang and I'm assuming other communities as well are unique in the sense that they always take place with an interpreter or two present. Using mics and headsets participants are able to speak in either language and understand both through translation. For example, when someone speaks in English it is translated in real time by a translator to Inuktitut which is relayed to listeners through the headset (and vice versa).

This arrangement is necessary because Government of Nunavut employees, as well as Hamlet employees/Council members, often do not speak both English and Inuktitut (particularly those who have come from outside Nunavut but not always). Without a translator, meetings would be impossible. I was surprised to realize how new and innovative I found this arrangement to be - I had never attended any meetings like this in the south. But I'm glad that at council meetings or other meetings such as this one language is not a barrier for participation. And I think the availability of translators encourages people to keep speaking, reading, and writing Inuktitut. I've heard a few times about the fight to keep indigenous languages alive in many parts of Canada so efforts such as this (that fight against English a requirement for participation) can be very helpful.

English is also my second language...kind of. I say kind of because I was born into a Gujarati speaking family but grew up in Canada (Gujarat is a state in India and people of Gujarat speak Gujarati). The first language I learned to speak at home was Gujarati, but the first language I learned to read and write (and speak) was English. I speak Gujarati fluently but I don't read or write it and after this summer I think it's time to try and learn again :)