Today, my Innovation professor proudly touted that a portion of the new federal budget is dedicated to funding a university in the Arctic called Inuit Nunangat University. This came as a surprise to me, given that there has been nonstop cuts on postsecondary education in recent years—including in Inuit territory. Aurora College has had to close 19 of its community learning centres this year, and College Nordique in Yellowknife lost 60 per cent of its budget and 50 per cent of its staff this past October. Some communities, like in Nunavik (the northern third of Quebec), have been petitioning the government to build a Cegep (two-year postsecondary school) since the 70s. Suddenly, the government has money for a whole university in the Arctic?? Something smelled fishy. I asked my professor if this had anything to do with Canada’s bid on the Arctic (which has caught the eye of capitalists the world over, with the new mining opportunities presented by the melting ice). To my shock, he confirmed that the government is not hiding the fact that building this university (if it happens) is part of their plan for “Northern sovereignty” (read: plundering of Arctic land)! This university is a “flagpole”, not entirely unlike the High Arctic relocation, when Inuit people were forcibly moved North during the Cold War as “human flagpoles” in an offensive against the U.S.S.R., and suffered extreme privation. While I am of course not against the building of schools, especially in oppressed communities, it sickens me that they are cutting federal funding from *some* Northern schools, and marketing this university as some sort of gift from the federal government, even though the reason for its existence is to be a pawn in the imperialist game over the Arctic!
Niki A., Montreal
