Around the world, there are literally millions of people who want to be Canadians.
Education, Culture and Employment Minister Caitlin Cleveland has indicated she is very interested in ramping up efforts to bring more newcomers to the North.
This is good news, because I don’t see how we’re going to fill our labour gap otherwise. Canadians are, generally speaking, spoiled by the lavish lifestyles their placing in the birth lottery has afforded them. But newcomers may not be so fortunate and are prepared to go the extra mile to build community where it is needed.
Our economy is in a vicious cycle — if you can’t get consistent basic services up here, you’re not going to get consistent basic services up here. Few established Canadians want to set up a practice and raise a family in a community where they’re limited in what the family can do. Certainly volunteer groups around town pull out all the stops to provide kids a means to play hockey, softball and soccer, as well as pursue other interests, such as swimming, judo, sewing or traditional Inuvialuit and Gwich’in cultural activities like hunting, drum dancing and Northern games. But if your kids are interested in gymnastics, modern dance or track and field, you’re likely to set up shop elsewhere. If they’re not raising a family, chances are people are only going to be in a position for a set timeline before moving on elsewhere to spend their earnings, and that’s assuming you’re actually making enough to offset the higher cost of living and actually save some money.
These incentives don’t appear to be enough. Health Minister Lesa Semmler noted in the legislative assembly last month that the GNWT has been trying to find a dentist to operate the Inuvik clinic for months. No one has applied, meaning no one wants to do it, at least for the amount of money on the table.
So how do we attract people and get them to stay? Money is probably our most abundant incentive, but to account for the added cost of shipping goods North, plus the higher costs of food and services, the financial premium for working in the North is probably quite wanting. The next logical step is to look to the primary source of the North’s money — that being Ottawa — and ask for more.
Now, the federal government already drops $2 billion a year into the GNWT. With the NWT Bureau of Statistics putting the population at 44,760, that comes out to roughly $44,682.75 per Northerner. So any ask we take to the feds is going to be weighed with that in mind. Beyond that, exactly how much money you would need to offer to convince someone in suburban Calgary, Toronto or elsewhere who already hates spending almost half the year in winter to move somewhere they get three more months of winter is a mystery.
Seeing opportunities
Moving more government offices to Northern communities, such as bringing the Canadian International Arctic Centre to Inuvik, would force this issue somewhat by requiring government employees to live in the community to create a demand for more services — if you can find someone willing to work under those conditions. The trend seems to be the opposite, however, with many organizations paying people to work remotely from down south because the other option is essential work in management, organizing or accounting not getting done at all.
People coming to Canada to start new lives are far less picky and are able to see opportunities where established Northerners may see nothing. If there’s a lack of a particular service, rather than complain about it and move to a more populous area, a family new to Canada may seize upon an opportunity to establish themselves by providing it. Here in the Beaufort Delta, this model for success has played time and time again. Perhaps most importantly, once new Canadians have established a secure place in the North, they typically stay put.
Inuvik’s diverse population may be the template the NWT needs to break its downward economic spiral. Already the Midnight Sun Mosque operates the Arctic Food Bank bimonthly and runs many other charitable programs in town. Inuvik’s Filipino community is well established and active in both the volunteer and business culture of the town. Volunteer-run events in the community are bolstered by the help of people whose ancestry points towards the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. Inuvik is proof the peoples of the world can get along and thrive.
By bringing newcomers to the North, to the larger centres like Inuvik, Hay River and Fort Smith, we’re not only giving people the chance to build new lives but also new industries, new services and opportunities. We should be emphasizing newcomers to the North not only have an opportunity to join Canada, but to help build it and make it even better.
Ottawa has a role to play in this as well: rather than ramping up spending (though we’ll take that too!) the case could be made for finding ways equivalent education can be used for employment, so people who are fully functional doctors aren’t forced to find labour jobs in Canada. Supports to fill any educational gaps to work in Canada could also help this.
Among the eight billion humans alive, there has to be at least one dentist that can be convinced to live and work in Inuvik. We just need to find him, her or them.