More than a number: a daughter's search for her Inuit grandmother identified only by digits on a disc under Canada's Eskimo Identification system

What I found most often was that non-Inuit equated the Eskimo Identification Canada system to their own social insurance number or a driver’s licence number, and spoke as though the system was not anything to get upset over. However, it is so very common for the dominant members of any one society to look upon the marginalized and choose not to recognize assimilation, or colonization, or the continued impacts of forced government policy as something to be upset over, simply because it does not effect them in any direct way. After all, the only one thing that Indigenous Canadians are good at is their continued complaining, and wanting to be paid out for policies from long ago. When I would hear that response, the response of, "It’s only a number and we all have a social insurance number," what I would think about is how had I managed to have my audience miss the most important point of what had just been presented to them? Without a disk number, Inuit Canadians were denied access to the same benefits that all other Canadians made daily use of. If you didn’t have your disk or had not memorized that number, or were unable to provide that number, you did not have access to needed medical attention, while all other Canadian citizens freely went to a doctor without having memorized a number. Without a disk number, you were not able to buy goods or trade furs—in other words, no commerce, which meant no food, no supplies, no sugar, no flour, no tobacco. Without a disk number, your children were not sitting in a classroom, because a disk number is what granted your children an entrance to education, the same education that all other Canadian children received without a disk number. Without a disk number, your grandparents were not able to access benefits granted to all other elderly Canadians who did not need a disk number. A social insurance number acts as a form of regulating taxation. It does not act as a number that fulfills the basic needs of living or the basic right to education and healthcare. A disk number did that. Kinauvit?: What’s Your Name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughter’s Search for her Grandmother, by Norma Dunning, is published by Douglas & McIntyre. The book is one of five finalists nominated for this year's Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. Established by the Writers' Trust in honour of the late MP from Windsor, Ont., the $25,000 award is given annually for an exceptional book of literary nonfiction that captures a political subject of relevance to Canadian readers. The award will be handed out in Ottawa on Wednesday, May 10. Two questions for Norma Dunning Why did you write this book? "When I was able to rewrite a master of arts thesis into a book, I did so with the intent of including Inuit traditions and understandings. I wrote Kinauvit? to inform all of Canada and beyond. We, the Inuit, we are still here and we have always been more than a number." Why is your book important and who should read it? "Inuit are often neglected in our country and the Eskimo Identification Canada system is one more example of assimilative policies that have had a far reach into the colonization of, and a continued effect on Inuit Canadians. The entire world should read this book."

More than a number: a daughter’s search for her Inuit grandmother identified only by digits on a disc under Canada’s Eskimo Identification system

Norma Dunning explores the impact of the Eskimo Disk System in her book, Kinauvit?: What’s Your Name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughter’s Search for her Grandmother.

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More than a number: a daughter’s search for her Inuit grandmother identified only by digits on a disc under Canada’s Eskimo Identification system

Norma Dunning explores the impact of the Eskimo Disk System in her book, Kinauvit?: What’s Your Name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughter’s Search for her Grandmother.

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