:
First of all, I want to thank you for electing me chair, and I would like to congratulate the two vice-chairs, Mr. Wilfert and Mr. Bachand, on their election.
[English]
I will do my best in chairing this committee, as I did in the past.
[Translation]
I will do my best to ensure that our proceedings run as efficiently as possible and that I remain as neutral and non-partisan as possible.
Thank you very much for the confidence that you have placed in me. It is an honour to serve as chair of this committee, assisted by my two vice-chairs.
[English]
Now I will ask if we have unanimous consent to go ahead and do our study on Arctic sovereignty. If we have consent, we have some witnesses who are ready to appear before us.
Do we have unanimous consent?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I will ask our witnesses to come in.
The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami will be our first witnesses for our study on Arctic sovereignty.
We have with us Mary Simon, who is the president, and also John Merritt, le conseiller principal en politiques.
Welcome to our committee. You will have five to seven minutes to do your presentation. After that, the members will ask you questions. Thank you very much. You have the floor.
:
Thank you very much, and good morning. Congratulations on your election as chair.
I would like to first of all thank the standing committee for the invitation to appear today to speak to the topic of Arctic sovereignty.
You've mentioned that I have about five to seven minutes. With your indulgence, I might take a couple of extra minutes, if that's okay with the committee. It won't be much more than that.
As you said, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami—we call it ITK for short—is the national organization for the Inuit of Canada. ITK represents the Inuit who live in the four regions that make up Inuit Nunangat: the Inuvialuit region in the Beaufort Sea region, Nunavut, Nunavik in Arctic Quebec, and Nunatsiavut in Labrador.
All of the four Inuit regions that comprise Inuit Nunangat have entered into land claims agreements, modern treaties with the crown. In this context the crown represents the Canadian state and the people of Canada as a whole. These land claims agreements are protected under section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982. Land claims agreements provide much of the contemporary institutional structure to our contemporary relations with the crown, but it is important to remember that our special relationship with the crown goes back much further in history.
From the time of Martin Frobisher and continuing through centuries of voyages and activities involving naval ships, whalers, traders, missionaries, police, and public servants, Inuit have been working within a specific political and legal relationship with the crown. That relationship has been an evolving one, and the pace of that evolution has increased in recent years.
In the period leading up to the 1960s and 1970s, the relationship between the crown and Inuit was a grossly one-sided one, with Inuit suffering a steady loss of control over our ability to make decisions both for ourselves and for the lands and waters that have sustained us for thousands of years. Perhaps the bottom point of this one-sided relationship was experienced in the period when Inuit households were coaxed into relocating thousands of miles in order to serve agendas developed elsewhere, and when Inuit children were taken away to residential schools. A society's loss of control cannot be illustrated more pointedly or more painfully than through the rupturing of bonds between parents and children.
In more recent years, the relationship between the crown and Inuit has regained some, if still not a complete, balance. Courts have recognized common law responsibilities of the crown in relation to such things as aboriginal title, aboriginal rights, the honour of the crown, a fiduciary relationship, and the duty to consult and accommodate.
Since 1982, aboriginal treaty rights have constitutional status and constitutional protection. Accompanying this effort to rebalance the political and legal relationship between the crown and Inuit within Canada has been a changing international understanding of how the rights and roles of states interact with the rights and roles of peoples of the world, including indigenous peoples. The rights and roles of states must now be situated alongside established and emerging concepts of fundamental human rights, both collective and individual. This new reality has figured prominently in Inuit thinking about sovereignty in the Arctic, and not just the Canadian Arctic but also the larger circumpolar Arctic.
Inuit are an aboriginal people of Canada, but Inuit are also an indigenous people of Greenland and Alaska and the far eastern tip of Russia. In April of this year, Inuit from across the circumpolar world adopted a key document entitled “A Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Sovereignty in the Arctic”. I have brought extra copies of that document with me today, if you would care to have one. Maybe you already have it.
Section 2 of that declaration is entitled “The Evolving Nature of Sovereignty in the Arctic”, and it puts forward six key propositions in that regard. Given the topic before the committee, section 2.1 is worth quoting in its entirety:
“Sovereignty" is a term that has often been used to refer to the absolute and independent authority of a community or nation both internally and externally. Sovereignty is a contested concept, however, and does not have a fixed meeting. Old ideas of sovereignty are breaking down as different governance models, such as the European Union, evolve. Sovereignties overlap and are frequently divided within federations in creative ways to recognize the rights of peoples.
For Inuit living within the states of Russia, Canada, the USA and Denmark/Greenland, issues of sovereignty and sovereign rights must be examined and assessed in the context of our long history of struggle to gain recognition and respect as an Arctic indigenous people having the right to exercise self-determination over our lives, territories, cultures and languages.
How should the Government of Canada's domestic and international policy-making for the Arctic build on the new and evolving realities identified in the Circumpolar Inuit Declaration? I would suggest there are six key things that the Parliament and Government of Canada should do.
Recommendation one is that in all its key assertions as to sovereignty and sovereign rights in relation to Arctic lands and waters, the Government of Canada should acknowledge the central importance of Inuit use and occupation of the lands and waters of Inuit Nunangat since time immemorial. The history of Inuit use has been acknowledged at various times and at various places in the past. For example, the 1930 understandings with Norway as to the Sverdrup Islands recognized the critical importance of Inuit hunting activity, and the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement expressly recognized the contributions of Nunavut Inuit to Canada's sovereignty arguments.
Consistency in acknowledging Inuit use and occupation isn't just a matter of effective advocacy before an international audience; it is also a matter of fundamental respect owed to Inuit.
Recommendation two is that coherent Government of Canada policy-making for the Arctic must be built around the idea of a core partnership relationship with Inuit. The Circumpolar Inuit Declaration put this in the following way in section 3.3 of the declaration:
The inextricable linkages between issues of sovereignty and sovereign rights in the Arctic and Inuit self-determination and other rights require states to accept the presence and role of Inuit as partners in the conduct of international relations in the Arctic.
The idea of partnership with Inuit is even more compelling in the domestic policy context. To be credible and constructive, partnership must be more than tokenism or lip service. Any Arctic strategy worth pursuing must put working with Inuit at its heart, not at the periphery. The current federal Arctic strategy should have been more of a collaborative writing project within an expedited timetable, on a partnership basis with Inuit.
Recommendation three is this. Partnerships that are not built on trust will always fail, and trust requires, at its most basic level, confidence that promises made are promises kept. Unfortunately, some baseline promises made to Inuit are still unfulfilled.
The most compelling example of this is found in the billion-dollar lawsuit that Nunavut Inuit had to initiate in the fall of 2006 because the Government of Canada would not act on a conciliation report on how to fairly implement the promises made in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. That's simply not good enough.
I'll move on to recommendation number four. The Government of Canada cannot expect the world to give full respect to arguments built on Inuit use and occupation of Arctic lands and waters when Inuit continue to lag so far behind other Canadians in relation to such things as minimum education, health, and housing standards.
The world will increasingly tie assertions of sovereignty to questions involving other expectations of the international community, including expectations as to the treatment of aboriginal minorities and regard for key environmental considerations.
Inuit are a patient and practical people. We know that the economic and social problems that we face did not come about overnight and will not be remedied overnight. We know that most of these problems are problems of history and circumstances, not prejudice or bad intentions. But we also know that sovereignty will not be enhanced if it ignores or understates the basic material needs of the permanent residents of the Arctic or if it fails to understand that the alienation of the young is the surest way to undermine respect for the law and tolerance for others. In that very real sense, sovereignty must begin at home.
I will move on to my last recommendation, which is number five.
Partnership with Inuit in the Arctic cannot be divorced from the Government of Canada's willingness or unwillingness to stand up for aboriginal rights everywhere. It is time for the Government of Canada to act in concert with the resolution adopted by the House of Commons and express its support, along with almost the entirety of the global community, for the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Government of Canada's broader reputation and capacity in relation to arctic issues would also be enhanced by the reappointment of an arctic ambassador.
Thank you very much for allowing me to give you this presentation.
:
Thank you very much for your question.
One of the key elements of this partnership-building that we're talking about between governments and Inuit is premised on the fact that we have settled all our land claims agreements. These land claims agreements are very comprehensive in nature and they were signed between all parties. I think there was a certain trust and expectation when these signatures were put on the legal documents.
So we have the tools already in place to be able to build that partnership, and it's very important to make sure that these agreements are being implemented in a way that allows us as Inuit to be partners with different organizations. It's not just the federal government, it's the territorial government and provincial governments. The co-management regimes and the authority that's bestowed upon us through these agreements are very important in terms of building that relationship.
The other point I want to make is that we work with the Government of Canada. Inuit have never really been against military presence in the Arctic. That's not a real issue for us, except that our agenda as Inuit is more focused on the human dimension of sovereignty, which means that alongside the infrastructure that is being built for the presence of our military and to make sure that our borders are secure, we need to build sustainable communities. As I said earlier in my presentation, Inuit have occupied the Arctic for millennia, and in many ways, as Canadians, as aboriginal people living in Canada, we were used as flag posts in the High Arctic to show that we had presence.
The Inuit won't be leaving there any time soon. We are permanent residents of the Arctic. So I think it's very important to build an agenda with the government that will help develop the capacity of our communities, where we take on the jobs that are there, where you don't always have to transport individuals into the Arctic to do all the jobs that are necessary. It means having a better education and health system, comparable to Canada. We're talking about trying to close the gap in living conditions between Inuit and other Canadians. Those go hand in hand, and I think that's a very important element of what we're talking about.
In your presentation, you also mentioned the importance of the Northern Strategy. You know that Canada has launched a strategy representing a significant investment. The Bloc Québécois recognizes that there is little flexibility and that no discussion of Arctic sovereignty can take place without Inuit at the table. That is extremely important in our view. We have repeatedly made that clear in our policies and in open letters that we have written. We recognize that you are a people. You are recognized as a people in the Canadian Constitution, for that matter.
I would like to hear your opinion, as someone who represents all Inuit, including those in Nunavik in Quebec. The seven Inuit villages north of 60, in Nunavik, are not included in the Northern Strategy and are therefore not eligible for federal assistance.
What are your thoughts on that? Have Nunavik and the province of Quebec approached you to force the federal government to include them?
In my opinion, they have a strategic position in the north. Vessels coming in from the Atlantic Ocean have to use the Hudson Strait. Quebec considers it a very serious injustice that they are not represented.
Can you tell us whether Nunavik has raised the matter with you? On your end, have you brought the matter to the attention of the federal government to correct this injustice?
:
Thank you very much for your question. That is a very important question for ITK, because we represent the four regions, which include Nunavik and Nunatsiavut.
When the strategy was announced, we did write to the Prime Minister and to Minister Strahl about the need to be comprehensive in terms of encompassing all Inuit regions. Whether or not we live below the 55th parallel or the 60th parallel, we face the same living conditions as people face above the 60th parallel, so it's necessary for us to work together as Inuit, first of all. We don't always deal with these jurisdictional issues when we're looking at the bigger picture, because we are one people.
We have asked the Prime Minister, and when I met with him in Iqaluit, I also raised that issue with him. We haven't had a response as to whether Nunavik and Nunatsiavut are going to be included. The only thing that has been said, really, when the map was published, is that they said they were going to fix the map. I'm not sure whether that includes the fact that they're going to change the policy to include Nunavik and Nunatsiavut in the strategy itself. We haven't received any confirmation of that, but our position is that it should. It needs to include the four regions.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And welcome to you, Mary Simon. I'm very glad you're here. It was I who urged the committee to bring you here, and I'm very proud to tell my fellow colleagues that you hail from Nunatsiavut, the translation of which, as I understand it, is “our beautiful land”. Thank you for coming, and thank you for all the work you do.
I find it disconcerting as a Canadian, knowing the effort and the length of time that goes into land claims negotiations—I know it was over 30 years in the case of Nunatsiavut—that you end up having to sue the government to implement them. I know what it takes for people to sign this kind of agreement, because it is a permanent decision. I'm extremely disheartened to know that has happened, and also that the government has failed—one of the few countries in the world that has failed—to sign on to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It makes it very hard to see a partnership coming under these circumstances.
Is the failure to sign the UN declaration meaningful in practical ways, other than the symbolic importance? Does that have any effect on the rights of the Inuit, or is it something that's more important from a recognition effect?
ITK found the arguments that Canada put forward in the run-up to the adoption of the declaration quite curious, because in the run-up to the votes in New York in September 2007 there appeared to be an argument that adoption of the declaration would cause legal mayhem in Canada. In fact, there was even reference to elements of the National Defence Act somehow being subject to question.
Once the declaration was adopted by votes from every country except four, the federal government's posture seemed to go in the exact opposite direction. The argument has been that the declaration has no effect in Canada. So we went from an argument that the declaration would have huge impact in Canada to a position that it would have no impact in Canada. We found that both very curious and very unconvincing.
The reality is that most international lawyers would agree that the declaration does have status in Canada. It is part of the international human rights architecture. Human rights instruments are not subject to countries opting in and out. If that were the case, there would be very few reliable human rights standards anywhere in the globe.
It's my understanding that two judges in Canada have already recited the relevance of the declaration in efforts to interpret Canadian law. Obviously it does not have the force of a formal treaty or statute, but it does have significance in international law, and Canada does operate within that arena of international law.
We've already seen one of the four countries that expressed opposition change its position--that is, Australia--and there's some indication that both New Zealand and the United States are reconsidering their positions. So Canada may end up very much alone.
:
Thank you for your question.
Anything that will reduce the cost of living up north is of interest to us. The building of small harbours is part of that, so we support the idea that more than one would be built.
Going back to what you were saying about the Northwest Passage opening up, just to illustrate how we see the partnership that needs to be built around what's happening, that could be related to climate change, because many things are changing. We feel that climate change is having a serious impact on our ability to live traditionally in the Arctic as a people. Many things have changed.
But I think it would be very productive to explore the possibility of a joint Inuit-federal government Northwest Passage authority. It would offer a proactive regulatory regime against the expected increase in ship traffic, for instance, while at the same time respecting the history of Inuit use and the central importance of sustainable economic development for Inuit communities.
We're really trying to build a better education system that will then support a better economic base for our people. They're intertwined, so when you talk about the Northwest Passage and the possibility of the exploration that might take place in the High Arctic, this is something we see as being very useful.
Thank you both for coming. It's an interesting topic.
I'd like to bring it back, though, to the topic we're discussing in a broader sense, and that's Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic on behalf of all Canadians, including the Inuit people. Obviously the Inuit people have a very important role to play, based on history and geography.
First of all, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada is the lead agency in Canadian Arctic sovereignty. How do you view that: good, bad, encouraging? How do you see that playing out with them, not the Department of National Defence, as the lead agency?
:
Thank you for that question.
Sovereignty has impacted our people for many years. I don't know if you know this, but in the early 1950s our people from Nunavik, from northern Quebec, which is where I come from, were relocated into the High Arctic. The government, maybe not this present government, but the federal government has acknowledged that yes, Inuit played an integral role in the assertion of sovereignty. So we have been impacted by the sovereignty issue for many years.
What we're trying to do now is have more control over how that plays out in terms of our own lives, because people were moved without consenting to be moved. I think that in 2009 we're at the stage where we do have these land claims agreements, we do have different authorities that represent Inuit, like ITK. We have the Makivik Corporation, we have the Nunavut Tunngavik, we have the Inuvialuit region, and now we have the Nunatsiavut government. They all have authority over their territories. I think it's really incumbent upon all of us to make sure that these processes work so the lives of our people at the community level are not being adversely affected the way they were years ago. Very big traumas were experienced in those days, and we don't want to see that happen again. The only way we can have some assurances is to work together on these issues.
:
That's a very important question.
We have just embarked on a national process to improve Inuit education across the Canadian Arctic, and I'm the chair of the process. What we're going to do is look at how well we've done in education, where some of the failures have been, where the successes are. We want to build on our successes and identify the gaps. So we have embarked on a pan-Arctic process, and Makivik is very involved in that, and the Kativik school board in Nunavik and the Nunatsiavut government also. So it's all the regions, and it has been signed by Minister Strahl on behalf of the Government of Canada. And we are also urging the provinces that have Inuit living in them to participate, such as Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec. We had a representative from the Newfoundland government. They haven't signed the accord, but they were there and they participated, so that's important.
So we are embarking on this initiative because I think it's at the core of all the issues we face. Our young population numbers are very high, and if we can't get well-educated adults coming out of our school system, the jobs are always going to be taken up by those who move into the Arctic and then leave again because it's not their home. I think that in order to have sustainable communities, we have to educate. Our graduation rate right now for high school is 23%. So 61% don't finish high school. You know, when he was up in the Arctic this summer, the Prime Minister asked me a lot of questions about that, and he was really surprised to see that most of the people working out there where he went were non-native, were non-Inuit. He wanted to know why.
ITK acknowledges, as President Simon mentioned a moment ago, that the Arctic is a high-cost area and public investment is limited. So one has to make the best use of resources.
Insofar as pursuing a sovereignty strategy and a defence strategy in the north is concerned, it makes sense to try to make federal investments as multi-purpose as possible. That means consciously trying to wed civilian and military objectives. There are many examples where we think a creative agenda can actually serve a variety of ends.
We talked a moment ago about small craft harbours. It clearly makes a lot of sense to invest in small craft harbours. Those harbours are important for surveillance, monitoring, and environmental protection purposes. They're also important for reducing the cost of bringing goods into the communities. They're important for regional economic development purposes.
Associated with that is the expansion of the commercial fishery in the Arctic. There is the nucleus of an Inuit fishery, a commercial fishery. Their prospects are bright. There is some hope that the turbot allocations will increase in the next 12 months. It would make sense to have an Inuit-owned resident commercial fishery in the Arctic. Every boat that goes out watching those waters is evidence of Canadian use and occupation.
We talked earlier about the Rangers. Certainly the Rangers are a valuable part of Canada's defence policy, and the expansion of the Rangers program is welcome. In theory, the Rangers program could also be more consciously multi-purpose. In addition to environmental observation, you could in fact expand that program to allow Rangers to help in bringing country food back to the communities. There are some reports that say one in every two Inuit households goes hungry once a year. That's a shocking figure.
So multi-purpose investments would help.
:
Thank you, Chair; and congratulations on that landslide victory.
John and Mary, let me add my voice to those of my colleagues in welcoming you this morning and thanking you for taking time out of your day to spend some time with us.
Mary, I thought you said there were six recommendations.You spelled out five. Maybe I heard wrong; maybe you mentioned “five” and I heard “six”.
Out of the five recommendations you mentioned, I wonder if part of the problem in creating the change is that the Arctic is experiencing a rapid change. From dog teams and sleighs to snow machines, and young people who hunted and lived off the land now fighting drug addictions, just that whole environmental impact has caused a significant change in lifestyle of the Arctic.
When you look at what you need to bring this together, what would be your first recommendation? You talked about land claims; you talked about health, education, and government partnerships. What do you see as the first order of business?
You are right that I said there were six recommendations. I felt I was going over my time, so I didn't go into my sixth recommendation. But I actually brought it into our discussion, and it's the one where we might explore a more productive relationship by possibly creating this joint Inuit-federal government Northwest Passage authority. That was the sixth recommendation.
Let me address the bigger picture you just laid out. There are many factors regarding why our young people are not doing as well as they should. There is the fact that our school system needs to be improved. We need better social and health system services. We don't have services for mental health. The suicide rate is seven times greater than in the rest of Canada, and it's mostly young men who are committing suicide. We don't have a mental health service in the north; it's non-existent in many areas because, as you know, our communities are very remote. There are no roads. The smaller the community, the less service they get. Mental health has been one of the key priorities in the development of our health services—not to diminish the other health factors as well.
Education is another one.
On climate change, we need adaptation programs. The climate is changing rapidly in the Arctic. We can't do anything about it; it's not really in our hands, and yet we have no real ability to help people adapt to those changes. You are right that it is having an impact.
So when you put all of these things together, it's very difficult for me say what the number one priority is, because all of these factors are interrelated.
We have communities that are going to have to be relocated because of climate change. One of them is in Nunavik, where Salluit is a community that is sinking.
These are very big issues for our communities.
Over the course of our deliberations, we have tried to examine the sovereignty issue to some extent. Land occupation is a very important consideration. It seems that no one disputes the fact that Inuit have occupied the land in the north since time immemorial.
But there are other avenues that we are also pursuing. There is the whole issue of the extension of the continental shelf. As you know, in 2013, Canada will have to make its proposal and explain how it sees the issue. Furthermore, an additional 300,000 km were recognized as belonging to Norway.
And there is the whole matter of land control, and I would like to hear your thoughts on that. In terms of the Northern Strategy, we, the Bloc Québécois, find there is a lot of talk about militarizing the north. I think I heard you say earlier that you are not opposed to having a bit of a stronger military presence in the north. One of the measures put forward by the government is the modernization of the Rangers. You cannot object to that.
But I would like to hear your thoughts on the military training centre in Resolute Bay, the building of a deep-water port in Nanisivik, the presence of an ice-breaker, the new offshore patrol ships and the Polar Epsilon project, which, along with RADARSAT-2, will monitor and track vessels entering and travelling through the Northwest Passage.
Do you acknowledge that the issue of land control can go as far as to include the range of military measures put forward by the government? On one hand, do you share that opinion? On the other, are you consulted on all the dynamics when a decision is made to do this or that? Are your governments consulted? Does Canada ask for your help with all of these projects?
:
Well, you'll be either disappointed or relieved to know that ITK doesn't actually have somebody who works full time on military issues per se, so by definition, my response will have to be somewhat general.
On your last point about consultation, ITK has minimal input into the Arctic strategy, and that was a major disappointment. As you heard from President Simon, a test of partnership is doing things together, and in the absence of the Inuit having a central role in the development of Arctic strategy, it's hard for the Inuit to believe that the strategy will reflect Inuit priorities. That covers everything.
In terms of military investments, as President Simon said, Inuit have supported Canada taking steps to demonstrate to the world that it has an active program to discharge responsibilities in the Arctic. Where possible, it's important that military investments be married to civilian purposes. Insofar as we can serve civilian agendas and military agendas at the same time, that's a better use of investment.
How much military investment is too much in comparison with what's being spent on education and health is obviously a core issue. I think there is a sense that the civilian agenda has been left behind and that there are investments that should be made on the social policy side that aren't being made. The Nunavut Inuit lawsuit, which we talked about earlier, speaks precisely to that point. Justice Berger completed a fine report in 2006, as conciliator, that said that the only way forward in the Nunavut project was to heighten investments in education and training and that there is a connection between language retention and education. NTI made that lawsuit. ITK supports that lawsuit, and we hope there will be a negotiated outcome.
Radar satellites fit into, perhaps, an alternative way of looking at the Northwest Passage, which came up earlier. The possibility of some kind of joint Inuit–Government of Canada passage authority would be a novel but interesting idea worth exploring. We have a St. Lawrence Seaway Authority on a bilateral basis with the United States. The partnership with the Inuit is surely as important in the Arctic as our relationship with the United States is on our southern border.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Congratulations on your re-election.
As the new member on the committee, I just want to say I'm very pleased to be here and I look forward to working with all of you.
Madam Simon and Mr. Merritt, thank you very much for your time today and, for that matter, this week. I found your presentation very helpful and very informative.
I'd like to touch on perhaps two or three different areas, if I have the time. I'll begin by elaborating on Mr. Payne's question on CanNor, the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. It's clear, and I'm certainly aware--and it's clear from your presentation--that there's still a lot of work to do in the Arctic, particularly in the areas of human and social development, in health, education, etc. You very eloquently covered that.
However, I hope you would agree that the level of interest in the Arctic and the level of concern for the Arctic from this government is unprecedented. One of the expressions of that is the new creation of CanNor. I think it is significant that CanNor will be based in the north, in Iqaluit, and will help to bring greater focus to the impact of the programs under the CanNor umbrella.
Have you given any thought to how you might leverage the establishment of CanNor in the north and the greater focus of those programs?