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Inuit and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement: Supporting Canada's

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Inuit and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement: Supporting Canada's INUIT AND THE NUNAVUT LAND CLAIMS AGREEMENT: SUPPORTING CANADA’S ARCTIC SOVEREIGNTY Terry Fenge Although the ice-strengthened navy patrol vessels to be deployed from Ikpiarjuk on Baffin Island are an important component of Canada's Arctic sovereignty strategy, there is more than one way to skin a cat, says Terry Fenge, formerly with the Inuit Circumpolar Conference Canada. The federal government should involve the Inuit in Canada's Arctic sovereignty, as supported by provisions in the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement dealing with monitoring and offshore management, he says. Yet, these have not been implemented, and Ottawa seems to have forfeited the opportunity to use them to shore up sovereignty. “[E]ngaging the region’s Inuit with a view to jointly ensuring that the obligations, duties, and objectives of the Nunavut, Inuvialuit, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut Land Claims Agreement are fulfilled,” he says, is key to the Integrated Northern Strategy, promised in the recent Throne Speech. Parmi les éléments clés de la souveraineté du Canada dans l’Arctique figure le déploiement dans cette région de navires à coque renforcée. Mais il y a plus d’une façon de parvenir à ses fins, estime Terry Fenge, ex-directeur de la recherche du Conseil circumpolaire inuit du Canada. Le gouvernement fédéral devrait ainsi intégrer les Inuits à la défense de notre souveraineté dans l’Arctique, d’autant plus que les dispositions touchant la surveillance et la gestion en mer de l’Accord sur les revendications territoriales du Nunavut de 1993 donnent corps à nos prétentions. Mais ces clauses n’ont toujours pas été mises en application, et Ottawa semble avoir renoncé à les utiliser à des fins d’affirmation de sa souveraineté. La participation active des Inuits « à l’application conjointe des obligations, devoirs et objectifs de l’Accord sur les revendications territoriales du Nunavut, de l’Inuvialuit, du Nunavik et du Nunatsiavut », est pourtant indispensable à la Stratégie intégrée pour le Nord promise dans le récent discours du Trône, conclut-il. ho would have predicted as recently as 12 rime Minister Harper toured the three territories in sum- months ago that Arctic sovereignty would be P mer 2006 and again in summer 2007, delivering policy W the lead theme in the recent Speech from the speeches in which Arctic sovereignty featured prominently. Throne? But perhaps we should not be too surprised. Deploying newly promised ice-strengthened navy patrol Following the last federal election campaign Prime boats operating out of a yet-to-be-constructed deepwater Minister designate Stephen Harper pounced on comments by port at Arctic Bay to assert sovereignty was a natural fit for a David Wilkins, the US ambassador to Canada, reaffirming government that came to power with a mandate to rebuild Washington’s long-standing view that the Northwest Passage and reinvest in the military. is an international strait through which international ship- It seems ironic, however, that current efforts to assert ping has the right of passage. Harper admonished the ambas- Arctic sovereignty are driven by melting sea ice opening the sador and the United States for failing to recognize Canada’s Northwest Passage. Until very recently, the Prime Minister was Arctic sovereignty, saying: “We have significant plans for in the camp of the climate change deniers. His government has national defence and for defence of our sovereignty, includ- yet to bring forward a policy on adaptation to the unavoidable ing Arctic sovereignty…It is the Canadian people we get our impacts of climate change. Nor does the Government of mandate from, not the ambassador from the United States.” Canada yet appreciate the opportunity to use the 1993 84 OPTIONS POLITIQUES DÉCEMBRE 2007-JANVIER 2008 Inuit and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement: supporting Canada’s Arctic sovereignty Nunavut Land Claims Agreement form from which to collect data to But this is simply wrong. Far from (NLCA) — the only modern treaty to support its own Arctic Ocean conti- being a wilderness unoccupied by peo- specifically mention Arctic sovereignty nental shelf submission. In response, ple, the Arctic is known, named and — to bolster Canada’s Arctic sovereignty. Rob Huebert of the University of used by Inuit — Canadian citizens — Canada has a tradition of asserting Calgary pithily commented, “If you’re and by a small but growing number of Arctic sovereignty primarily in reaction building a court case, do you depend arrivals from the south. Inuit trace to assumed and real challenges: The on the opposing side for the sources of their use of this region back thousands unwelcome voyages through the your argument?” of years through Thule, Dorset and Pre-Dorset peoples. Far from being a wilderness untrammeled by people, the Canadian Inuit and Arctic is known, named and used by Inuit — Canadian Canada’s Arctic sovereignty citizens — and by a small but growing number of arrivals have invariably been linked. In the 1950s Inuit from the south. Inuit trace their use of this region back families from northern thousands of years through Thule, Dorset and Pre-Dorset Quebec were relocated to peoples. Resolute on Cornwallis Island and Grise Fiord on Northwest Passage of SS Manhattan in Jacob Verhoef, the head of Canada’s Ellesmere Island. While the reasons for 1969 and 1970, and the US Coast Guard scientific data collection effort, warned this relocation have been hotly debat- icebreaker Polar Sea in 1985 readily that Canada’s submission, due by 2013, ed, sovereignty assertion is thought by come to mind. Promises made in the 10 years after Canada ratified UNCLOS, many to be one reason for the move. heat of sovereignty challenges to build might be lacking. It seemed that Canada In 1970 a Canadian Inuit hunter and a Polar Class 8 icebreaker and deploy a was now paying the price for failing to dog team from Resolute stood boldly subsurface surveillance system across build the Polar Class 8 icebreaker and for in front of SS Manhattan as it plowed the passage from Cornwallis Island to delays in starting data collection to sup- through pack ice on its historic voyage Somerset Island were abandoned as too port its claim. Had Canada thought — it stopped. A point had been made. expensive when the media and public ahead when, in the mid-1990s, decisions The Arctic Waters Pollution interest moved on to other issues. were taken to ratify UNCLOS at some Prevention Act — Canada’s prime In August 2007 two Russian mini- time in the future? Apparently not. response to the Manhattan incident — submarines planted a titanium Russian invoked the need to protect the envi- flag on the floor of the Arctic Ocean at enerally there has been a warm ronment upon which Inuit depended the North Pole, symbolically claiming G response in the North as well as out to 100 miles from the coast. In 1985 sovereignty over the seabed northward nationally to the Prime Minister’s Inuvialuit as well as Canadian national- of Russia’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive commitment to assert Canada’s Arctic ists from the south were on board a economic zone. Responding to vivid sovereignty, although what’s at stake is small plane that buzzed the Polar Sea images on the television, Peter MacKay, poorly understood, and some worry dropping politically charged notes from then minister of foreign affairs and that sovereignty assertion through the sky politely but firmly reminding international trade, dismissed this as navy patrol vessels signals the remilita- the crew of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty. “just a show.” Perhaps it was, but when rization of the North. In the aftermath of the Polar Sea inci- responding he confused two issues: Numerous commentators have dent the late Mark R. Gordon, an Inuit international shipping rights, if any, in pressed the Government of Canada to leader from northern Quebec, said Inuit the Northwest Passage, and extension modernize and expand Canada’s fleet would hold up the Canadian flag in the by rim states of their continental shelf of icebreakers and to use the coast Arctic. And still today Inuit leaders rights deep in the Arctic Ocean through guard rather than the navy for Arctic remain fully supportive of Canada’s a process defined in the United Nations sovereignty assertion. But it was the Arctic sovereignty. Mary Simon, Convention on the Law of the Sea Prime Minister himself who revealed President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the (UNCLOS). His over-the-top characteri- the reasoning as well as the intent of national Inuit organization, conducted zation of Russia’s action as reminiscent the Government of Canada in July a Canada-wide tour late in 2007 to of how states acted in the 15th century 2007 when he announced the Arctic engage and inform Canadians on Arctic was not balanced by an announcement patrol ships and deepwater port: sovereignty and to gain public support on an alternative Canadian approach. “Canada has a choice when it comes to for Inuit involvement in this issue. More embarrassment followed. It defending our sovereignty over the was revealed in The Globe and Mail in Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And he geographical extent of Inuit land August 2007 that Canada was relying make no mistake, this Government T and resource use in the Arctic has upon a Russian icebreaker as the plat- intends to use it.” been well known for many years. In 1973 POLICY OPTIONS 85 DECEMBER 2007-JANUARY 2008 Terry Fenge the Government of Canada announced in the baselines to be internal waters section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. the resumption of modern treaty negoti- over which Canada has full rights to Promises made in this agreement are ations with Aboriginal peoples whose regulate and potentially to exclude guaranteed in Canada’s constitution and right to land has not been extinguished shipping.
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