Nunavut comissioner urges anti-litter campaign

IQALUIT — Nunavut’s commissioner, Peter Irniq, wants the territory to adopt a new slogan: “Keep Nunavut Clean.”

“Ontario has ‘Yours to Discover,’ Quebec has ‘Je me souviens’ and Alberta’s is ‘Wild Rose Country.’ I think we should have something like ‘Clean Nunavut Now,’” Irniq said.

“When I was growing up in Repulse Bay, we had a very clean community. The waste was eaten by the dogs. We don’t have the dogs to eat the waste anymore, so we have to clean it up ourselves.”

– Peter Irniq, Nunavut’s commissioner

Irniq wants to use his influence as commissioner to promote litter control — not only in notoriously filthy Iqaluit, but across the territory.

Irniq said he’s particularly bothered by the garbage he sees on the land.

“When I was growing up in Repulse Bay, we had a very clean community. The waste was eaten by the dogs. We don’t have the dogs to eat the waste anymore, so we have to clean it up ourselves.”

Irniq said he’s stunned by Iqaluit’s trash problem.

“It really, really bothers me. When I’m out paddling in my kayak, I see it on the shore,” Irniq said.

Fed up with the debris around his Tundra Valley home, Irniq and his wife, Marie, put on rubber gloves Sunday afternoon and began gathering garbage.

“It’s everybody’s responsibility,” Irniq said. “We don’t have to wait for the city or the government to do it. It’s our home. We’re proud of it and we want to make sure it’s clean.”

Irniq said unfair to leave Nunavut’s clean up to the next generation.

“When we leave this earth, we have to make sure it’s clean for our children and our grandchildren,” he said.