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CHAPTER 2 - REALIZING A 'NORTHERN' DIMENSION IN CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY

Important new developments unfolding in the circumpolar north have the potential to impact significantly on the Canadian Arctic. Current initiatives now underway will determine the direction that circumpolar cooperation will take well into the 21st century. . . . Much of the credit for these developments is due to the action of Canadian officials. But, in keeping with Canadian tradition, little public attention has been brought to bear on these pending new milestones, nor has the Government deemed it necessary to provide extensive resources to support them. Canada may pretend to be an Arctic nation, but that vision of the Arctic ends at about 200 miles north of the American border.
Professor Robert Huebert28

"This is Canada . . . but it's almost another country."
George Eckalook, Mayor, Resolute Bay29

Learning from the Past

The "North" has long exercised a powerful claim on the Canadian imagination, at times figuring in attempts to define a Canadian "identity" that could be nurtured domestically and projected internationally (see Box 2 "Defining Canada's Northern Identity Among Nations"). Yet it is only in more recent decades that our Arctic regions - primarily everything north of the 60th parallel in the west and north of the 55th parallel in Quebec and Labrador - have taken on even a modest international role. Following the building of the Alaska highway and with the onset of the Cold War, the Arctic came to be regarded as a strategic asset, though with Canadian "sovereignty" sometimes put as much at risk by our American ally as the Soviet enemy. From the 1950s on, more of the North was being opened up to transport, commerce and accompanying southern influxes and influences. Resource discoveries with the potential for large rewards accelerated the pull of modernization, often coming up against the traditional cultures of the people of the region and confronting delicately balanced Arctic ecosystems.

Box 2 - "Defining Canada's Northern Identity Among Nations"

Canada seems indisputably to be a "northern" country, and this geographical fact has left its mark on the country's diverse political and cultural expression. In a recent short essay, the western Canadian novelist Rudy Wiebe declares: "When I look at Canada, I see a country capped by `North'; perhaps only `North' holds our disparate regions together."1 A forthcoming interdisciplinary study, Canada and the Idea of North, promises to explore the wide range of representations of the North, but also what northern Canadians themselves think of southern Canadian appropriations of northern identity. There is, as well, ambivalence and ambiguity in the attitude of the majority of Canadians who "live South" and only occasionally look North. Four decades before the Committee began this inquiry, Pierre Berton won the Governor General's non-fiction award for his 1956 book The Mysterious North. Two decades later, the same award went to the distinguished social geographer and founder of Laval University's Centre d'études nordiques, Louis-Edmond Hamelin, for his landmark Nordicité canadienne, elaborating a richly textured concept of "nordicity" applicable to Arctic and northern locations and modes of life.2 Yet the Arctic remains far from the consciousness of the over 99% of Canadians who do not live there, and the majority who have never visited our far northern regions.3

The territories north of 605 account for nearly 40% of Canada's land area, but only 0.35% of the Canadian population (despite a demographic growth double that of the country as a whole, and social problems to match). If one includes the substantial provincial "norths" in addition to Arctic Quebec and Labrador, a more substantial range of interests and policy processes come into play, some with international circumpolar dimensions. For example, Manitoba's northeastern port of Churchill on Hudson's Bay played an important role in Canadian grain shipments to the Soviet Union, and it was mentioned by Russia's current minister of northern development during a meeting with the Committee in Moscow in connection with future Arctic shipping possibilities. The region's proximity to polar bear habitat has also become a prime tourist attraction. Alberta, which is a member of the Northern Forum, is a leader in developing cold-climate technologies and home to several internationally known Arctic research institutes. Generally, however, the provincial dimensions have not been very prominent in analyzing Arctic affairs affecting Canada; the exception being Quebec which is clearly the most advanced in terms of examining its distinctive "nordicité" within a domestic and international context.4

At the same time, as Laval University's Paul Painchaud has often lamented, Canada as a whole has been slow to develop a proper circumpolar consciousness of its position among nations. Some years ago, Franklyn Griffiths described a partially emerging northern awareness which was still rather fragmented, as well as being limited in terms of international expression by the lack of any coherent overall Canadian foreign policy perspective:

At present, English-speaking southern Canadians, francophone Quebeckers, and the Indians, Metis, and Inuit are realizing their northern identities separately, with varying vigour and self-awareness, and in regard to various aspects of Canada's external environment. English-speaking southern Canadians seem to be least aware of their northerness and yet respond protectively to foreign intrusion in the Canadian Arctic. Quebeckers have however begun to act on a sense of shared identity with Nordic countries, as have Indians and Metis with regard to the Nordic indigenous peoples. . . . Northern identity appears to be most explicit among Canada's Inuit and is expressed in action to further an Inuit circumpolar community. What is lacking in this picture is a foreign policy that encourages each of the constituencies in the Canadian political process to realize its northern essence in its own way and thereby to contribute actively to a larger awareness and common purpose that transcend separate identities.5

Almost two decades after that was written, the possibilities for circumpolar cooperation are much wider, and there are new institutional mechanisms for Canadian participation in developing international Arctic policies. The importance of the North to all Canadians, in political, socio-economic and environmental terms, should be more apparent than ever before. Yet there is evidence of a missing consciousness still to be overcome. For example, the new edition of a noted text on Canadian foreign policy, which appeared as the Arctic Council was being inaugurated, dismisses in a rather cursory fashion the idea of Canada defining its international identity within a circumpolar community.6 This report stands as a strong statement of the Committee's disagreement with that preemptory assessment. Nevertheless, as this chapter acknowledges, there is a legacy of policy deficiencies to be overcome. Only a deliberate and substantive commitment to a circumpolar foreign policy for Canada can begin to address the as yet unfulfilled promise of Canada's northern identity among nations.

In the 1960s, as pressures were building up for a major domestic debate over northern development, attention also turned to the role of the Arctic "frontier" in establishing a more "independent" Canadian foreign policy.30 In the wake of the notorious 1969 voyage of the U.S. oil tanker Manhattan through the Canadian Northwest Passage, there was a flurry of alarm over the threat to Canada's Arctic sovereignty. Canada moved boldly to protect its Arctic waters with extra-territorial anti-pollution legislation and the first proposals were made for an international protective Arctic-region regime.31 But the public and policy concern did not last.32 Indeed, in a prescient 1979 study that observed a "quickening [of international activity] in the circumpolar North," Franklyn Griffiths found Canadian governments still ill-prepared to develop, much less implement, any sustained or systematic policy:

The unfortunate state of affairs in Ottawa has clearly served to inhibit the thought of coordinating Canada's northern international relations. This is because effective coordination of foreign affairs in the North requires the participation not only of externally oriented departments such as External Affairs and National Defence, but also of domestic agencies whose operations have foreign policy effects . . . The bureaucracy is not to be expected to set things rights on its own. Political leadership and political will are required, and for both of these informed public concern is a necessary precondition.33
While within the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), Canada now has an Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs who chairs an interdepartmental committee on circumpolar affairs that includes over a dozen other federal Government departments and agencies, the comments from a number of our witnesses (including Professor Griffiths himself - see next section) indicate persistent deficiencies in the system's ability to achieve convergence on and efficiently carry out international Arctic policy goals.

In the mid-1980s, a second controversial transist of the Northwest Passage by a U.S. vessel, the coastguard icebreaker Polar Sea, again briefly propelled the Arctic into the headlines. Indicative of the overall lack of preparedness noted above, however, the Mulroney government's 1985 foreign policy "green paper" Competitiveness and Security had opened with a description of Canada as an Arctic nation and "special because of it," and then had never referred to the Arctic again.34 That absence was remedied somewhat during the subsequent public review by the Special Joint Committee on Canada's International Relations. Taking to heart Paul Painchaud's challenge ("We have so long neglected the only international and regional system to which we really belong: the circumpolar system. . ."), the Committee's 1986 report devoted a full chapter to the subject, declaring: "The North must be part and parcel of Canada's foreign policy, because the stakes and interests that Canada has in the North are vital to its sovereignty and security."35 However, the results from this episode proved disappointing. Critics continued to see Government responses as narrowly reactive, and then not always followed through.36 Indeed, Professor Painchaud repeated his charge just as vigorously when he appeared before this Committee more than a decade later [47:5ff].

In the late 1980s, several private groups moved to fill the void in policy development. A working group of the National Capital Branch of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, chaired by former Clerk of the Privy Council Gordon Robertson, issued a seminal report in 1988. This outlined the objectives of a comprehensive and coherent Canadian "northern dimension" in foreign policy that would encompass, in addition to the familiar sovereignty and security issue, environmental protection, aboriginal peoples' well-being and "self-reliance," social issues, economic development and transportation, advancement of northern science and knowledge, northern political development, and circumpolar cooperation, especially involving northern native peoples and the Nordic countries. The report emphasized the need to follow up ideas on sustainable development flowing from the 1987 Brundtland Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development and to embrace the overtures in Gorbachev's proposed "Arctic zone of peace."37

This report also resurrected the idea of an international body for the Arctic region, preparing the way for Prime Minister Mulroney's official call for an Arctic council in late 1989. In the early 1990s there was a burst of activity, much of it still privately sponsored, to flesh out this proposal (for details see Chapter Three, Box 4). Another seminal report by an Arctic Council panel provided the basis for some preliminary negotiations. In 1991, the Canadian Polar Commission was created by Act of Parliament to promote Canadian interest in polar affairs, especially in areas of environmental, scientific and technological cooperation. In June 1992, this Committee's predecessor, having visited Moscow and Kiev, issued a report endorsing the creation of an Arctic Ocean "demilitarized zone" and of an "International Arctic Council" that would deal primarily with security and environmental matters. Canadian ideas attracted considerable support within the Nordic countries and Russia, and from the first Nordic Council-sponsored Arctic parliamentarians' conference in Reykjavik in 1993.38 The movement to establish an Arctic-region council faltered, however, when faced with U.S. resistance and disinterest.

The Chrétien Government early in its mandate promised it would move forward on a circumpolar cooperation agenda with renewed energy and a new outlook.39 A Northern Foreign Policy Conference convened in April 1994 was addressed by both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, while the Government announced its intention to create the post of ``Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs'' reporting to both Ministers but located in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT).40 However, for every optimistic comment on Canada's propitious position for leading on international Arctic affairs,41 there were also more sceptical cautionary notes. For example, Ron Doering, Chair of the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, noted that the March 1994 "Canada 21" report, which had set the stage for the first national forum on foreign policy just weeks earlier, "includes a section on the environment - and does not mention the Arctic. People still have a kind of absence of mind about the Arctic."42

While Arctic issues struggled for attention on a crowded foreign policy renewal agenda, the Special Joint Committee Reviewing Canadian Foreign Policy nevertheless heard some compelling testimony, notably from the organizers of the above-mentioned April conference, from major aboriginal groups, and during public hearings in Yellowknife and Saskatoon.43 The Committee's November 1994 Report welcomed the 31 October appointment of Mary Simon, a prominent Inuit leader from northern Quebec, as Canada's first Circumpolar Ambassador, and recommended that "the Government work urgently with other states to establish the Arctic Council," with a first priority being "to deal with threats to the Arctic environment."44

The security chapter of the Government's February 1995 statement Canada in the World affirmed the broad objectives of the Arctic Council and further asserted Canada's "particular role in defending and developing the Arctic environment, an area where international cooperation is vital and is just beginning."45 U.S. President Clinton's first state visit to Ottawa that same month removed a crucial impediment, as the Americans finally agreed to join negotiations to create the Council. These negotiations proved to be protracted and difficult, continuing through the first part of the Committee's inquiry until finalization in August 1996. Yet the commitment seemed at last to be there. As Canada's ambassador to the negotiations Mary Simon put it:

What seemed only a dream a decade ago is now within reach. A true partnership may finally be emerging where governments and indigenous peoples can, together, develop a vision for the Arctic where national agendas can be harmonized and cultural diversity encouraged. If this is achieved, it is my hope that we can quickly move on to properly define and apply the principles of sustainable and equitable development to the Arctic.46
The next few years will determine whether a northern dimension in Canadian foreign policy has truly arrived, in practice as well as intention. As we have seen, previous episodes of policy attention to the Arctic too soon gave way again to years of relative passivity and neglect. If Canada is to rise to the challenge of the "Arctic imperative," it will be necessary for it to break out of that traditional foreign policy pattern, and what analyst described as its "Mercator mind-set,"47 to recognize the circumpolar region as a primary, not just secondary or occasional, field of activity for achieving Canada's objectives in the world. Hence, as the Committee argued in Chapter One, comes the need to work out this systematic and integrated circumpolar element within the progressive evolution of foreign policy as a whole.

Looking Forward

We are not dealing with abstract and distant issues when we talk "foreign affairs." We are dealing with the international dimension of national issues. More than ever, Canadians have a direct stake in developments outside our boundaries. . . I can report to you that despite. . . or perhaps because of the struggles in [Russia] to achieve viable democracy and sustainable economic growth, the potential for "constructive engagement" between our two countries is enormous, in particular on northern issues. . . . Your Committee's decision to focus on this issue [establishing the Arctic Council] has been timely in every way.
The Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, "Foreign Policy at a Crossroad"48

The first statement to the Committee by the new Foreign Affairs Minister, coming at the beginning of its circumpolar study, was significant not only for its encouragement but for its acknowledgement of the expansive basis on which the northern dimension of Canadian foreign policy needs to be developed and carried out. This emerging dimension will require a close and concrete linkage between domestic and international policy fields, a focus on cooperation among countries on many levels, and the strategic use of international organizations, in particular the newly established Arctic Council.

The result could be an important departure from a northern foreign policy that has been criticized as reactive, episodic and unsustained. Canada's "northern vision," as we have seen, has been impaired because of being more symbolic than substantive, and because of being dominated by rather narrow sovereignty and security-related incidents during the Cold War period. It is already a decade since the Gorbachev-initiated thaw opened up a more promising horizon; yet, following the 1985-86 foreign policy review, then Secretary of State for External Affairs Joe Clark had stated in a speech in Norway in 1987 that an "integrated and comprehensive northern foreign policy" would be based on: affirming Canadian sovereignty; modernizing Canada's northern defence; preparing for commercial use of the Northwest Passage; and promoting enhanced circumpolar cooperation.49 The agenda at that point was still heavily weighted towards the first three familiar issues rather than the promise of the fourth, and still tended to be driven by Ottawa's only occasional concerns about Arctic events.

Since then, the momentum has been shifting towards new opportunities for non-military circumpolar cooperation and security, notably with respect to environmental and sustainable development issues. Just as important has been the much greater emphasis on domestic process and content. Canadians living in the North, especially those represented by aboriginal peoples' organizations, are demanding to be involved in developing policies for their region, including those that may have a transnational dimension. The agenda is being focussed on issues that matter to northerners (their livelihoods, health, and cultural survival) and on seeking means whereby they can participate fully in making development choices. Rather than being treated as an exceptional periphery, defined by outside frameworks and dependent on external forces, this emerging North might be better understood as a series of human struggles and transitions that, although taking place in a harsh, remote environment unfamiliar to most Canadians, hold important lessons for future forms of development and international cooperation.50

Such a northern-based orientation was apparent in the perspectives advanced during the Committee's first panel on "northern visions for Canadian policy." Elaborating on the conclusions from the 1994 northern foreign policy conference that was held in conjunction with the last foreign policy review exercise, Whit Fraser of the Canadian Polar Commission stressed that, in determining Canada's national interests and priorities in the Arctic, foremost consideration should be given to the concerns of northerners themselves. They should participate in formulating the principles of a northern foreign policy, in sharing in the benefits of sustainable development, and in promoting "peaceful civil relations" among Arctic countries51 [10:2]. Canada was viewed as embarking on this road, but without a clear compass. Still lacking is an overall strategy for the Arctic region into which the expanding international dimensions of policy can be integrated.

Fred Roots, science advisor emeritus to the federal Department of the Environment, concurred. He remarked that the problem is not ineffective use of funds but that, rather, "there is no connection and coordination in what is happening. . . . We badly need some view of what we want in the North. My feeling is that this Committee has a very important goal of finding out from people who are affected by what happens in the North what it is they think is most important. Certainly it won't work if the priorities are designed by a central government or designed at a distance" [10:21].

This witness observed that Canada has been "a northern country without a conspicuous northern foreign policy. And many times that lack has been evident" [10:4]. The challenge will be to come to terms with the multiple and sometimes contradictory forces impinging on the Arctic. We see fragile terrestrial and marine environments whose carrying capacity is being degraded and that are particularly at risk from transboundary pollutants and global climatic changes. As well, we see marginalization of Arctic interests in economies increasingly dominated by southern and global markets. At the same time, emerging are political devolution, decentralization of decision-making, and growing assertion of the place of indigenous peoples. Such dichotomies must be addressed if the circumpolar region is to become a positive example of sustainable development and multilateral cooperation. In summary:

On the one hand, it is increasingly essential to realize and recognize the Arctic regions as distinct regions . . . It is increasingly clear that national policies and international arrangements that are designed for the more southern parts of the countries often cannot be applied without change to the Arctic regions without risk of failure or of being counter-productive.
On the other hand, it is also becoming increasingly apparent that from a policy regulation or investment point of view, the Arctic regions cannot be considered in isolation. The Arctic regions, the economy, the people, and the environment are increasingly affected by, and in turn have an effect on, the rest of the world.
It is because of the inescapable multiplicity of scales and perspective in almost all Arctic issues, from the environment and natural resources to military rivalries, that Arctic policies and international relations are especially complex. They require deliberate planning rather than the extension of existing policies, and have led to a number of distinctive circumpolar international arrangements and institutions. [10:7]
In effect, the management of Arctic issues not only tests the ingenuity of governments' internal policies but, as observed in Chapter One, also brings into play questions of larger international development and governance.

The other witnesses on this panel, Terry Fenge and former Yukon premier, Tony Penikett, representing the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee (CARC), agreed on the need for national Arctic policy with a strong foreign policy component, while stressing more direct northern involvement and utilization of local knowledge in its development and execution. Mr. Penikett pointed to the emergence of "a kind of international northern community, a northern community consciousness," with numerous subnational initiatives (whether sanctioned by Ottawa or not) flowing from that [10:13]. Terry Fenge also emphasized recognition of the roles that aboriginal peoples must have in this process and preservation of the renewable resource economy upon which they rely.

Several witnesses in subsequent Ottawa panels pushed that analysis further. Professor Franklyn Griffiths of the University of Toronto suggested that the absence of any organized, inclusive Arctic policy process means we need to "think a little bit about a new institutional mechanism that would allow us to create a coherent, comprehensive and proactive approach to our Arctic policies, domestic as well as foreign." In his view, such a process should give northerners "a very loud voice," should not be southern-based, and should encompass all issues, including those of a transboundary, and therefore foreign policy, nature, rather than artificially segregating or compartmentalizing such issues and ignoring the integrated approach so often necessary in Arctic matters. He envisaged a consensus-based, multi-stakeholder body bringing together nongovernmental actors and all levels of government, with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and specifically the Office of the Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs, in a chairing/coordinating role [15:8-10].

This raises the issues of how to put in place and then to sustain such a process in order to support diverse participation across the country, and to develop the requisite policy capabilities; for example, a number of witnesses urged that the meagre resources available to the Circumpolar Ambassador be strengthened. Historically, as Robert Huebert of the University of Manitoba observed, "the political leadership tends to have a relatively short attention span when it comes to the issue of northern international cooperation." Moreover, much of Canada's contribution to date has depended on the earlier work of a few dedicated public servants such as Fred Roots, whose shoes may be difficult to fill in an era of government downsizing and deregulation. And while NGOs and indigenous peoples' organizations have become more prominent in driving new policy initiatives,- notably the Inuit Circumpolar Conference with respect to issues of sustainability - their work could also be curtailed by further cutbacks in Government support [15:11]. All of this accentuates the need to consider in concrete terms how northerners can best be served by a broadly based, participatory public policy process with staying power over the long term.

Not surprisingly, the theme of northern input was reinforced during the Committee's travels in the region and discussions with northern researchers in late May. Former Government Leader of the NWT and current chair of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation Nellie Cournoyea cautioned that foreign policy formulation and international responses must be "cognisant of the interests, traditions and way of life of northern peoples" [Submission of 28 May 1996, p. 4]. Adequate and appropriate representation of aboriginal peoples was a point raised repeatedly in this regard. In Yellowknife, Gary Bohnet, President of the Metis Nation, citing the issue of wild fur exports and relations with the European Union, recommended "some formal provisions for aboriginal input into positions on [departmental] policy and strategies that affect them." In Whitehorse, consultant Nicholas Poushinsky stressed a democratized, bottom-up process that would be relevant to northerners. Southern political institutions must explore ways to listen more to people in the North, not just in terms of Arctic-specific aspects of foreign policy, but in terms of foreign policy development as a whole.52 At the same time, Aaron Senkpiel, of Yukon College, observed the continuing lack of public awareness in the rest of the country that means northern issues have a hard time getting on, and then staying on, the agenda.

How, therefore, to fill the gaps and bridge the solitudes? New communications technologies linking remote communities and more outreach activity by the Circumpolar Ambassador were among some suggestions. David Malcolm, Director of the Aurora Research Institute in Inuvik, also saw as a foreign policy priority assisting "northern communities, institutions and businesses to partner with their counterparts in the circumpolar region." In Iqaluit, Committee members met with Bruce Rigby, Executive Director of the Nunavut Research Institute, and senior staff of the Nunavut Arctic College, who stressed the importance of continuing to build up knowledge-based capacities and community outreach within the Arctic itself. The goal is to provide local people with the tools and training to be able to take over more of these responsibilities, rather than perpetuating their dependence on imported skills. Policy development in that sense means northerners becoming better equipped to communicate and act on their own articulated circumpolar objectives, not better communication of policies already decided on their behalf by southern bureaucracies.

There is nevertheless still a need for capacity-building at the national level to support international policy objectives. Milton Freeman, senior research scholar at the Edmonton-based Canadian Circumpolar Institute (CCI), pointed out in a written follow-up to his presentation that "Canada lacks a public policy research centre equivalent to the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway (a country having about one-sixth of the population)" [Submission of 3 June 1996, p. 7]. Committee members who visited Norway can attest to these impressive resources and the quality of the analytical work being done in that country. It might be noted that the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security (CIIPS), until its sudden demise in 1992, had been a significant source of national funding for some Arctic-focussed research. The CCI's director, Clifford Hickey, expressed the hope that perhaps the Canadian Polar Commission could do more to bring together expertise from established Canadian centres of excellence - notably those in Alberta and Quebec - and to make this available to inform the work of the office of the Circumpolar Ambassador. However, a number of witnesses appeared to doubt that the Commission was up to the task, and perceived the whole of Canadian Arctic policy research capability as being less than the sum of its individual parts.53

Speaking in Calgary at the Arctic Institute of North America, Professor Nigel Bankes argued that Canada "should give Arctic issues prominence in global and multilateral treaty negotiations." He had serious doubts, however, about the necessary national-level expertise and institutional capacity being there to support this. The Calgary-based institute also submitted to the Committee its own "low-cost alternative" to the Canadian Polar Information System abandoned by the Canadian Polar Commission for lack of funds. Several of Quebec's leading authorities on northern research and international policy, Michel Allard, head of Laval University's Centre d'études nordiques, and Gérard Duhaime, head of Groupe d'études inuit et circumpolaires, appeared before the Committee in May and again in October. They spoke in detail about the measures needed for building up research and educational capacity and furthering cross-country linkages. Paul Painchaud, of Laval's International Institute for Environmental Strategies and Security, noted the telling lack of input from Quebec in developing the original mandate of the Polar Commission. Branko Ladanyi, of Montreal University's École polytechnique, suggested that the United States may be considerably in advance of Canada in terms of developing a systemic informational capacity as an element of national policy. Dr. Jacques Grondin of Quebec's Public Health Centre, which has pioneered international cooperative research projects in the North, including in Russia, described having to turn for funding to the United States because it is not available within a poorly coordinated Canadian policy environment [see Evidence, Meeting No. 47]. We will be returning to the important issues of building knowledge and communications capabilities on a circumpolar basis in Chapter Eight, but the point about the internal Canadian gaps needing to be addressed first has been registered.

In northern Quebec and the eastern Arctic, where the permanent population is predominantly Inuit and scattered among a handful of tiny communities, the issues of aboriginal representation and distance from power centres were especially pronounced (the partial exception being Iqaluit, which is confidently preparing itself as the prospective capital of the new Nunavut territory in 1999). A lot of northern residents clearly feel remote from and often poorly represented by southern-based institutions. In contacts with the Committee, they wanted to make sure that their concerns would be listened to and that they would have opportunities to participate directly in setting Arctic policy agendas in the various areas under consideration - the environment, economic development and trade, research, education and health, and cultural and social affairs. As well, a common hope was that the Inuit's own efforts in developing circumpolar ties should be recognized and supported by southern governments.

Because present needs such as housing are so acute, as emphasized by many Inuit speakers, it also became apparent that initiatives at the foreign policy level have to be presented so as to bring home to local people the tangible potential benefits from circumpolar cooperation, and the need to explore innovative ways to bridge the domestic and international arenas. Returning from a meeting with the mayor and local councillors of Resolute Bay in the High Arctic, Committee members bore this in mind during a 31 May 1996 roundtable in Montreal as they listened to northern studies experts from Laval and McGill universities emphasize that the mere existence of a Circumpolar Ambassador or an Arctic Council, would not accomplish much for northern communities in the absence of substantive investments in Arctic programs working on practical solutions to the region's problems. Dr. Gary Pekeles, of McGill's Baffin region health project, pointed out that "foreign affairs" may not normally figure in the day-to-day preoccupations of citizens in Canada, but many Arctic issues affecting daily life (e.g. contaminants in country foods) are international in scope and accordingly require foreign policy responses.

In short, developing a stronger northern dimension for Canadian foreign policy can be deeply relevant to domestic needs. The appointment of the Circumpolar Ambassador, located within DFAIT54 but reporting also to the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs and chairing an interdepartmental committee on circumpolar affairs, promises at least the beginning of a more coordinated domestic-international focus. However, this office, consisting of little more than Ambassador Simon herself and several support staff, is tiny, considering the growing scale and complexity of responsibilities. At the same time, Paul Painchaud insisted to the Committee that the primary onus for developing a credible circumpolar foreign policy must rest in DFAIT; such a policy should be an important objective for all Canadians and should engage fully our relations with other countries of the circumpolar region.

[The appointment of an ambassador for circumpolar affairs] is not at all sufficient. Within the structure of the Department of Foreign Affairs, there should be experts, people who focus on circumpolar matters. . . There are no Arctic or circumpolar region specialists within that department. . . If the Arctic is seen in a geopolitical perspective, that will mean that we will not only be interested in the Arctic because of environmental problems, because of aboriginal populations, the economic potential, etc., but essentially because the Arctic or the circumpolar region is the important region for Canada. If we make the geopolitical choice of putting the Arctic in a central position - not only a region of concern, but in a central position - in our thinking on our foreign policy, that will mean that we will concentrate on a whole series of problems that we are dealing with separately, such as, to begin with, the management of our relations with all the countries of the circumpolar region. [47:6-7]
In his recent study on the significance of the Arctic Council for international relations, Oran Young calls for the elaboration of a multilateral "Arctic 2000 Action Plan" that in an integrated way will address establishment of a proper institutional framework, articulating common objectives, and "improving the knowledge base on which to build the procedural, programmatic, and regulative elements of a comprehensive regime for the Arctic."55 In order for Canada to assert international leadership in this regard, the Committee called in Chapter One for a Canadian Circumpolar Cooperation Framework to be set out. In the next chapter we will turn specifically to how the Arctic Council might be utilized as the primary institution of a growing internationalism region-wide. To achieve those ambitions, however, we believe that Canada must at the same time strengthen its own internal capacities for realizing a northern dimension in Canadian foreign policy by integrating its policy for the Arctic with particular attention to domestic-international linkages; including adequate representation and participation of northerners, particularly of aboriginal peoples, in policy development; establishing better mechanisms for coordination of governmental and of nongovernmental activities for the international Arctic; supporting knowledge-based networking and communications, especially through building up the capacity of northern-based institutions; and promoting broader public awareness of Canada's circumpolar interests and objectives (in which instruments such as the recently established Centre for Foreign Policy Development might also play a facilitating role assisting outreach efforts by the Circumpolar Ambassador).

As a first step, the Committee believes it is time for Canada to move towards a comprehensive domestic strategy for the Arctic region as a more effective foundation from which to identify and pursue Canadian circumpolar interests internationally. With respect to the bolstering of foreign policy instruments for achieving those Canadian objectives abroad, we believe the logical step would be a substantial enhancement within DFAIT of the capacities of the Office of the Circumpolar Ambassador, whose duties include not only multilateral responsibilities but also policy integration and coordination.

Accordingly:

Furthermore, in order to build the requisite capacity to execute circumpolar foreign policy:

28
Robert Huebert, "The Arctic Council: Global and Domestic Governance'' (1996), p. 1.

29
In a meeting with the Committee at Resolute Bay in the High Arctic, 30 May 1996.

30
Cf. R. St. John Macdonald, ed., The Arctic Frontier, University of Toronto Press in association with the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and the Arctic Institute of North America, Toronto, 1966.

31
The distinguished international legal scholar Maxwell Cohen, who was involved with the management of Canada-United States transboundary issues in the great lakes region through the International Joint Commission, foresaw a "superb opportunity for Canadian leadership in the development of an Arctic basin approach having relevance to the polar area as a whole and to the Canadian archipelago and its waters in particular." ("The Arctic and the National Interest," International Journal, Vol. 21, 1970, p. 1.)

32
In a recent retrospective on this period, Pierre E. Trudeau, who was Prime Minister at the time, and his then international policy advisor Ivan Head, observe with regret that, apart from the Manhattan incident: "To those relatively few Canadians [themselves included] deeply interested in the Arctic, the universe seemed to be unfolding as it should: in relative obscurity." (The Canadian Way: Shaping Canada's Foreign Policy 1968-1984, McClelland and Stewart, Toronto, 1995, p. 27.) Academic interest was stimulated, however; see Edgar Dosman, ed., The Arctic in Question, Oxford University Press, 1976.

33
Griffiths, A Northern Foreign Policy for Canada, Wellesley Papers 7, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Toronto, 1979, p. 7 and 10. Griffiths identified five missing requirements for a successful northern foreign policy: comprehensive information-gathering by and communication among governmental actors (including the government of Quebec) in regard to their northern activities; a planning capability geared to advancing Canadian interests; public consultation and information; interdepartmental coordination at the federal level; and a mandate "to direct, according to established criteria, Canada's overall performance in circumpolar international relations." Beyond administrative remedies, he recommended enhancing a range of relations with Nordic countries, promoting a peace-based "polar orientation," developing Arctic science and technology in areas of Canadian excellence, and responding constructively to northern indigenous peoples' concerns and aspirations, in particular "Canadian Inuit proposals that have international content." (p. 74-75 and 80-86)

34
John Honderich, Arctic Imperative: Is Canada Losing the North?, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1987,
p. 10-11.

35
Independence and Internationalism, Chapter Ten "A Northern Dimension for Canadian Foreign Policy," Ottawa, June 1996, p. 127, which cites Professor Painchaud's declaration to the parliamentary review committee.

36
A case in point was the Mulroney government's abandonment of its promise to construct a more powerful "Class 8" polar icebreaker. More generally, see Robert Huebert, "Arctic Maritime Issues and Canadian Foreign Policy," in John Lamb, ed. Proceedings of a Conference on `A Northern Foreign Policy for Canada,' Canadian Polar Commission and the Canadian Centre for Global Security, Ottawa, October 1994, p. 103-105.

37
The North and Canada's International Relations, Report of a Working Group of the National Capital Branch of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, March 1988. Cf. also "L'Arctique: Ses dimensions économiques, politiques, stratégiques et juridiques," Études internationales, numéro spécial, vol. xx, No. 1, March 1989; Edgar Dosman, ed., Sovereignty and Security in the Arctic, Routledge, London, 1989.

38
See Arctic Challenges, Report from the Reykjavik Parliamentary Conference, The Nordic Council, Stockholm, 1993.

39
The May 1993 Liberal Foreign Policy Handbook had advocated: "a policy which will bring together all Arctic states and peoples into a cooperative arrangement designed to scale back militarization of the Arctic region, preserve the fragile ecosystem and protect the interests of indigenous peoples."

40
Lamb ed., A Northern Foreign Policy for Canada (1994), p. 58.

41
The newsletter of the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee exclaimed:In the past, the circumpolar Arctic was dominated by defence needs - a policy arena in which Canada played only a minor role. Today, this region is emerging as a venue in which all facets of policy can be exercised, if we have sufficient imagination. Sustainable development and environmental security promise to be policy touchstones well into the next century. (``Sovereignty, Security, and Surveillance in the Arctic," Northern Perspectives, Winter 1994-95, p. 1)However, CARC's own Executive Director, Terry Fenge, was rather less sanguine, given that: ``the Arctic is unlikely to become a major focus of Canada's foreign policy. . . The circumpolar Arctic is coming of age as a region. But the environmental, economic and social implications of this fact seem not to be fully appreciated by Canada's foreign policy elite, who concentrate on events on the Potomac River, and in Bonn and Tokyo'' ("Canada Should Put More Emphasis on Arctic Concerns," The Ottawa Citizen, 26 August 1994, p. A3.).

42
Ron Doering, "Canada's Northern Foreign Policy: Issues and Principles," in Lamb ed., A Northern Foreign Policy for Canada (1994), p. 78. (See also Lamb's own essay in these proceedings, "Strategic Directions for Canada's Circumpolar Relations in the 1990s.") Ironically, the National Roundtable commissioned a 1994 paper by University of Toronto international relations scholar John Kirton on "Sustainable Development and Foreign Policy," which itself had no specific section on the Arctic!

43
For more details see Gerald Schmitz and James Lee, Canada and Circumpolar Cooperation: Meeting the Foreign Policy Challenge (1996), p. 18ff.

44
Canada's Foreign Policy: Principles and Priorities for the Future, Report of the Special Joint Committee Reviewing Canadian Foreign Policy, Canada Communication Group, Ottawa, November 1994, p. 45-46.

45
Government of Canada, Canada in the World, Canada Communication Group, Ottawa, February 1995, p. 19 and 29. The Statement affirms that: "Our goal is to create an Arctic Council to meet the challenge of sustainable development in the North and to deal with the critical issues faced by all Arctic countries."

46
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Global Agenda: Canada's Foreign Policy and the Environment, Vol. 3, No. 3, December 1995, p. 4.

47
See John Honderich, Arctic Imperative (1987), Chapter 2.

48
Notes for an Address by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 16 April, 1996, p. 1 and 5.

49
Cited in Robert Huebert, "Polar Vision or Tunnel Vision," Marine Policy, Vol. 19, No. 4, 1995, p. 360-61.

50
See the analysis in Kenneth Coates, "The Discovery of the North: Towards a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Northern/Remote Regions," editorial in The Northern Review, Nos. 12/13, Summer 1994/Winter 1994,p. 15-43.

51
Testimony of 23 April 1996. Mr. Fraser appeared again in February 1997 on specific Arctic environmental issues and on the role of the Commission itself in addressing them.

52
Two year earlier, Nicholas Poushinsky, a former deputy minister in the Yukon government who is currently engaged in the mining business, had given a similar message to the Special Joint Committee Reviewing Canadian Foreign Policy when it visited Yellowknife as its only stop in northern Canada: ". . . a delegation of Canadian parliamentarians has never come up to the North to get an orientation. . . . if you're going to have an Arctic Council and an Arctic ambassador, you enter into a formal democratization by having an advisory group of northern people that reflects the cultural, regional and economic diversity of this territory, so that people [in Ottawa] can be kept plugged into northern initiatives as they make northern foreign policy," (Testimony of 2 June 1994, Proceedings, Special Joint Committee, Issue No. 20, p. 120-125).

53
The Committee nonetheless acknowledges the efforts of the Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies to promote support for the research activities of their member institutions, which have been constrained by recent federal cutbacks. The point is that such diverse and scattered activities do not in themselves add up to a strong base for assisting the development of a circumpolar foreign policy.

54
Previously, responsibilities for circumpolar issues had been shuffled among several units and eventually into the Western Europe Bureau, but had never had their own dedicated place within DFAIT's bureaucratic structure, even though a circumpolar liaison directorate created within DIAND continues to have some international relations responsibilities notably in relation to bilateral agreements on northern cooperation with Russia - see Chapter Nine.

55
Oran Young, The Arctic Council: Marking a New Era in International Relations (1996), p. 56.

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