Inuk comedian Nicole Etitiq will be attending Ottawa’s Crackup Comedy Festival in March 2022. Photo by Nicole Etitiq.
The first time Nicole Etitiq set foot on a comedy stage, she was 19 years old. She had just moved back to Iqaluit, Nunavut after having spent her childhood and teenage years in Ottawa. It was Halloween night and she was at an open mic with some friends. In a moment of spontaneity, she got up in front of the crowd and improvised her way through her first set.
That was seven years ago. Today, this haphazard approach has cemented itself as Etitiq’s artistic process.
“I don’t really like to prepare too much because then I’ll start overthinking it and get stressed out,” she laughed, explaining the reasoning behind her resistance to rehearsing any material. “Just telling very real stories that are relatable and embarrassing really helps.”
For Etitiq, “relatable” and “embarrassing” include everything from detailed accounts of online dating in a city where she might accidentally swipe right on a cousin, to sharing her strategies for coexisting with her upstairs neighbour’s very loud sex life.
“I try not to be [political] because I feel like a lot of the time it’s so easy to become political,” Etitiq said. “For me, stand-up is very much energy exchange. When you go up on stage you are giving people a piece of yourself and I think that’s how it makes people laugh the most.”
While she rejects an overtly political approach, her raw and honest use of anecdotes from her personal life indirectly tackles topics of colonialism, racism, the housing crisis and mental health.
At a time when there is increased attention and pressure on Indigenous people to educate the country’s settler community about what their experiences have been, Etitiq is using the spotlight to do something radical. She is taking space to share stories about dating or picking up her Amazon-ordered vibrator at the post office. And it’s being noticed.
“Having Indigenous women, women of colour, women who are at higher risk for sexual violence and at higher risk for going missing, there is an empowerment for sure, to be able to explore that,” said Jenn Hayward, long-time Métis comedian and organizer in Ottawa’s Indigenous comedy community.
She met Etitiq four years ago, when they did a show together, and has been watching Etitiq get comfortable in the spotlight.
Etitiq has been invited to Ottawa’s Crackup Comedy Festival in March, where she will perform at the “Got Land” show alongside other Indigenous comedians from across the country. Aside from a smaller event in Nunavik before the pandemic broke out, this will be the first time she is invited to travel to share her art.
Etitiq performs at Crackup Comedy’s Arctic Comedy Festival in Iqaluit, in October. Photo by Ashley Board.
“Every comedian brings their life experience to the stage,” said John Helmkay, founder and president of Crackup Comedy Festival. “To have Indigenous comedians who grew up in small communities, or in different environments than Toronto or Ottawa, it brings a different perspective.”
As a 26-year-old Inuk woman dreaming of a comedy career, Etitiq has her feet in two worlds. She was born into a community where most women have at least one, if not many children, by her age, and yet she lives in a city where produce prices make avocado toasts as laughable a concept as home ownership.
Etitiq’s experience as a millennial involves the difficult work of reconciling the typical anxieties around what she is going to do with her life with her Inuit culture, that prioritizes community. Weaving together the different strands of influence that shape what she wants for her future is not straightforward.
“I think that it does really feel like two different worlds,” she said.
Through the week, she works as an Inuit employment analyst with the Government of Nunavut, a job that she loves. On weekends, she likes to do absolutely nothing, or as close to nothing as she can get.
This can mean lying around for hours watching TikTok videos, playing Mario Party with her friends or, when she needs a good cry, driving around town in her recently paid-off car to the tune of Adele’s latest album.
Etitiq grew up in Ottawa, away from the community where she was born and where she felt most at home. Her dad moved her south when she was young in order to try to give her a better education.
“It was hard trying to understand my own identity of being Inuk and also living down south,” Etitiq said, explaining that she often struggled with feeling simultaneously “not Inuk enough” for her community in the north and culturally isolated in the south.
In an interview, Etitiq explains what it was like to experience micro-aggressions and field questions about being Indigenous as she was growing up.
Etitiq used humour to process the frequent racist micro-aggressions she experienced.
“It’s the only way I really knew how,” she said. “My dad always jokes that I’ve been making myself laugh since I was a kid.”
As a child, Etitiq said she instinctually turned to humour as a coping mechanism. Now, her relation to it as a tool for healing has become much more deliberate.
“I really think that being able to cry and laugh is super crucial to looking at things in a holistic way,” she said. “Having people laugh, especially when we’re talking about serious things, helps people feel less embarrassed about things. We’re all human, doing human things.”
Nicole Etitiq shares her feelings about why she chose to do a comedy show on Canada’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
In many ways, her embracing of comedy has helped her reconnect with aspects of her culture that had drifted from her when she was in Ottawa.
“I think as Inuit we are very funny in general and kind of make light of a lot of things,” Etitiq reflected. “We’re not too serious when it comes to sexual things traditionally, and I think that was pre-colonialism.”
Etitiq has noticed that her jokes land differently when she’s performing for a non-Inuit audience. She suspects they are less inclined to laugh out of fear of seeming culturally insensitive.
Hayward believes comedy can be effective as a tool for reconciling this guilt and discomfort that Etitiq has experienced in her southern audiences.
“It’s a way for non-Indigenous people to learn about harder concepts in a gentler fashion,” Hayward said. “It sort of humanizes. When you can put a face to it, and you can make someone feel something while you’re putting a face to it, that person is affected.”
While Etitiq also believes that laughter is a powerful in breaking down barriers across cultural differences and is in the process of expanding her content to include more overtly political questions of identity and reconciliation, her loyalties are still to her community.
“For now, this is something that I like to do for fun in my community to uplift the community and uplift myself,” she said. “With the housing crisis, and now Iqaluit has a water crisis, we’re a lot more gentle with each other because we’re all just trying to survive.”Personal anecdotes that also draw attention to the larger systemic issues that shape her life are a staple of Etitiq’s comedic style. Facebook screenshot.
Etitiq uses her comedy to live out the Inuit societal values that were instilled in her by her parents.
“It’s an everyday decision on how you interact with people,” Etitiq explained. “It’s about thinking outside of yourself and trying to work towards what’s best for my community, my family and my friends, and also the connection to the land.”
Etitiq explains why comedy has been so instrumental for her in reconnecting her with her community.
Beyond uplifting her community, Etitiq uses comedy to reconnect with herself.
“Being able to comfortably talk about sex and things that happen in my own experience as an Inuk woman, to me that’s my own step towards decolonization and my own step towards reclaiming my identity as an Inuk.”
Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos announced new restrictions for travellers from seven southern African countries at a press conference on Friday. The government also urged Canadians to avoid travelling to the region. Screenshot is taken from CBC live broadcast.
By Sophie Kuijper Dickson & Adam Beauchemin
Canada will implement travel restrictions to mitigate the spread of the new Omicron coronavirus variant recently detected in South Africa, federal officials announced Friday.
“Emergence of new variants is unfortunately not unexpected,” said Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Dr. Theresa Tam during press conference on Friday, adding that, to date, there are no indications of the variant’s presence in Canada.
Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced Canada will impose restrictions on travel from seven countries in southern Africa: South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini.
The Omicron variant was first detected by South Africa and announced in a press conference Thursday.
While South Africa has seen an acceleration in cases, Tam said it’s too soon to say whether it is because of more relaxed health measures or because the virus has gained a biological advantage.
All Canadians who have arrived in Canada from any of the restricted countries within the past 14 days must remain in isolation until they receive a negative test result.
Canadians arriving from travel-restricted countries will be tested upon arrival and asked to quarantine until they produce a second negative test. Foreign nationals will be prohibited from entering the country if they have been in any of the seven restricted nations within 14 days.
Duclos noted the number of travellers Canada has been receiving from the restricted nations is small, an estimated average of 50 people day, which he said will allow the government to closely monitor the isolation and testing of those individuals.
While officials only announced restrictions on seven countries, Alghabra stated the government has not ruled out the possibility of adding more measures as events unfold.
Tam explained this variant is of significant concern because of the high number of mutations it contains, which may cause increased transmissibility as well as a weakened immune response among carriers.
However, she emphasized there is still not enough information on the nature of this variant to fully understand its potential impact.
“We know very little about this variant right now including how transmissible it is and whether it increases severity of illness or what the impact is on the vaccine,” Tam said, adding the vaccine is still the most important and effective means of protection against all strains.
“There are still approximately three million Canadians, 12 years and older, who haven’t received a single dose of vaccine,” Duclos said, urging Canadians to get vaccinated now.
Staffing has long been an issue for the construction sector, but 2021 has seen an even greater increase in job vacancies. Photo by Lilian Fridfinnson.
Staffing long been a challenge for the construction industry, but one Ottawa-based business owner says staffing jobs has become increasingly difficult over the last year.
“Finding the competent staff is the most important,” said Sal Idone, who owns Millennium Masonry Ltd. “As you win more contracts, the workload increases […] you go out and start searching for employees.
“What we’re finding is nothing too good.”
The decrease in available, skilled construction workers makes hiring within the field more difficult. Some employers offer pay increases and free lunches to appeal to workers, but other employers can’t keep up, said Idone.
“It’s not the easiest line of work. People tend to go for the easier, posh jobs that aren’t so physically demanding. However, not all of us can earn our living that way.”
The job market in Canada is becoming increasingly stressed, according to a September Stats Canada report, which shows significant job vacancy increases in the construction sector.
The report cited a 46.7 per cent increase in construction vacancies over two years in specialty trades such as masonry, painting, carpentry, and electrical work.
Ontario was second only to Quebec in job vacancies, with a 24.1 per cent increase between 2019 and 2021.
To close the labour gap, the province of Ontario has released its Skilled Trades Strategy—a plan to invest an additional $90 million into funding apprenticeships for youth.
The provincial government will also invest $20 million annually to provide more opportunities for students, including 63 recruiters across 800 schools to introduce trades at an early age.
A Nov. 24 press release by the Ontario government described the program as a step toward addressing a projected labour shortage of 100,000 construction workers in Ontario over the next decade.
“The industry as a whole is finding challenges,” said John Devries, president of the Ottawa Construction Association.
Despite a significant 7.3 per cent increase in building construction investment in the second quarter of 2021, job vacancies in the sector have persisted, and recruitment of skilled employees is a top obstacle for construction businesses.
“They all want people who can hit the road running. They want someone that has 10 years [of] experience,” Devries said.
Samuel Singer is an assistant professor at the faculty of law at the University of Ottawa. Image credit: Website of the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law – Common Law Section
Trans-rights scholars and advocates stepped up their criticism of Canada’s legal landscape on Friday, acknowledging the fight for basic human rights has created “huge fatigue.”
The panel discussion, hosted by the University of Ottawa’s Public Law Centre, comes at a time of heightened controversy after the Québec government introduced a bill seeking to limit the ability to change sex identification documents to only those who have undergone gender-confirmation surgery.
D.T., a law student, said having to constantly fight for basic human rights is exhausting.
“This comes with huge fatigue,” they said. “This takes a toll on the mental health and the resilience of the people who are directly concerned.”
Many trans-rights advocates hope to get rid of the discrepancies that exist between creating legislation and actually applying it.
“The people who put pen to paper for policies do not consult, do not consult properly and do not know who to consult,” said William Hébert, an assistant professor in the faculty of public affairs at Carleton University.
“Policy-makers and those who enforce those policies are not the same people, and there is a lot of tension there,” Hébert said.
As advocates continue to fight for their rights to be recognized by policy-makers, D.T. said they are worried trans people are trapped within a stereotype of vulnerability.
“[Trans people] have to show and explain their suffering so the law can change and so decision makers can become their allies and sympathize with them,” D.T. said, specifying this is the only way the community will receive the legal changes it needs.
Samuel Singer, an assistant professor at the faculty of law at the University of Ottawa, acknowledged that leadership needs to be informed by trans peoples’ expertise.
“There is an expression in trans advocacy communities I think probably exists in many other contexts – nothing about us without us,” he said.
One example of such leadership could be seen in Thursday’s appointment of Amita Kuttner as the interim leader of the federal Green Party. Kuttner, an astrophysicist and former candidate for B.C.’s Burnaby-North Seymour riding, is the first trans leader of a federal party.
Amita Kuttner, the interim leader of the federal Green Party. Image credit: Creative Commons
For trans people to succeed, D.T. said allyship efforts need to create opportunities.
“If someone has enough privilege to be in a place where they can give up a little bit of their [authority] to create some space for a rising trans star or for any rising trans person, then do it,” they said.
“Trans people will prove worthy of the trust that you put in them, but you just need to trust in them first.”
Colton Harris, pictured outside his family home in Whitby, Ont., is a first-year student at Algonquin College. Harris said he wishes he could go back to in-person class. “I miss the human connection,” he said. Photo credit: Cindi Harris.
Nothing about Colton Harris’s life looks sad. He is expecting a friend in an hour whom he met on Snapchat. But, pacing through his spacious apartment in Nepean, the friendly 18-year-old said he felt lonely.
“A lot of people don’t understand why I feel lonely,” he said, while making a protein shake.
Harris moved to Ottawa in September from Whitby, Ont. to study fitness and health promotion at Algonquin College. He is one of the many young adults in Canada who report feeling lonely and isolated, and the pandemic has only exacerbated the issue.
According to a 2020 Angus Reid Institute survey, 63 per cent of 18 to 34-year-old Canadian men experienced loneliness and isolation, compared to 53 per cent of women.
Loneliness is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to Vivek Murthy, former U.S. Surgeon General.
Loneliness can manifest in different ways with different people, often in the form of anger, fatigue, depression, or anxiety, Murthy wrote in his best-selling 2020 book Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World.
And research shows people who are lonely are often ashamed to admit it.
Harris says his condition deteriorated since June when his relationship with his girlfriend came to an end. “I feel lonely and depressed even when I’m around people,” Harris said.
“When I moved to Ottawa, I had no one to talk to. I miss my family and my dog Cali, a goldendoodle. She kept me calm. When I did not want to talk to anyone, I would take a walk with her.”
He said he also misses his girlfriend.
“I use Tinder and Snapchat to socialize with girls. I crave a sense of affection,” he said. “I thought they care about me. They don’t.”
One of the reasons Harris said he feels lonely is because there aren’t a lot of things he can do because of COVID-19 restrictions.
“With the pandemic continuing, I have less and less to keep myself busy. I used to play baseball. It kept me sane. But there are no sporting facilities nearby. I just go to the mall and walk around.”
Harris has seen a counsellor, but says he didn’t like it. “I would rather talk to my friends than a stranger.”
The paradox of social media
There are several reasons for high rates of loneliness in young adults. Perhaps most prominent is the age group’s heavy use of social media.
Candace Konnert, a psychology professor at the University of Calgary, said social media use is related to loneliness in young adults. “If you are constantly viewing persons who are popular and socially integrated, then that’s going to, by comparison, make you feel lonely,” she said.
University of Calgary psychology professor Candace Konnert, pictured in her office, says loneliness can be prevented by taking measures early on. Photo credit: David H. Brown.
Konnert added a supporting environment is important.
“I am talking about family and friends and the extent to which they support you on a day-to-day basis,” she said. “It’s not so much objective support as it is subjective support — knowing that you can go to them if you need to talk about something.”
“Addiction could lead to less social support which could aggravate loneliness. But loneliness is a reason why people self-medicate. The relationship between loneliness and addiction is extremely complicated. It’s a circular relationship where one affects the other,” Konnert said.
A 2018 study by the Toronto Foundation found Toronto downtowners are less likely to feel their neighbourhoods are supportive of them. Across the city, young people aged 25 to 29 exhibited the lowest levels of social capital.
“People in this age group are busy establishing their careers, university students are often on their own for the first time and a task they face is to find partners,” Konnert said.
Tackling loneliness through community programs
Louis Keran, 18, moved to Ottawa from France in August to study communication and political science at the University of Ottawa.
“Most of my courses are online. It’s difficult to meet people. Some mornings when I wake up, there is no one to talk to. I just watch TV or play video games,” he said. “I feel lonely.”
Louis Keran plays video game in his Ottawa apartment. The 18-year-old moved to the city in August. “Sometimes I feel like I have no one to talk to,” he said. Photo credit: Amitava Kar
Keran played basketball in France, but hasn’t found a similar outlet in his new city. “There is an outdoor court nearby but it’s too cold to play. I wish there were more outdoor activities.”
Recent research shows participation in outdoor activities such as neighborhood walks, cycling and visiting local parks improves mental health and well-being. Taking part in these activities exposes people to nature, physical activity and social interactions that can have multiple health benefits.
Konnert emphasized the need to tackle loneliness at an early age.
“We have to take the long view. We know that kids who feel lonely are going to suffer loneliness as adults. That’s why each child must have access to facilities that they need to thrive,” Konnert said. “Some schools have come up with buddy programs and friendship circles. These kinds of social infrastructures for youth services are critical for targeting loneliness in young adults.”
One way to prevent loneliness is to look for early signs, she added. “We have to train family physicians, pediatrician and employers to identify warning signs.”
Social distancing predates the pandemic
Social changes related to family relationships are also affecting loneliness in young people
Young adults are seeing their friends and family less due to social distancing protocols. Millennials are more likely to say they have no close friends or have at least one best friend, according to YouGov.
But this problem existed well before the pandemic.
According to a report, 26 per cent of Canadians saw their family a few times a week in 2017, down from 38 per cent since 2003. Canadians also saw friends less frequently. One-person households are now the most common household type. In 2016, about 32 per cent of those living alone were separated or divorced, nearly triple the rate in 1981.
Others blame the decline of community and collectivism. Former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed once famously denounced what he called “the Americanization” of Canadian society, which “imposed an un-Canadian individualism on Canadian ethics.”
The American sociologist Robert A. Nisbet, in his 1953 book The Quest for Community described community as one of the powerful needs of human nature. But community is in decline, Nisbet argued.
Last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau created a new ministerial post to address mental health and addiction. Other countries have made similar moves. In 2018, the UK government appointed the world’s first minister of loneliness.
“The appointment of a federal minister [of mental health and addiction] raises the profile of the issue, but it does not guarantee success. These are generational issues. It’s a collective responsibility of everyone. What government can do is to mobilize people and set the tone,” said John Wilkins, a professor of public policy at York University who served 32 years in the Canadian public service prior to teaching.
While some classes are still online, his university is welcoming students back to in-person classes. “My students are back in class. But they are choosing not to participate,” Wilkins said. “They have withdrawn themselves.”
Back in Ottawa, most of Harris’s classes are also online, which means he spends hours alone in his apartment staring at a computer screen, instead of getting out and meeting people.
