{"id":176393,"date":"2025-09-28T23:21:36","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T23:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/176393\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T23:21:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T23:21:36","slug":"human-resources-are-our-greatest-strength-nunavut-senator-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/176393\/","title":{"rendered":"Human resources are our greatest strength, Nunavut senator says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nancy Karetak-Lindell calls for Inuit support in keynote speech to Kivalliq Trade Show<\/p>\n

Sen. Nancy Karetak-Lindell opened her speech to the Kivalliq Trade Show in Rankin Inlet on Tuesday by asserting, \u201cNo one can convince me that my father and mother did not have PhD knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the trade show\u2019s theme of \u201cKivalliq in a changing North,\u201d Karetak-Lindell said the difference between changes in the past and today is that Inuit must now be in the driver\u2019s seat for such change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be at the tables and decide what changes should be happening to us and everyone that lives in Nunavut,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

And that goes well beyond ticking a consultation box.<\/p>\n

Karetak-Lindell, appointed to the Senate in December, challenged leaders and government officials to consider what would happen if the bureaucracy and those with power believed Inuit were capable of being decision makers, influencers and leaders of change?<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe human resources is the most critical place to start to change the future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She referred to\u00a0complaints about Inuit who are employed in positions, aren\u2019t supported properly, and end up leaving with the idea perpetuated that they were not capable.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI get very disappointed when hearing how many Inuit are overlooked for positions they are capable of doing, and someone else, usually from the south, is hired,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

There are so many transferrable skills among Inuit, she said \u2014 anyone who can organize a hunting expedition or parents able to manage a family budget clearly have skills that can be used in the workplace\u00a0whether they have educational credentials or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to stop messaging that only those with university and college degrees can do these jobs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The way that Inuit have been trained for the past 70 years has not worked, she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to start finding different ways of reaching the knowledge that people have and transferring it into a way that works in the job force,\u201d she said, adding employers need to be flexible to incorporate this approach.<\/p>\n

There is still a myth that Inuit get everything on a platter or that they don\u2019t pay taxes, she said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat\u2019s holding people back from applying for jobs? What\u2019s holding people back from staying in that job and doing their best to help fellow Inuit? I sometimes feel like we need to remind public servants what that means, to be a public servant,\u201d Karetak-Lindell said.<\/p>\n

She recalled working as a housing manager in the 1970s and 80s. There were many Inuit housing managers at the time, she said, but there are few now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we need to do better, especially in our local organizations and committees, that we need to see more Inuit being involved,\u201d said Karetak-Lindell. \u201cI think part of the issue is we now have a culture where people don\u2019t feel comfortable working for their people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge today is to make sure young people feel they are up to the challenge, and are armed with both traditional and Western knowledge, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many things that we have lost as a people, but we are able to take it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nancy Karetak-Lindell calls for Inuit support in keynote speech to Kivalliq Trade Show Sen. Nancy Karetak-Lindell opened her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-176393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}