Editor's note: This story contains details that some readers may find disturbing.
Mosesie Ikkidluak has been found guilty of three charges of sexual assault against the same Inuk woman between 2008 and 2021. He has been sentenced to a total of nine years in prison.
Sentencing judge Paul Bychok commented that “this case highlights a continuing institutional indifference in Nunavut to the plight of Inuit girls and women in the face of unrelenting sexual and physical violence. This indifference constitutes a continuing systemic failure in cases of sentencing offenders for gendered sexual violence.”
Bychok made note of the victim in the case being “understandably angry and upset” about not being notified by the Crown of the sentencing hearing. As a result, the judge had the court recess until she could participate via video link after finding child care.
History of assaults
The victim considered Ikkidluak to be a friend. The first incident occurred in 2008 when the victim was 19. During the course of drinking at the offender's home, she fell asleep or passed out fully dressed on the couch in the living room, subsequently waking up to find Ikkidluak on top of her having vaginal intercourse.
At the time of the second incident in 2021, Ikkidluak was married to another woman with a young family. While attending a barbecue at Ikkidluak’s home, where the victim also drank and fell asleep, she once again woke up to an assault.
The final assault happened later the same year. After watching a sporting event with mutual friends and returning home, the victim awoke to Ikkidluak standing uninvited in her living room. After providing what she still considered to be a friend with a requested drink and falling asleep, she woke up to the guilty party fondling her crotch. It was after this incident that the victim reported Ikkidluak to police.
Reasoning in sentencing
Bychok stated that he did not consider the mitigating factors of Ikkidluak’s lack of prior criminal record and strong family and community support into his sentence, though they are significant and “not often seen in this court.” Regardless, they are not sufficient enough to outweigh the seriousness of the offender's crimes, the judge decided. The fact that the victim was unconscious and defenceless for each incident did factor into the judge's sentencing analysis.
Bychok also stated that the charge for the third incident — non-consensual touching — applied equally, irrespective of the touching occurring on or beneath clothing.
The judge also did not consider Ikkidluak’s consumption of alcohol in each instance to have any bearing on his conduct as a “contributing, mitigating or systemic factor,” nor his Inuit background.
“In taking a hard second look, the sentence must be considered in light of the fact that Mr. Ikkidluak committed three discrete and unrelated sexual assaults over a period of 13-years. In all the circumstances of the three sentences added together, in my view, just barely exceed Mr. Ikkidluak’s overall culpability.”
The defence and Crown lawyers initially submitted a joint recommendation of four years in prison and later adjusted it to five years, but both submissions were rejected by Bychok, who called it “so out-of-whack that they can only be described as completely unhinged.”
Prevalence of gendered sexual violence
In his statements to the court on sentencing, Bychok was at pains to emphasize the reoccurring and pervasive nature of gender-based violence in Nunavut, as well as “a danger that these numbers have come increasingly in this court to be viewed merely as cold, hard statistics... Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada recently described the rate of gendered violence against Inuit women and girls as a ‘problem of massive proportions.’ Pauktuutit noted that the rate of gendered violence in Nunavut was 13 times greater than the national average. The rate of gendered sexual violence in Nunavut was 12 times greater than the national average. In 2016, Nunavut had the highest rate of police-reported family violence in Canada.”
Bychok’s is concerned over the fatigue of reporting on sexual violence, saying “we must understand [these statistics] to reflect the lived experiences of physical violence, sexual violence and emotional trauma experienced by our fellow female citizens in all our 25 communities. Hence, the sentence I impose on Mr. Ikkidluak must include recognition of the prevalence of gendered sexual violence in Nunavut.”
Bychok recommended that Ikkidluak’s sentence be served in Iqaluit penitentiary, as “Iqaluit is a very small and isolated city of approximately 7,500 souls. Counsel have told this court repeatedly that violence in our small and isolated communities ripples through society. The victim’s victim impact statement speaks poignantly to those painful realities. Both the victim as well as her immediate family have suffered the impact of Mr. Ikkidluak’s crimes and will continue to do so into the future. This gendered sexual violence continues to plague our society. Therefore, I believe it is necessary to continue to highlight this reality lest we turn our eyes away or become numb to it.”