Dozens of Nunavut athletes in passport limbo as Arctic Winter Games approach
CBC
Team Nunavut officials say between 50 to 70 young athletes are at risk of missing the upcoming Arctic Winter Games because of difficulties securing a passport.
This year's games are in Alaska's Mat-Su Valley, meaning all Canadians attending the games need a valid passport to cross the Canada-U.S. border.
But with the Games only five weeks away, nearly a quarter of Nunavut's current roster of 291 athletes are still struggling to have their passport applications processed.
"If they can't go because they can't get a passport in time, that's very disappointing for them," said Mariele DePeuter, Team Nunavut's chef de mission, adding many applications were sent back for minor errors.
"Obviously we have a lot of people where English is their second language, and they're just missing a very simple step on the application. Or they've had issues getting the photo ID or the birth certificates in the first place, to even be able to apply for the passport."
DePeuter said no team sports are at risk of not being able to compete because of not having enough players. Coaches for Nunavut's under-15 boys hockey team, which won bronze at the 2023 Games, told CBC News six of their players were still waiting on passports.
And while the Nunavut team officials have been pressing their athletes since the fall to begin the application process, DePeuter said challenges in securing a passport has been a known issue since November. Complicating matters is team selections could not have happened sooner, she said, because of the timing of the previous Arctic Winter Games in 2023 — a year later than they otherwise would have been.
"There was a real time crunch on the volunteers for sport organizations to turn around after those [2023] Games, and get ready for another Games that was only 12 months away," DePeuter said.
The issue reached the floor of the House of Commons on Wednesday as Nunavut MP Lori Idlout used her time in Question Period to highlight the overarching issue of passport application challenges in Nunavut.
"Families are now forced to pay thousands of dollars to fly down South to get their passports expedited or not compete at all," she told parliamentarians.
Speaking with CBC News, Idlout said her office has been assisting athletes in processing passport applications by having them sent to her MP office in Iqaluit, citing concerns over the recent struggles in service delivery at the Iqaluit post office. Her staff would then bring the applications in person, to a Service Canada office in Ottawa or Gatineau, Que.
Idlout said they delivered about 20 to 30 applications before receiving a letter from Service Canada in November or December barring her staff bringing applications to Service Canada centres in person.
"They started red-flagging our office and made it more difficult for our office to help the athletes get their passports," Idlout said. "The way I understand it is that we were helping so many applications that it seemed it was an unusual activity from their perspective."
But Idlout says this issue is synonymous with the overall lack of service delivery in Nunavut, particularly with having forms and service available in Inuktitut.
While his party has made a cause célèbre out of its battle with the Speaker, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has periodically waxed poetic about the House of Commons — suggesting that its green upholstery is meant to symbolize the fields of the English countryside where commoners met centuries ago before the signing of the Magna Carta.