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Helen Klengenberg says she\u2019s noticed fewer and fewer people speaking Inuinnaqtun where she lives in Kugluktuk, Nunavut.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou hear from many people that we’re losing our language, especially Inuinnaqtun,\u201d she said. \u201cIt’s very difficult to speak Inuinnaqtun nowadays. Wherever I go I try to speak it, however you get responses back in English. So it’s very difficult and there are very few speakers left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Klengenberg was the territory’s languages commissioner from 2017 to 2019, so she knows how important preserving Inuinnaqtun is. The languages commissioner is is appointed for a five-year term by the Commissioner of Nunavut on the recommendation of the Legislative Assembly. They’re responsible for ensuring the rights of Nunavut’s four official languages and upholding the Official Languages Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, Nunavut has been without a languages commissioner for one year. The last commissioner finished her term in February 2025 and there has been no one in the role since then, according to the clerk of the Legislative Assembly Stephen Innuksuk.<\/p>\n
He said the delay in hiring a commissioner is because they didn\u2019t get a successful candidate the first time around when the position was advertised last year. Innuksuk said an announcement about the commissioner is coming and will be made in the winter sitting of the Legislative Assembly.<\/p>\n
The office is still able to function without the commissioner, but Klengenberg said it does make things more difficult since it\u2019s the commissioner who sets out the goals and objectives for the year.<\/p>\n
Klengenberg said the position being left vacant signals to her that filling it just isn’t a priority.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You get the feeling it’s been a year now, and anytime any longer it’s going to be your questioning of, \u2018Why are they taking so long?\u2019” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not only notable language vacancy in the territory\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is not the only vacancy surrounding language in the territory. Inuit Uqausinginnik Taiguusiliuqtiit (IUT), Nunavut\u2019s language authority, has three staff members, according to languages minister Brian Koonoo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The authority was created by Nunavut’s Legislative Assembly and has several powers under the Inuit Language Protection Act including making decisions about Inuit language use and terminology development. IUT has eight staff positions, however only three are filled. <\/p>\n
According to Koonoo, the vacancies are outside their control and are because of “consequences of death.”<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all deal with short staff and budgeting, and unfortunately, there’s some deaths that happen at times,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Koonoo said the vacancies will be filled as \u201csoon as possible\u201d but gave no definite date. The office of the minister of languages says one additional staff member will come on board on April 4.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
IUT also has seven people on a board of directors, however their term will end on March 29. Koonoo said nine names have been put forward for the board\u2019s next three-year term and those members will take office on April 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No interest in languages commissioner position\u00a0<\/p>\n
Koonoo said he\u2019s \u201cconcerned\u201d about the vacancies in languages roles across the territory, but that the culture and heritage staff are doing their best to fill the positions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No acting languages commissioner was ever appointed, and Koonoo said that\u2019s because of a lack of interest in the role from the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has not been a lot of interest to fulfill that position. Even though there had been a call for nominations, there was nobody that was willing,\u201d Koonoo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said the reason it\u2019s so difficult to recruit someone to be the commissioner is because Nunavut is losing its elders who have knowledge of Inuktut.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, Klengenberg said an acting commissioner should have been appointed because now the next commissioner will have to play catch up.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA year is not unreasonable, but it’s a long time to be without a commissioner. They could have hired someone to act until they hired someone,\u201d Klengenberg said. \u201cThere’s going to be a lot of catching up to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Innuksuk said an announcement about the commissioner will be made in the Legislative Assembly in March.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-481383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481383","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=481383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}