Inuit look to Greenland’s social model as Canada pursues military buildup in Arctic

Inuit leaders say Canada can learn from Greenland’s approach to health, housing and social services as Ottawa weighs greater investment in northern infrastructure.

As Ottawa looks to use military spending to build up infrastructure in the Far North, Inuit say they want Canada to take tips from Greenland — where a Nordic social model adapted to local needs has built health, housing and education services deemed superior to anything in Canada’s Arctic.

“There is a lot that we can learn from them,” said Lukasi Whiteley-Tukkiapik, who leads Saqijuq, an Inuit wellness organization in Kujjuaq, Que.

Speaking last week on a charter flight from Montreal to Greenland’s capital Nuuk, where he attended the official opening of Canada’s new consulate, Whiteley-Tukkiapik said services in his community — a hub for northern Quebec — are inferior to those available in Iqaluit.

Nuuk, meanwhile, is “generations ahead of us” in providing Inuit-led social services in well-maintained buildings, he said.

As a self-governing territory of Denmark, Greenland has universal health care and unemployment insurance, free dentistry for children, subsidized daycare and education services generally offered without tuition fees.

Nuuk boasts modern schools and a hospital with four times the capacity of the one in Iqaluit — even though Nuuk’s population is only about 2.5 times the size of Iqaluit’s.

Greenland got 87 per cent of its energy from hydroelectricity in 2022, up from 59 per cent in 2000, according to the British think tank Ember. Nunavut relies almost entirely on fossil fuels like diesel.

The 2021 census found 53.1 per cent of Nunavut’s population lives in overcrowded housing, while a third live in homes in various states of disrepair. Nuuk has brightly coloured houses, cultural centres and libraries — in part because bedrock is easier to build on than the permafrost found in Iqaluit.