Better communication and engaging youth among top issues for Nunavummiut headed to the polls
CBC
Standing on the side of a road in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, former MLA Jeannie Ehaloak looks around and sees several issues in her community she wants addressed.
“We've lost our arena, we lost our youth centre, so there's a lot of vandalism and mischief going around in our community. Our youth are crying for help,” she said.
She’s not the only one concerned about future generations and she sees it as a territorial election issue.
Cambridge Bay’s youth centre program co-ordinator, Darlene Agitak, says youth don't really have a platform where they can engage in civics and tell politicians what change they would like to see. In her view, creating a youth committee could be one place to start.
“Youth, they don't really understand how government works and how their voice, their ideas, their opinions, their thoughts, their experiences affect us as a society,” she said.
Though Agitak believes politicians need engage more with all their constituents.
“I would like to see more communication on the happenings of the community as a whole," she said.
"So like what's going on in education, what's going on with our culture … making sure that there's some sort of public information like a website or page, so we can go in and ask questions or drop off our concerns.”
As someone who’s sat in the legislative assembly, Ehaloak does see a need for politicians to better communicate to their constituents about matters that affect them. Right now, she sees food insecurity and Arctic sovereignty as hot political topics.
“Not a lot of people watch the legislative assembly online or read the news, so it's really important to communicate what's happening,” she said.
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Tiina Kakkik says her family has always voted and she plans to keep that pattern alive.
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