RCMP Watch

(CBC News) - Nunavut legislators are pushing the RCMP to keep Inuktitut-speaking police officers in their communities, as one MLA says there aren’t enough officers able to speak with unilingual Inuit residents.

Tunnuniq MLA James Arvaluk said some Inuktitut-speaking RCMP officers have been transferred out of Nunavut.

Speaking in the legislative assembly Monday, Arvaluk said there is currently no officer who can speak Inuktitut in Pond Inlet, even though more than 60 per cent of that hamlet’s population speaks the language. He said it’s critically important to make sure anyone in Nunavut can properly communicate with emergency service providers.

Premier and Justice Minister Paul Okalik said he has spoken with the RCMP’s top official in Nunavut, who told him the RCMP decides where their officers are placed in Canada.

“I’ve spoken with the commanding officer for Nunavut and expressed our concerns that we have to improve the current situation,” Okalik said Monday.

“We’re actually losing some Inuit officers, and we have to gain them and at the same time find better ways of providing a service to the communities in Nunavut.”

Okalik said there is an ongoing effort to recruit and train Inuit as RCMP officers, and the government is looking at other measures for providing policing services to all Nunavummiut.

“We’re looking at ways of creating community constables that will work with the RCMP,” he said. “So they don’t necessarily have to be [members of] the RCMP but provide a service to unilingual Inuit.”

Okalik said his government will continue to push the RCMP to place more Inuktitut-speaking officers in small communities.