13 January 2007

A Jewel in the Crown...

...of Aboriginal affairs...
-- Just seven years into the much-heralded creation of Canada's third territory, Nunavut is racked by violence, with rates of homicide, assault, robbery, rape and suicide stunningly above the national average.
It's hard to get official figures on how widespread substance addiction and problems such as domestic abuse are in the community because the head of the wellness centre isn't allowed to speak to reporters.
Could it possibly have something to do with the total breakdown of any sort of family structure?
-- Even after midnight during a weekday, many children can be spotted roaming through the town, which sees less than five hours of daylight and temperatures often hovering between -30 and -50 during January.
“I don't know,” an eight-year-old Inuit girl said, when asked where her parents were.
Maybe things could be improved if we dropped the "politically correct" way the media covers anything related to the aboriginal community. 

  It sure couldn't hurt.