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i read every single post here thats my job. lolActually no, but I guess you do not follow my posts. A little story, back in grade 8 we had a social studies teacher tell us that breweries are wasteful as they use eight times as much water than goes into a bottle of beer. Not sure if the number was correct but low and behold years latter I worked for the local one. One thing the teacher did not mention was that 95% of the glass was reused and the cartons were recycled. The teacher had no clue at what goes into producing a box of beer, at the time the breweries were one of the few industries that actually did do a good job of reduce, reuse and recycle. And because we reused the bottles a lot of water was used to get them clean so they can be reused. At school we were taught to question information whether it was true or not. In the case of what the teacher told us it was true but left out a lot of information like all the cartons and glass reused and recycled.
Sure some do not have running water. But what is running water? If you have a water truck come and deliver it to your home and you have a pump to pressurize your plumbing does that mean you have running water? Or does running water mean being hooked up to a municipal water supply? Darn hard when you have over 50 communities with a total population under 40,000. I started to put together a reply but then realized to answer your post would take hours to do properly. Part of my post secondary education has to do with water and waste so I have a reasonable idea what goes on. I have also been in building maintenance for over ten years so I get problems involved. I also knew people that would travel up north to build and service the infrastructure. So I may have a slightly different take that a person that just reads news article (not saying you do not know more, it is just an example). It is movie time so I will not add much more, we will see what I had before will fit under 1,000 characters.
“The whole entirety of systems within the territory do not work for Inuit. Clearly, we have some of the highest rates of violence, abuse, deaths. It’s heartbreaking,” Mumilaaq Qaqqaq said last Friday in an interview with Nunatsiaq News."
Nunatsiaq News asked Qaqqaq if the inadequate supply and distribution of housing among Inuit in Nunavut fits the strictest possible definition of systemic racism: structures, policies or practices that produce unequal outcomes.
Absolutely,” she said. “The relationship between the federal government and Inuit has never been good. We have never, ever in the history of that relationship seen adequate housing, ever.”" “I don’t know how else to explain it, but basically some people are living in mould boxes. You can smell it as you enter the home. There are some places where I’m constantly sneezing, and imagine it for people who are living there the whole time, mould in bathrooms and bedrooms,” she said."
The numbers from the Nunavut Housing Corp. support what Qaqqaq observed. For example, a housing needs survey from 2011 done in Gjoa Haven shows that, even then, 57 per cent of occupied dwellings were classified as “crowded.” And 69 per cent—seven in 10—of all occupied dwellings were deemed “below housing standards” in 2011, meaning they were either crowded, in need of major repairs, or both.
And then there are all the other problems that inadequate housing makes worse: respiratory diseases like tuberculosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, various forms of mental distress, family violence and sexual abuse of children. “The whole system keeps Inuit oppressed,”she said.
The annual cost of operating and maintaining a single housing unit is staggering: about $26,000 a year, the housing corporation said in 2016.
For the 2018-19 fiscal year, the GN was able to pay for 91 new units, but in 2019-20, only 83 units. That comes nowhere near to meeting Nunavut’s estimated need for 3,100 new units, representing about 5,000 people, or 2,500 families, who are in need of adequate housing.
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According to the 2016 Census, Nunavut’s population count was 35,944 persons, an increase of 12.7% from the 2011 Census. During this period, Canada’s population count increased by 5.0%. In addition, there were 11,433 private dwellings counted in Nunavut during the 2016 Census.
NU Housing Survey | Government of Nunavut
www.gov.nu.ca
According to Statistics Canada, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are the only jurisdictions in Canada where population increase relies on natural growth rather than immigration.
Communities with the most growth:
- Igloolik, 17.5 per cent
- Coral Harbour, 16.2 per cent
- Arctic Bay, 14.5 per cent
- Sanikiluaq, 14.5 per cent
- Naujaat, 13.2 per cent
Going to be called a racist again, oh well.
So you stick ten people in a house built for a family of four, especially with cold weather, the houses are going to fall apart. Humidity freezes in the insulation and reduces its insulating properties. When the frost melts there is not enough air movement in the walls for the humidity to leave and mold starts to grow. In 2009/10 a survey has 100% of the houses in Nunavut short one or more bedrooms. The population growth is double compared to the rest of Canada. Where Canada's population growth is due to immigration the North and on reserves the population growth is due to having more kids.
My mother had 8 siblings not counting the two babies that died. My father's side had 7, I do not know how many children died, never found out much of that side of the family. On all the aunts and uncles had 2-3 kids (the three due to twins) once they came to Canada. They only had as many kids as they could afford, I did not get my own bedroom before 12 years old, until my grandmother was gone. Yes, we would have had a bedroom for each kid but my brother and I were twins (ran in the family).
Should there have been a sticker on the houses saying exceeding the occupancy limit can cause health effects or the destruction of the house? Not only up north but on many reserves also. And once the houses are condemed the people that lived in them move in with others causing their homes to fall apart also. A slow spiral downward from there.
On running water.
Water infrastructure includes the components necessary to deliver drinking water and water for sanitation to members of the community, such as reservoirs, piped water distribution systems, water pumps and holding tanks, treatment systems, as well as water and sewage trucks. Water infrastructure quality and type determine the nature of community access to drinking water and influence drinking water quality. Water infrastructure in Inuit Nunangat is distinct from most other regions of Canada
Forty-eight of 51 Inuit communities have access to running tap water that is intended for personal consumption, either through piped distributions systems or, more commonly, through trucked water delivered to household water tanks. Households in the Nunatsiavut communities of Makkovik, Rigolet, and Postville are the exception, where residents must secure their own water for personal consumption from Potable Water Dispensing Units located in each community. Although households in Nunatsiavut’s five communities are connected to piped water distribution systems this water is only considered reliably safe for personal consumption in Nain and Hopedale.
There are 10 piped water distribution systems in Inuit Nunangat and they tend to be old and in frequent states of disrepair. The system in Inuvik, Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Northwest Territories includes 16 kilometers of above ground utilidor and less than one kilometer of buried line.
Inuit population 2021: 36,858
With 51 communities and only 37k population, modern water and sewer in tundra or on rock can be a challenge. Because of the cold and not being able to run the lines below a frost line, having water and sewage trucks makes more sense.
