‘We’re left behind’: Inuit mine worker blasts COVID-19 rules keeping him from job – Nunatsiaq News
Feb 4, 2022
For the better portion of the last two years, Rankin Inlet resident Kumanaa Autut has been at home instead of working at the Meadowbank mine.
In his place are rotational workers from the south, while the Government of Nunavut keeps territorial residents away from the mines due to COVID-19. Autut, 67, doesn’t think that’s fair.
“The gold mine is at my house, it’s on my land,” Autut said. “My land, my gold.”
The mine, operated by Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd., first sent Nunavummiut staff home in March 2020 and, most recently, on Dec. 24, after a dozen cases were confirmed across the company’s three Nunavut mine sites: Meliadine, Meadowbank and the Hope Bay property.
