How Do Canada and Inuit Get to Win-Win in the Arctic?

HOW DO CANADA AND INUIT GET TO WIN-WIN IN THE ARCTIC? Mary Simon Mary Simon asks what a “win-win scenario” would be for Canada in the Arctic. She observes how policy-making in the Arctic has been carried out in a “fit of absence of mind.” Inuit have existed at the geographic and psychological margins of Canadian society. She observes how this has affected policy and suggests ways it could be remedied. Inuit Nunangat is a phrase policy-makers would be wise to comprehend. It’s how Inuit view the Canadian Arctic. It’s how Inuit would like to be viewed by Canada and Canadian governments. Understanding it is just the start of enlightened policy in the Arctic. Quel serait pour le Canada le « scénario gagnant-gagnant » dans l’Arctique ? s’interroge Mary Simon, qui observe que notre politique relative au Grand Nord s’est élaborée « comme par inadvertance ». Les Inuits ont vécu aux marges géographiques et psychologiques de la société canadienne, et ils en ont subi les conséquences. Pour redresser la situation, elle propose aux décideurs de méditer sur les mots Inuit Nunangat, qui décrivent comment les Inuits perçoivent l’Arctique mais aussi comment ils veulent être perçus par le Canada et ses gouvernements. Mieux on saisira le sens de ces deux mots, mieux on prendra des décisions éclairées au sujet de l’Arctique. n 2011, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) celebrated its 40th That pattern has been particularly apparent with respect anniversary as the national organization representing to Inuit. Our contact with European peoples — whalers, ICanadian Inuit. This year, the Institute for Research on traders, military, missionaries, police, public servants and Public Policy celebrates the same milestone. From one frisky resource developers — came much later than that of most 40-year-old to another: Happy birthday! Aboriginal peoples in Canada. There are Inuit elders, born The history of European expansion into the New World on the land and alive today who can recall never meeting a is one of appropriation: appropriation of ancestral lands and qallunaat (non-Inuit) before their adolescence. resources; appropriation of governance of those lands and These realities have had profound consequences for waters and the peoples and communities that they sustain; Inuit, for our relationship to Canada and for our circum- and, all too often, appropriation of the identity, sense of stances, priorities and aspirations within Canada. purpose and self-worth of the Aboriginal occupants. There have been some consequences that have held us In some cases, this appropriation was only partial; in back. For example, anyone visiting our communities cannot some cases, largely complete; in other cases, total. Sadly, help but see the lack of physical infrastructure that is taken many Aboriginal societies are remembered only as footnotes for granted in much of Canada, and even in other parts of the in history or as geographic place names preserved in the lan- Arctic. Visitors from nearby Greenland are always shocked that guages of European settlers. Iqaluit, the biggest Inuit community by population, lacks a Not surprisingly, the appropriation of Aboriginal lands dock to allow the direct offloading of goods brought in by ship. and resources, and of the colonization of Aboriginal peo- There have been other consequences that have pre- ples, was most thorough in those parts of North America served for Inuit a range of political possibilities not so read- best suited to agricultural use and agricultural settlement. ily available for Aboriginal peoples living elsewhere. We Parts of Canada — the Canadian Shield, the mountains of have not been demographically displaced. We are still the Western Canada, the sub-Arctic and the Arctic — have faced large majority — up to 85 percent, depending on region — less intense and more recent pressures. of the population of Arctic Canada, the traditional and con- 42 OPTIONS POLITIQUES AOÛT 2012 How do Canada and Inuit get to win-win in the Arctic? temporary Inuit homeland that we call through political processes played out far, Inuit are a heavily ocean-oriented peo- Inuit Nunangat. This fact is of central far away. Residents of Nunavik, in Arctic ple; studies show Inuit have used and importance to the future of the Cana- Quebec, find some humour in saying occupied marine areas larger in size dian Arctic. that, on a far-off date at the beginning of than terrestrial areas. A final example concerns language policies. The federal While the absence of a clear and coherent body of Canadian government offers comparatively laws, policies and programs in relation to Inuit has not generous financial support for inhibited us from formulating and pursuing a core set of education and other language objectives and priorities, the absence of greater clarity as to programs for anglophones and francophones living in Inuit Nun- Canada’s future relationship with Inuit is likely to become angat. Yet there is almost no fed- increasingly problematic. eral funding support for the Inuit language, despite its being the It is fair to say that our margin- the last century, they went to bed living majority language in Inuit Nunangat. alization has had a range of conse- in the Northwest Territories and woke up This is a major problem of eco- quences. It is also fair to say that Arctic living in Quebec. And without ever mov- nomic and social development, as well policy-making in Canada has, through- ing camp. as a problem of principle and respect. out Canadian history, also been at the None of these evolving political Persuasive reports have shown that the margin. and jurisdictional arrangements, struck absence in Inuit Nunangat of educa- Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent through a combination of intergovern- tional systems that take account of stu- referred to Canadian governance over mental agreements, legislative activity dents’ maternal language contributes Arctic regions as having been carried and court decisions, involved even the to the lack of success of an unaccept- out in a “fit of absence of mind.” For pretence of consultation with Inuit. For ably high proportion of Inuit students. Inuit, the more striking absence of most of Canada’s history, paternalism Lack of educational success, of course, mind has been revealed in the ways in was both a given and a constant. feeds into unemployment and other which legislative, administrative and economic and social problems and be- financial powers and discretions have he history of Inuit living at the geo- comes a vicious cycle that is hard for been exercised by the federal and, more Tgraphic and psychological margins communities and households to break. recently, provincial and territorial gov- of Canadian society shows up today in When the passage of foreign-flagged ernments in relation to Inuit Nunan- the mishmash of laws, policies and pro- ships through the Northwest Passage gat and, more specifically, the Inuit of grams, conceived and largely oriented awakened enormous concern among Inuit Nunangat. elsewhere, that have been made to ap- Canadians as to unresolved questions of For better or worse, there has never ply, often awkwardly and incompletely, sovereignty in relation to Arctic waters, been an Inuit act. There has never been to Inuit and Inuit Nunangat. This is ev- Inuit made statements highlighting the a federal government department or ident in a wide variety of ways, but it is fact that Inuit use and occupation of agency devoted to Inuit Nunangat or useful to offer some illustrations. waters of the passage had a long histo- to Inuit. Paul Martin, when serving as One is that Inuit have the same ry, which is the foundation of Canada’s prime minister in the middle part of access to noninsured health benefits claim to these waters as internal waters the last decade, was shocked to be told as status Indians, but Inuit communi- unencumbered by foreign transit rights. by then ITK president Jose Kusugak ties are not eligible for a wide range of In more recent times, Canadian that, out of approximately one-quarter other health and social programs that Inuit joined with Inuit from other parts million federal public servants, not one are defined for First Nations (Indians), of the circumpolar Arctic to provide the appeared to have a job description de- particularly First Nations populations world with the Circumpolar Inuit Decla- voted exclusively to the federal govern- situated on Indian reserves. ration on Sovereignty in the Arctic. This ment’s relationship with Inuit. Another example is the current declaration is an Inuit position on sov- Moreover, not until the post-1975 federal government’s emphasis on the ereignty in the Arctic that thoughtfully era of comprehensive land claims agree- Arctic and sub-Arctic — its Northern and judiciously balances the rights and ments (modern treaties) were the politi- Strategy. Whatever its other merits, this responsibilities of Arctic states with the cal and jurisdictional boundaries within strategy is limited to the Yukon, North- rights and responsibilities of Inuit un- Canada — or, for that matter, between west Territories and Nunavut, leaving der international law and human rights Arctic states — drawn up with any atten- out Inuit and regional Inuit homelands instruments, including the core Inuit tion to the linguistic and cultural unity of Nunavik and Nunatsiavut (northern right to self-determination. of Inuit. Provincial and territorial bound- Labrador). Equally troubling, the strat- Inuit in Nunavut looked past some aries were set, and sometimes extended, egy largely overlooks the reality that of the rigidities of federal government POLICY OPTIONS 43 AUGUST 2012 Mary Simon policies in relation to comprehensive land claims agreements in the 1970s and 1980s to insist that any modern treaty between the Crown and the Inuit of Nuna- vut would have to commit the Crown to the creation of a new territory and government of Nunavut.

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