The Dene Nation and First Nations Caring Society criticized recent changes to Jordan's Principle, saying the existing federal approach puts children at risk.

Carrefour Nunavut is hosting a forum in Iqaluit later this month to discuss the ethics and opportunities of artificial intelligence.

The Iqaluit-based francophone economic development organization has made the fast-developing technology the focus of its Economic Forum 2025, scheduled to run at the Frobisher Inn from Feb. 28 to March 1.

Four guest speakers from the Computer Research Institute of Montreal fill the agenda.

They will discuss the “challenge, the ethics, and the transparency of AI,” said Mehdi Lamy, Carrefour’s conference co-ordinator.

Carrefour is not only seeking to share knowledge with business representatives in Nunavut, the organization is also eager to explore how it can harness AI in its own operations with insights gleaned from the conference, Lamy said.

Approximately 60 delegates are expected to attend, he said, with opportunities for business representatives in other Nunavut communities to view the presentations online.

“AI offers a lot of advantages to small businesses,” said Eric Charton, senior director of research and development for Montreal’s computer research institute, in an email to Nunatsiaq News.

“First, it helps to improve operational efficiency and reduce bureaucratic costs by using the new AI tools integrated in office applications. Second, it can help to improve customer services with the many tools available now (chatbots, search engines, recommendation engines for examples).”

The forum is free and open to all interested participants. In-person registration is on Feb. 28.

Most of the forum will be in French, he said, but Carrefour is working on an interpretation service for English speakers.

A peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature this week says the world's glaciers lost ice at the rate of about 231 billion tonnes annually from 2000 to 2011, but that quickened to about 314 billion tonnes annually over about the next decade.

A week after a fire destroyed the Kipsigak Arena in Igloolik, Aggu MLA Joanna Quassa is calling on the Government of Nunavut to contribute to building a new facility.

“The arena is absolutely not worth trying to renovate,” Quassa said Thursday in an interview.

“It would be wonderful if [the] GN could contribute to the hamlet’s needs for funding or … whatever resources they may have where they can help the community to rebuild an arena.”

Workers use heavy equipment at the site of the Kipsigak Arena in Igloolik, which was destroyed in a fire Feb. 12. (Photo courtesy of Nunavut RCMP)

Igloolik firefighters spent much of Feb. 12 extinguishing flames at Kipsigak Arena, which also housed Artcirq’s BlackBox Studio.

Nunavut RCMP’s major crimes unit and the territory’s fire marshal announced investigations into the blaze. So far, no cause for the fire has been announced.

Quassa brought the community’s tragedy to the floor of the legislative assembly Thursday, as the winter sitting got underway.

“I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to the hamlet’s fire department team for their efforts to contain the fire,” she said in her member’s statement.

She described the arena as a “safe space” for kids’ recreation, Inuit games and performing arts. Artcirq is a circus program that allows young people the chance to learn acrobatics and performing skills.

Quassa asked Community and Government Services Minister David Joanasie during question period about the fire and whether rebuilding the arena is part of the GN’s plans.

Joanasie said the government is working with the insurance company involved.

He didn’t specifically say whether rebuilding the arena is part of the plan.

“As with other major capital projects, it goes through the cycle of getting considered through planning,” Joanasie said.

“I think with these, we’re treating them on a case-by-case basis on when or how to go about with the capital planning for [an] arena in Igloolik.”

Quassa also pressed Joanasie for an update on the fire marshal’s investigation.

“To date, we haven’t had any information coming from the office of the fire marshal’s investigation into the cause of the fire,” he said.

“I can’t tell you when the office’s report will be completed and shared with the municipality of Igloolik.”

“O Siem, we are all family / O Siem, we’re all the same.”

Thirty years after those words first echoed across Canada’s airwaves, Susan Aglukark is taking a moment to reflect and celebrate how they helped make history.

This Child, which featured the song O Siem, made her the first Inuk artist to have a top-10 hit in Canada.

Now Aglukark is embarking on a 34-stop anniversary tour across Canada starting Feb. 28 at the Opera House in Gravenhurst, Ont.

“I’m really excited about sharing the journey, who I was 30 years ago and who I am today,” Aglukark said in an interview.

Released in January 1995, three years after her debut album Arctic Rose, This Child marked a turning point in her career.

“I remember being asked what message I wanted to portray in both albums, and it was, ‘Learn to be yourself,’” she said.

Aglukark said the album was the “beginning of that self-discovery journey,” in realizing her creativity as a singer, songwriter and performer.

The anniversary tour setlist will feature songs from This Child, including the title track, O Siem, Hina Na Ho (Celebration), and Breakin’ Down.

The tour will be a reflection on Aglukark’s early years, which she describes as a time of deep emotional growth.

“Between the release of Arctic Rose in 1992 and then going into the follow-up album to This Child, which was Unsung Heroes in 2000, was this really critical time for me in terms of Ilirasuk — living in a state of emotional fear.”

Aglukark’s early career and personal challenges were influenced by her decision to leave her home in Rankin Inlet and move to Ottawa, where she worked to rebuild her life after experiencing abuse.

“The context of those songs came from being in a state of emotional fear while also finding joy and finding a way to see the incredible opportunity I was living,” she said.

When the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls held its Rankin Inlet hearing in 2018, Aglukark provided testimony in which she publicly named her abuser.

As she looks back, she acknowledges the role music played in her healing.

“The majority of my fan base … were people who could relate to those stories — abuse and suicide being key in those writings. I had to keep honouring those fans in my songwriting journey.”

Her tour will also feature Angela Amarualik, a rising Inuk singer from Igloolik.

“I came across Angela’s music during the [COVID-19] pandemic, and I was so rooting for her. I’m always watching for those artists that come out and take those first initial steps in their careers, because it is a very tough business,” Aglukark said.

After the Feb. 28 launch in Gravenhurst, the tour continues through Ontario cities such as Ottawa, Oakville and Sarnia before heading west to Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Aglukark will continue her celebration in late April in British Columbia. The final stretch of the tour will see her visit several communities across Newfoundland and Labrador as well as Nova Scotia, concluding in Summerside, P.E.I., on May 25.

The four-time Juno winner and officer of the Order of Canada won’t perform in the North on this tour, but on Feb. 1 she played a free concert in Arviat.

Aglukark is also writing her memoir.

“I’m very close to 60. I’m ready to tell that story,” she said.

“When I understood what I was born into in terms of intergenerational trauma, that was a huge piece of calm in my body that I settled into. And so I wanted to share that.”

Reflecting on her own life, she said: “Thirty years ago, I had no choice but to leave and start over. I couldn’t live safely in a community where my abuser still resided. What I left behind wasn’t a community, it was an environment of crisis. That’s why I feel I’m ready to tell my story now.”

Aglukark said her memoir will recount her past and explore the tools and resources that helped her heal over time.

She said she feels immense gratitude for the support she’s received so far in the days leading up to the tour.

“I’m really excited to reconnect with the fan base I first encountered in my early years. It’s humbling to see so many continue to respond,” Aglukark said.

“What I hope people leave the concert with is knowing that we can recover and heal enough to discover and begin to live our best lives, whatever those best lives are.”

We asked former NWT MLAs to evaluate an "independent caucus" pitched by current politicians. Ex-MLAs' perspectives depend on how they see consensus government.

Fort Smith's town council approved a 6.5% property tax increase "to ensure fiscal sustainability." Some councillors are already looking to the next budget.

For years, the Tłı̨chǫ Community Services Agency has brought in paramedics to work in Behchokọ̀. That violates the rights of other workers, an arbitrator ruled.

This weekend, a Yellowknife orchestra will provide live accompaniment as painters and dancers tell a story about the northern lights.

The Inuvik Fire Department said nobody was hurt after a major fire at a building on the town's Industrial Road on Wednesday night.

"Our goal is to establish a Queer Market Space." The Northern Mosaic Network plans to support 2SLGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs with a training course and mentorship.

Hannah Lafferty is charged with dangerous driving causing death after 30-year-old Germaine Mantla was struck near Bison Hill Apartments in Yellowknife in April 2022.

We all vote for different reasons. We want to hear yours. Apply here to share why you feel so passionately about that issue on CBC North.

The coordinator of a program that offers free prenatal and post-natal support for families in Dawson City, Yukon, says demand for the program is growing, while its funding is not keeping pace.

Hanley is the first candidate who's been nominated by his party to run in Yukon the next federal election, which could happen as early as this spring. 

A representative of a technology company working closely with a regional Inuit association says the most important thing to ask when consulting with a community is, “What do you need?”

Don’t tell them what they can do, said Joshua Kilabuk Stribbell, head of strategic partnerships for Ampere.

“A big part of that is also two-way learning,” he said.

“So it’s not just about designing or looking at a project in two different ways. It’s also understanding that there are two ways of learning together.”

Kilabuk Stribbell spoke Wednesday at the Aqsarniit Trade Show and Conference in Ottawa during a session that addressed using digital resources to create opportunities for Inuit employment and skills development.

Also on the panel were Kent Driscoll, Ampere’s communications director, Kris Mullaly of Qikiqtani Inuit Association and Abbie Hodder of Women in Resource Development.

Kilabuk Stribbell, who is Inuk, noted an important part of the work Ampere does to connect with Inuit communities is the incorporation of what he called two-eyed seeing and two-way learning.

Two-eyed seeing involves viewing the world through both an Indigenous lens and a western lens and combining them into one greater perspective.

Two-way learning promotes a reciprocal relationship between teaching and learning, while giving equal value to community knowledge in decision making.

Ampere — which until late last year was known as the Pinnguaq Association — has been working closely with the Qikiqtani Inuit Association to develop technology-based educational programming for hamlets across the region.

Ampere is a non-profit organization with a mandate to work beside rural, remote, Indigenous communities to support the development of STEAM education.

STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and math.

“Our partners are equals, ‘nothing about us without us’ is a guiding principle,” Kilabuk Stribbell said.

The four-day Aqsarniit trade show wrapped up Thursday at Rogers Centre Ottawa.

RCMP say a 27-year-old is accused of assault with a weapon, uttering threats, mischief and other firearms offences after an incident in Ndilǫ on Wednesday.

Austin Moore and Ikeda Lafferty, who were arrested for failing to appear in court earlier this week as witnesses, testified before the N.W.T. Supreme Court on Wednesday about what they saw nearly three years ago. 

A ground search is taking place in the vicinity of Inuvik following the disappearance of a 32-year-old reportedly not seen in nearly two weeks.

French anthropologist and ethnolinguist Bernard Saladin d’Anglure, known for his extensive work studying Inuit culture and spirituality in Nunavik and Nunavut, died Feb. 12 in Toulouse, France.

He was 88.

D’Anglure came to Canada for the first time at 19 years of age with the help of a bursary and grand ambitions to discover Inuit culture, according to a biography from the University of Quebec in Montreal, where he earned a master’s degree in anthropology in 1964.

After arriving in Schefferville, Que., by train, he jumped on a plane and visited many Nunavik villages, starting with Quaqtaq.

Lisa Koperqualuk, now president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, was once a student at University of Laval’s anthropology department. D’Anglure had interviewed her grandfather in her home community of Puvirnituq, she said, and he was thrilled that she would enrol in anthropology.

“It was pretty amazing how he entered the Inuit world and how much incredible respect he showed,” Koperqualuk said.

“It manifested in the way he interacted with us as individual Inuit, always asking who our parents are, what our name is, and always showing us that strength and that positive aspect of being Inuit.”

She said she remembers how he would leave notebooks for Inuit knowledge holders to write what they knew and send back to him. He quickly learned to speak fluently through these connections, she said.

“He has done incredible knowledge gathering in Nunavik, and in Igloolik as well” where he researched his book, Koperqualuk said.

Most of these recordings and notebooks from over the years are kept now at the Avataq Cultural Institute in Montreal.

“He had an incredible memory, he would remember every story that Inuit told him,” Koperqualuk said of d’Anglure, adding he would even remember every Inuit name.

Lisa Koperqualuk, left, talks with Bernard Saladin d’Anglure when she last saw him at his Paris home in 2023. (Photo courtesy of Lisa Koperqualuk)

During her own studies in anthropology, she found herself reading d’Anglure’s work over and over again, about Inuit spirituality, shamanism, gender norms and the fact that many Inuit remembered being in the uterus before their birth.

“It was a fascinating look into our spiritual world, and our way of understanding,” she said.

D’Anglure’s book, Inuit Stories of Being and Rebirth: Gender, Shamanism and the Third Sex, “was very influential in not just for us as Inuit, but also to the outside world in his sharing of our understanding,” she said.

Koperqualuk and d’Anglure sometimes met for discussions that would often evolve into him reciting tales of his adventures.

“He had so much to tell, we could listen and listen without getting bored because of all the incredible details he could remember,” she said.

In 1974, d’Anglure launched the Inuksiutiit Katimajiit Association, a non-profit organization with the goal to return documentation, data and research about the Inuit, to the Inuit.

In 1977, he launched a scientific publication called Études Inuit Studies, which is still published twice a year.

D’Anglure also helped Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk translate the first Inuktitut-language novel ever published, called Sanaaq.

Premier RJ Simpson announced a new "senior envoy to the Government of Canada." He also appointed a chief of staff in what amounts to an organizational shift.

Archeological and environmental studies over the summer will help determine the cost estimate for a proposed Iqaluit hydroelectric plant that could replace all of the city’s diesel-generated electricity.

“This project can bring about transformational change and can truly empower a thriving community,” said Heather Shilton of Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corp. during a panel discussion Wednesday at the Aqsarniit Trade Show and Conference in Ottawa.

The corporation is a subsidiary of Qikiqtaaluk Corp. and has been leading the project since 2022.

The plant could be operational by 2033. It would include an approximately 50-metre-high dam and powerhouse built along the Kuugaluk River, about 60 kilometres northeast of Iqaluit, the project plan says.

Hydroelectric power generation uses moving water to turn turbines, which spin to produce electricity.

If successful, the hydroelectric plant would provide power for at least 100 years, generating 15 megawatts of electricity a year. Iqaluit currently requires 10 to 11 megawatts.

The price of the project is yet to be estimated, but in 2017, Johnny Mike, who was at the time Nunavut’s minister responsible for Qulliq Energy Corp. when the public utility was considering the hydro option, told the legislative assembly it could cost “well over $300 million, even approaching $500 million.”

During his visit to Iqaluit in February, Northern Affairs Minister Gary Anandasangaree announced $7 million in funding to conduct research.

Anandasangaree didn’t commit to federal funding to build the project, but said the federal government will be there “every step of the way.”

Shilton emphasized in her speech the importance of hydroelectricity to Nunavut’s energy security and climate action.

Iqaluit currently burns 15 million litres of diesel fuel per year at its generators, which accounts for 19 per cent of Nunavut’s entire demand.

Southern companies transport diesel to the North, making its price tag “subject to the volatility of global oil markets,” Shilton said, adding that consumers depend on geopolitical forces that are “far outside of our control.”

“It represents an economic model that once made sense and allowed Nunavut to grow early on, but I don’t think it will enable Nunavut to thrive,” she said.

Shilton spoke along with Anne Raphaëlle Audouin from Nukik Corp., Joë Lance of Tarquti Energy Inc. and Jamie Hewlett from Nunatsiavut Government with around 200 trade show delegates attending.

The relationship between Inuit and the Government of Canada has shifted greatly over the past decade, five leaders from Inuit organizations and governments said Wednesday in Ottawa.

Makivvik Corp. president Pita Aatami, Nunavut Tunnagvik Inc. CEO Kilikvak Kabloona, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami legal affairs director William David, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs deputy minister Valerie Gideon and Nunatsiavut Government deputy minister Isabella Pain spoke of how unity across the four Inuit regions, shared priorities between governments and the establishment of Inuit-led policies are contributing to that positive transformation.

The five were participating in a panel discussion at the Aqsarniit Trade Show and Conference being held this week at the Rogers Centre.

Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, served as moderator.

“Over the past 10 years, specifically with Inuit, there’s been a push towards unity at the national level, which takes a fair amount of courage to balance regional priorities as well as national priorities,” said David, with ITK, the national organization representing Inuit in Canada.

“Similarly, from the federal government there’s been a lot of courage in terms of working with Inuit nationally as well as Inuit treaty organizations bilaterally to both identify and then mobilize community priorities in a way that’s not divisive.”

Aatami spoke about the importance of taking a different approach to funding from the federal government, especially for Inuit who face a higher cost of living in the North.

“I’ve always made it clear to governments that whatever happens in the North, the economy also benefits the southern economy because everything is produced from the south,” he said.

“I’m hoping this will continue whatever government comes into power, whether it’s the Liberals or the Conservatives.”

Aatami noted that with the Liberal government, Inuit have been part of discussions and decision-making for themselves for what should happen.

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree announced earlier this month a new directive to integrate the Inuit Nunangat Policy into federal decision-making.

Kabloona, with NTI, said she hopes the directive will provide additional guidance for the federal government and there will be more consistency in the application of the policy.

The trade show, which opened Monday, runs until Thursday.

Makivvik Corp. president Pita Aatami spoke of Inuit empowerment Wednesday at the Aqsarniit Trade Show and Conference in Ottawa.

“It sounds funny when [U.S. President Donald] Trump talks about renaming the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of America,” he said.

But he pointed out that Nunavik Inuit are doing much the same thing by renaming lakes previously named by Europeans.

This work is done by Nunavik Geomatics, a consulting firm that provides state-of-the-art mapping and spatial analysis services, one of the many companies he mentioned in his speech that are under the umbrella of Makivvik, the Inuit rights-holding organization in Nunavik.

Aatami was giving a keynote speech at the conference, which is being held Monday to Thursday at Rogers Centre Ottawa.

He also pointed to airlines as a means for Inuit to take ownership of transportation in the North, with both Air Inuit and Canadian North being owned and a subsidiary to Makivvik, respectively.

“It is my taxi, my ambulance, my bus — [air travel] is extremely important for us,” he said, adding that Kuujjuaq is the second-busiest airport in a small community in Quebec.

Another avenue Aatami said Makivvik is exploring is clean energy, with Tarquti Energy Inc. being Makivvik’s branch in developing community-driven sustainable energy projects in Nunavik communities.

He announced that two windmill projects are approaching completion, one in Quaqtaq and the other in Puvirnituq.

“We created these kinds of businesses to have expertise,” he said, adding, “We have to be creative, we didn’t wait around for people.”

The Canada Infrastructure Bank is loaning the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation $100 million to develop a natural gas well that is expected to provide the region with fossil fuel and synthetic diesel for more than 50 years. 

Since his election, President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed support for a major natural gas pipeline in Alaska — comments that have drawn fresh attention to a project that's floundered for years despite support from state leaders.

Nunavut MLAs will be back in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday, as the winter sitting gets underway. It will run for three weeks, until Mar. 11.

The North West Co. has been accused of misusing federal subsidies that were supposed to bring down grocery prices in the North, which the company says isn’t true.

Last week, lawyers representing multiple current and former residents of Nunavut filed documents in Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench asking that a class action lawsuit be certified.

The plaintiffs claim that North West Co., a Winnipeg-based multinational grocery and retail company which operates stores in northern communities, in western provinces and in northern territories, kept portions of funding that it had received from the federal Nutrition North Canada program.

According to the federal government, the Nutrition North Canada program was launched in 2011 to make perishable and nutritious foods more accessible and more affordable to residents in eligible isolated northern communities that don’t have year-round road, rail or marine access.

Through the program, registered retailers in the North can apply for a subsidy based on the weight of eligible foods shipped by air to eligible northern communities.

The feds say those subsidies are to be passed on to northern consumers by “appropriate reductions” in the selling prices of eligible foods.

The lawsuit states that between 2018 and 2021 North West received more than $163 million in subsidies from the program and that the company did not appropriately pass those savings on to consumers.

“Despite making representations that it complies with the requirement to pass through the entire subsidy to consumers, and despite making a commitment to do so as a condition of receiving the subsidy, the North West Co. has instead unlawfully retained millions of dollars of funding received through the program,” the lawsuit alleges.

The suit calls for the company to return “misappropriated” federal funding to its “intended beneficiaries.”

The lawsuit also claims that because grocery prices were not appropriately reduced as required when companies receive the federal funding, that led to poorer health outcomes in northern communities including, “increased rates of malnutrition, obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other morbidities associated with unhealthy diets, as well as increased rates of depression and suicidal ideation.”

Since being launched in 2011, the Nutrition North Canada program has handed out more than $1 billion in subsidies.

A North West Co. spokesperson denied the allegations made in the lawsuit.

“The North West Co. works with Nutrition North Canada, and fully participates with third-party audits, ensuring 100 per cent of the funds are passed along,” the spokesperson said in an email to The Winnipeg Sun. “In this, The North West Co. has passed all audits, meeting the obligation of having 100 per cent of subsidies passed onto the consumer. We remain committed to this.”

The spokesperson added, “The Nutrition North program partially offsets the costs of bringing food to the north — but on its own, it is not enough. There are still substantial cost drivers in the north due to the lack of infrastructure, the high cost of materials and operations, and inflation.

“We want Northern communities to thrive and we want to work with all parties to help make that possible.”

Dave Baxter is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

A new gas plant expected to provide decades of fuel to Inuvialuit communities will be partly paid for through a $100-million loan from a Crown corporation.

Yellowknifers are told to expect "increased military flying activities" around the city as Norad begins a training exercise on Thursday.

The latest NWT water level data suggests signs of a recovery in some places, though not all. How the spring melt will affect things remains a major unknown.

A major annual military exercise to test the Canadian Armed Forces in the "harshest conditions" is about to take place around locations like Inuvik and Tuk.