Here are some of Nunavut’s biggest news stories of 2025
Every year, CBC North publishes thousands of stories online — from breaking news, political coverage, crime stories, community features, and much more.
2025 has been a pivotal year for Nunavut, with some big infrastructure projects receiving a nod of approval, and a new territorial government elected.
Here are some of CBC North’s biggest stories from the territory this year.
A new premier
In November, newly-elected members of Nunavut’s Legislative Assembly selected John Main as the territory’s next premier – marking the first time Nunavut will have a non-Inuk leader.
Main, 45, is a third-term MLA from Arviat who speaks fluent Inuktitut and served as Nunavut’s health minister in the previous assembly.
He may be the first non-Inuk in that job, but his Arctic roots run deep.
His parents moved to Arviat, along the western shore of Hudson Bay, in the 1970s. His father worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company and his mother was a teacher.
Read more about his appointment here.
Hamlet food voucher program ends
For much of 2024, Inuit families benefitted from the hamlet food voucher program in Nunavut. Under the Inuit Child First Initiative, the monthly voucher program provided $500 per child for groceries, and another $250 for children under four for formula and diapers.
But that program ended in early 2025, and many Nunavummiut say families have been struggling to put food on the table since.
Almost 60 per cent of Nunavut households reported being food insecure in 2024 — the highest percentage in the country, according to Statistics Canada.
Read more about the end of the program here.
Declaring a suicide crisis — again
Ten years after the territory first declared suicide as a crisis, the Nunavut government and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) re-affirmed that declaration in June.
The declaration was one of 32 recommendations from a coroner’s inquest in April. That inquest looked into the circumstances around the death of George Arlooktoo, 28, during a confrontation with RCMP officers in Kimmirut six years ago.
John Main, the suicide prevention minister at the time, said the declaration was an opportunity to refocus the government’s efforts on the territory’s fourth suicide prevention plan.
Read more about what the declaration means here.
Former Catholic priest Eric DeJaeger sentenced
Eric Dejaeger, a former Catholic priest convicted of sexually abusing children in Igloolik in the 1970s and 1980s, was sentenced in January to six years in prison.
The children Dejaeger abused, who are now middle-aged, were between the ages of four and nine.
Justice Faiyaz Alibhai said Dejaeger “destroyed their childhood, hurt their relations with their families and ruined their relationship with their church.”
Read more about the sentencing here.
Iqaluit hydro project on fast-track list
Prime Minister Mark Carney has touted his desire for “nation-building projects” that he wants to fast-track, and a Nunavut hydro project made the initial list.
The Inuit-owned clean energy company, Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corporation’s (NNC) Iqaluit Nukkiksautiit Project was among those that were recommended in November to be fast-tracked for approval by the government’s Major Projects Office.
The plan is to build a 15-to-30-megawatt traditional water power plant, and NNC is eyeing up a possible site located 60 kilometres northwest of Iqaluit by the Kuugaluk River (McKeand River South).
NNC director Heather Shilton says this project could allow Iqaluit to completely wean off diesel as its primary source of power.
Read more about the project here.6
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: Here are some of the N.W.T.’s biggest stories of 2025, CBC News
