Parnasimautik Consultation Report
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PARNASIMAUTIK CONSULTATION REPORT On the Consultations Carried Out with Nunavik Inuit in 2013 PARNASIMAUTIK CONSULTATION REPORT ON THE CONSULTATIONS CARRIED OUT WITH NUNAVIK INUIT IN 2013 NOVEMBER 14, 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS MESSAGE 1 INTRODUCTION Nunavik Context 3 Nunavik Today 7 WHO WE ARE Culture, Language and Identity 13 Lands 27 Food Security 37 OUR COMMUNITIES Families 47 Education 57 Health and Social Services 69 Justice and Social Regulation 83 Cost of Living and Housing 95 Local Development and Essential Services 113 Employment 123 OUR REGION Regional Development 139 Regional Planning 161 CONCLUSION 169 APPENDICES Appendix 1 – Eras of Exploitation 173 Appendix 2 – Chronology 187 Appendix 3 – All-Organizations Statements 213 Appendix 4 – What Was Said Bulletins 219 Introduction Message from the Core Group MESSAGE FROM THE CORE GROUP In September 2010, Plan Nunavik was tabled with the Québec government by Nunavik Inuit. Plan Nunavik was a sector by sector response to the Plan Nord, in preparation at that time. It described the context in which the 1975 James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement and the 2002 Sanarrutik Agreement were signed, and told about life and current conditions in Nunavik communities. Plan Nunavik also set pre-conditions for our support for the development of the north. Four years later, these pre-conditions have still not been met. While Plan Nunavik was being drafted by our regional organizations in the summer of 2010, there was no time for community consultations. The Québec government, which was driving the political agenda and timetable, had plans to release its Plan Nord early in 2011. A change in government in 2012 gave Nunavik Inuit an opportunity to broaden regional discussion on Plan Nunavik. At a Nunavik all-organizations meeting held in Kuujjuaq in September 2012, participants agreed that the work begun in 2010 was important and that community consultations should be organized to identify a comprehensive vision of development according to Inuit culture, identity, language and traditional way of life so as to protect them now and enhance them for the future. Lands, families, justice, employment and the environment were added to the list of fundamental sectors already contained in Plan Nunavik. Between September and December 2012, the President of the Makivik Corporation, Jobie Tukkiapik, and the Chairperson of the Kativik Regional Government, Maggie Emudluk, made formal presentations to the boards of directors of regional organizations. Then, between February and December 2013, we attended workshops organized in all the communities, as well as in Chisasibi, Kawachikamach and Montreal. At the workshops, local group and committee representatives discussed the fundamental issues affecting their day-to-day lives, individual residents stepped up to the microphone to voice their ideas, and whole communities listened to discussions from work or home on their local FM radio station. What Was Said bulletins were produced after each workshop and transmitted to local leaders for distribution. Each community was encouraged to continue its own local Parnasimautik process. Parnasimautik has generated a good deal of enthusiasm all around Nunavik, and rightly so. Parnasimautik has allowed us to reflect on our past, present and future. It has been an exercise in regional and local mobilization. In 2014, a regional radio call-in show, a youth conference and a presentation to the annual general meeting of the Makivik Corporation were conducted. Throughout the summer, the Parnasimautik core group transformed community feedback on Who We Are, Our Communities and Our Region into a report with a comprehensive vision for the renewal future of Nunavik Inuit, families and communities, as well as for the renewal of our relationship with our regional Parnasimautik Consultation Report Page 1 November 2014 November 14, 2014 Introduction Nunavik Context NUNAVIK CONTEXT Nunavik is a vast region stretching from northern James Bay in the south, north to Hudson Strait including portions of eastern Hudson Bay and the entirety of Ungava Bay. It is bounded to the south by the 55th parallel and to the east by Labrador. Nunavik is the homeland for 11,000 Inuit who live in 14 communities, including a small number of Inuit living in Chisasibi. Archeological evidence indicates that Inuit have lived and used this region in a continuous manner for over 4000 years. The first recorded European contact was in 1610 when Sir Martin Frobisher, in his ill-fated search for the Northwest Passage, sailed into Hudson Bay. During the 1600s numerous other explorers, whalers, missionaries and traders came and went. Nunavik Inuit remained essentially isolated until the early 1700s when whalers began coming into the region. While there was some reported contact with Inuit in whaling journals, it was not until the arrival of the fur trading companies in the late 1800s that more sustained contact occurred. This was facilitated by a land grant from the King of England to his cousin Rupert. This created ‘Rupert’s Land” and a monopoly for the Hudson Bay Company to exploit furs in a huge portion of northern Canada, including present-day Nunavik. Before the arrival of the fur traders, Inuit were living as they always had – setting camp, traveling and harvesting according to the seasons and animal migrations. Winter camps were generally more established. These were typically extended families living in igloos and using dog sleds for transportation. The main food source was caribou, seal and fish. In the summer months family groups fanned out along the coast and in river valleys, living in skin tents, hunting migratory birds, marine mammals, fishing and gathering berries. The arrival of the Europeans brought an arsenal of problems. Disease, particularly measles and tuberculosis, ravaged camps and families. Dependency on trade goods shifted the seasonal cycle and drew families into a debt and credit relationship with the trading posts based on the ability to produce furs. Missionaries challenged spiritual beliefs and social norms. Inuit were invisible to the outside world and were treated as providers of fur and heathens to be converted. The next 50 years were characterized by some significant shifts in territorial boundaries. The Act respecting the North-Western, Northern and North-Eastern Boundaries of the Province of Québec of 1898 extended the boundaries northward to the 52nd parallel which began the northward reach of governments without any consultation with aboriginal groups. Then in the Québec Boundaries Extension Act of 1912, there was another enlargement capturing the entirety of present-day mainland Nunavik. During these land grabs, both governments ignored their obligations to the people living there and to address their most basic needs. Disease and starvation took their toll. Inuit and other aboriginal groups were totally neglected by governments. The worst was yet to come. Beginning in the mid-1950s the federal government established a policy to try and entice people off the land and settle them into small communities in order to be Parnasimautik Consultation Report Page 3 November 2014 Nunavik Context Introduction more easily administered. Rudimentary housing, health services, schools and policing were provided. Typically a community site would be located where a trading post or mission had already been established and where a pattern of dependency had set in. Thus began the shift from a subsistence lifestyle to one where access to money became important. Inuit were still very much living off the land, but their patterns of land use changed and hunting equipment moved from dog teams, harpoons and rudimentary weapons to snow machines and guns. This was also the time of residential schools where children were taken from families and sent to government run schools far away in places such as Churchill, Manitoba. Tuberculosis was still rampant and many individuals were sent south for long periods, some never to return. Families were torn apart and many left dependent and helpless without their primary providers or caregivers. It was during this time that families were relocated from Inukjuak to Resolute Bay by the federal government to assert Canadian sovereignty. The High Arctic Relocation is one of the most disgraceful events in Nunavik’s colonial history and stark example of how geo-politics was being played out by government at the expense of Inuit. It is important at this point to highlight how rapid this last round of intrusions into Nunavik was. As recalled by a Nunavik Inuit leader, “I was 10 years old before I ever even saw a white person”. 25 years later this same individual was jumping on and off airplanes traveling to corporate boardrooms negotiating a land claims agreement. Imagine the pace of change Inuit were enduring. Enter big business and the era of resource development. Events in the early 1970s galvanized Inuit and their Cree neighbours and the legal landscape of Nunavik was forever changed. In 1971 the Premier of Québec announced the “project of the century” – a massive hydroelectric development project for the La Grande River and its watershed. No one told the Inuit or Cree. Québec had targeted northern rivers as a new economic focus and Inuit were not contemplated in their plans. The Northern Québec Inuit Association, along with the Grand Council of the Crees of Québec filed for, and won, an injunction to stop the project. In an historic and courageous decision, Justice Malouf ruled in their favour. It was reversed six days later by the Québec Court of Appeal but paved the way for the negotiations of the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement (JBNQA). The JBNQA, unlike more modern treaties, was a frantic, 2-year, out-of-court settlement. Work on the La Grande project had resumed. Dams, roads, flooding of vast reservoirs were all part of the plan. While the Inuit and Cree were negotiating, their lands were being destroyed. Governments also required that the Inuit and Cree surrender their aboriginal title, while at the same time confirming the rights of the Québec and Hydro-Québec to develop the region’s resources.