ECONOMY Our Baffinland: Digital Indigenous Democracy Norman Cohn & Zacharias Kunuk s an upsurge of development due to global gency for Baffin Island Inuit facing one of the largest warming threatens to overwhelm communities mining developments in Canadian history. Baffinland iAn the resource-rich Canadian Arctic, how can Inuit Iron Mines Corporation’s (BIM) Mary River project in those communities be more fully involved and consulted is a $6 billion open-pit extraction of extremely high- in their own language? What tools are needed to grade iron ore that, if fully exploited, could continue make knowledgeable decisions? Communicating in for 100 years. The mining site, in the centre of North writing with oral cultures makes ‘consulting’ one- Baffin Island about half-way between the Inuit com- sided: giving people thousands of pages they can’t munities of Pond Inlet and Igloolik, requires a 150 read is unlikely to produce an informed, meaningful km railroad built across frozen tundra to transport response. Now for the first time Internet audiovisual ore to a deep-water port where the world’s largest su- tools enable community-based decision-making in pertankers will carry it to European and Asian mar- oral Inuktitut that meets higher standards of consti- kets. Operating the past several years under a tutional and international law, and offers a new temporary exploratory permit, BIM filed its Final En- model for development in Indigenous homelands. To vironmental Impact Statement (FEIS) with the Nunavut meet these standards, Inuit must get clear informa- Impact Review Board (NIRB) in February 2012. tion in language they understand, talk about it to- Under considerable pressure from BIM and the Gov- gether in their own way, and make consensus ernment of Canada to expedite a “timely review”, decisions following the concept of angiqatigingniq, a NIRB has scheduled public hearings on the FEIS to complex set of social, listening, and diplomatic skills begin in July 2012 in Iqaluit, Igloolik, and Pond Inlet, for respecting differing opinions patiently until find- with a final decision on the Project in 2013. ing one unified decision everyone can support. In So far, following twentieth century rules of con- complex multi-lateral high-stakes negotiations, Inuit sultation and review, discussion of BIM’s operating consensus—deciding together—may be the strongest plan, shared revenues, and environmental or social power communities can bring to the table in situa- impacts on Inuit has mostly gone on between NIRB tions where governments and transnational corpora- and BIM (BIM is 70% foreign-owned by ArcelorMit- tions are working together. tal, the world’s largest steelmaker) and with BIM’s Digital Indigenous Democracy (DID) is a net- local partners. That is, the governments of Canada work of Isuma Distribution International Inc., with and Nunavut, and the agencies representing the Nunavut Independent Television Network (NITV), Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA), Nunavut Tun- Municipality of Igloolik, Nunavut Department of ngavik Inc. (NTI), and its Baffin regional arm, Qik- Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, Carleton Cen- iqtani Inuit Association (QIA). Confidential tre for Community Innovation, Mount Allison Uni- negotiations define what royalty relationships and versity and LKL International. DID is led by business opportunities will be once the project is ap- Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn of Isuma Dis- proved, with the result that BIM’s partners, repre- tribution and NITV, and Human Rights Assessor, senting Inuit interests, may be financially implicated Lloyd Lipsett. DID uses local radio, television, mul- in the development of the project. timedia and social networking tools to insure mean- Hamlet Councils and Inuit in the seven most im- ingful community participation in oral Inuktitut in pacted communities—Igloolik, Pond Inlet, Arctic public hearings and in environmental impact and Bay, Hall Beach, Clyde River, Kimmirut, and Cape benefits decisions affecting Inuit for generations to Dorset—have not been adequately informed, con- come. sulted or included in the decision or deal-making. QIA, with financial assistance from BIM, established Adequate Consultation a 42-member Baffinland Committee of six Inuit in DID pilots this model at a moment of extreme ur- each of the seven communities representing different 50 Northern Public Affairs, Spring 2012 local organizations, such as Hamlet Council, Hunters that case, with information technologies available and Trappers Organization. Local Baffinland Com- today, what could they tell us? What can we learn mittee-members, many of whom are unilingual in from them? How should we listen? Inuktitut, meet to discuss original English-language The ancient skill of consensus decision-making, documents received from BIM, NIRB, and QIA, named angiqatigingniq [ahng-yee-kha-te-GING-nik] in with the aid of written Inuktitut ‘summaries’ pre- the Six ‘Commandments’ of traditional Inuit knowl- pared by QIA that most Inuit cannot read. edge called Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit or IQ, enabled While some local Committee-members may be- small groups of people to survive and thrive for 4000 lieve they should pass information on to their com- years in the world’s harshest climate. Inuit learned munities, and gather comments to feedback to QIA the hard way, through experience, that the safest way and BIM, the Committees have not been provided to go forward in a dangerous environment is by pa- with a clear mandate to do this, nor any financial or tiently listening to, and respecting, different opinions communication tools to carry it out. Despite these until one unified decision emerges that everyone can limitations, local Committee meeting minutes show support. The other five IQ commandments sound members concerned about many aspects of Baffin- equally modern in today’s film, video and social net- land’s plan, but especially about BIM’s unilateral de- working twenty-first century: acquiring knowledge, cision to build the deep-water port at Steensby Inlet adapting resourcefully, working together, putting and ship iron ore by supertankers daily through the community above the individual and, most timely, Foxe Basin. what Inuit call Avatimik Kamattiarniq, a concept of en- vironmental stewardship stressing the relationship be- Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, Foxe Basin and Steensby Inlet tween Inuit (i.e. people) and their environment. Inuit Oral History and modern scientific evidence both agree: people from the region of North Baffin Linking Digital Indigenous Democracy Island have been living and hunting walrus in Foxe and Human Rights Impact Assessment Basin, and caribou in Steensby Inlet, for 4000 years. Recent trends in international law now recognize Foxe Basin known to Inuit as Ikiq, is the home and that business enterprises have a responsibility to re- calving ground of Canada’s largest walrus herd, a spect human rights throughout their operations. rich ecosystem of marine mammals like seals, bow- Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIA) identify po- head whales and polar bears, and nesting grounds for tential positive and negative impacts of a business en- bird species including gyrfalcons, king eider ducks, terprise through consultation and dialogue with all snowy owls, snow geese, and swans. Steensby Inlet, stakeholders. Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) known to Inuit as Kangiqlukjuaq, on the south-west highlights the fundamental importance of consulta- coast of North Baffin Island, is the Inuit ‘Timbuktoo’ tion and good faith negotiation with Indigenous peo- or ‘Macchu Piccu’ of the region, a major meeting ples about projects that affect their land, resources, crossroads on the nomadic roadmap Inuit caribou and cultural heritage. The Extractive Industries Trans- hunters followed every year for 40 centuries. parency Initiative (EITI) is an important standard to This summer Zacharias Kunuk, Cannes award- promote financial transparency and ensure that com- winning filmmaker, Igloolik Hamlet Councilor and munities benefit from the significant revenues gener- Officer of the Order of Canada, will hunt walrus ated by resource extraction. Together, these and caribou in the same places and same ways as his standards focus on informed consultation, participa- father, grandfather and their grandfathers before tion and transparency as necessary protection of In- them since Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt or digenous lands. Agamemnon led the Greeks to sack Troy. Born in Both the Environmental Review by Nunavut Im- 1957 in a sod house at Kapuivik between Ikiq and pact Review Board (NIRB) and an Inuit Impact and Kangiqlukjuaq, Zacharias—who never saw a white Benefits Agreement (IIBA) negotiated by Qikiqtani man until he was nine years-old and now uses Face- Inuit Association (QIA) require Inuit to be informed book to interact with friends from Igloolik to and consulted under terms defined by the Nunavut Tokyo—is only one generation removed from the Land Claims Agreement (NLCA), the Canada’s same Inuit who were contemporaries of The Old Tes- Supreme Court of Canada and the Indigenous peo- tament and The Iliad. In the mysterious reality of ples rights standards in Canadian and international today’s quantum Space-Time, what does this really law. Canada formally supports all these standards; mean? Is it possible to imagine people that old, whose however, across long-standing language and cultural knowledge and experience we would revere that barriers, none is easy to carry out. Through DID, much, walking the earth in the 21st Century? And in Inuit adapt ‘deciding together’ to the challenges of mod- Northern Public Affairs, Spring 2012 51 ern transnational development—to get information allow Inuit to participate meaningfully in public hear- they need in language they understand, to talk about ings and decision-making during the year ahead, their concerns publicly, and to reach collective deci- bringing what appear to be ‘nostalgic’ Inuit values sions with the power of consensus. Starting in May onto the main stage of twenty-first century events, 2012, DID media tools inform, consult, and assist affecting not only Inuit but the interconnected planet Inuit to make decisions together in the seven im- we all occupy.