As a mother who has raised hunters, a main gun safety rule has always been ‘never, ever point a gun at a person.’
Yesterday the RCMP pointed four high powered weapons at one of my sons who had left our home to go hunting with his gun and gear slung on his back.
The Nunavut Agreement recognizes that Inuit are traditional and current users of wildlife and the legal rights of Inuit to harvest wildlife flow from our traditional and current use.
This means that people are going to move through the community with guns on their backs
People carrying guns are extremely common in the areas of the beaches, causeway and breakwater as they access the ocean, our highway to wildlife.
Someone had just left my neighbour’s with a gun.
Responsible gun owners remove the bolts when transporting, which my son did.
First the RCMP claimed that there were reports of my son pointing his rifle at people in this “exact area”
It was only after several q’s from me that it whittled down to “he matches the description. The person was wearing camo pants, which everyone here does”
BTW It was at DJ’s
My beautiful son just happened to have the misfortune of walking out of our home at the wrong time.
He was calm and compliant, and was allowed to leave in time to catch his boat before the tide went out.
I can’t even begin to describe how terrifying it was to see these people point their guns at my child.
There has to be a better way than this. Not everyone can remain calm in this situation, and this is why people die.
Pointing guns at people shouldn’t be the go to.
At 16, I watched my grandfather talk to a man with a gun for over an hour while my grandmother freaked out.
Ataatak went w/o a weapon, waived the RCMP off, &just sat and talked until the man handed his rifle over.
Ten or 15 minutes later, it was over.
Not a single gun pointed.
The officer that I interacted with suggested to me that it might not have gone down the way it did if my son had been using a rifle case.
I don’t know if there’s any truth to that, but I recommend that to all my hunter friends & mutuals going forward.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
My 73 year old mum was medivac’d to Ottawa today in order to have a diagnostic procedure that is normally available in Iqaluit.
(I’m on leave from Director, Travel Programs, Health. Sharing info that’s public knowledge)
The cost of a single medivac can be upwards of $40,000
In 2019 the Health department forecasted 2,400 medevacs for coming year, based on that growth.
That’s compared to about 33,000 planned medical travel trips planned for the year.
The territory’s proposed budget overall Medical Travel budget was $92.3 million.
The current..
..state of emergency in Iqaluit has impacted our only hospital’s ability to provide my mum’s urgently required procedure because the equipment that is needed can not be safely sterilized due to the fuel in the water..
15 y/o in grade 11 missed his bus again.
Teens in Iqaluit start school earliest, which makes no sense bc Teens=sleep and bc of their role as caregivers to younger family. How many are late bc they can’t leave younger sibs & how many just don’t show up bc it’s too cold to walk?
Breakfast is available to everyone every day, lunch on Tuesday and Thursdays.
Hunger is the reason why many kids are motivated to attend school.
For some, school is the only place they can access food every day.