Nunavut MLAs concerned about territory’s high birth rate, taboo around accessing reproductive health services – Nunatsiaq News
“If we are not preparing, we are going to be hit like a tsunami”
25 February 2020
Two Nunavut MLAs recently voiced their concerns about Nunavut’s growing population and the reasons behind it.
Nunavut has the highest birth rate in Canada. At 22.6 per cent live births per 1,000 people in 2018, Nunavut’s birth rate is double the national average of 10.1 per cent.
“The birth of a baby is great news, but what are they all going to do?” Cathy Towtongie, MLA for Rankin Inlet North–Chesterfield Inlet, said on Feb. 20 during the legislative assembly’s committee of the whole review of the 2020-21 budget for the Department of Health.
“We have a chronic housing shortage and we do have a social net income support, but into the long-term vision, when I ask Nunavummiut, I get concerned because I see children becoming parents while they’re children and being unable to parent at that time and getting into relationships when they’re not prepared,” Towtongie told the committee.
