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Meaningful Consultation, Meaningful Participants and Meaning Making: Inuvialuit Perspectives on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and the Climate Crisis

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Meaningful Consultation, Meaningful Participants and Meaning Making: Inuvialuit Perspectives on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and the Climate Crisis Meaningful Consultation, Meaningful Participants and Meaning Making: Inuvialuit Perspectives on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and the Climate Crisis by Letitia Pokiak BA Anthropology, from the University of Alberta, 2003 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Anthropology © Letitia Pokiak, 2020 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This Thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. We acknowledge with respect the Lekwungen peoples on whose traditional territory the university stands and the Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. Supervisory Committee Meaningful Consultation, Meaningful Participants and Meaning Making: Inuvialuit Perspectives on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and the Climate Crisis by Letitia Pokiak BA ANTHROPOLOGY, from the University of Alberta, 2003 Supervisory Committee Dr. Brian Thom, Department of Anthropology Supervisor Dr. Robert Hancock, Department of Anthropology Departmental Member ii Abstract This Inuvialuit ‘story’ revolves around the Inuvialuit uprising and resurgence against government and industrial encroachment, and the self determination efforts to regain sovereignty of traditional territories. This ‘story’ also discusses how meaningful consultation made the Inuvialuit Final Agreement a reality, through which Inuvialuit land rights and freedoms were formally acknowledged and entrenched in the Canadian Constitution. Through meaningful consultation, Inuvialuit have become ‘meaningful participants’ in sustainable and future-making decisions of Inuvialuit nunangat (Inuvialuit lands) and waters, with respect to the Inuvialuit People and natural beings that Inuvialuit depend upon and maintain relationship with. As ‘meaningful participants’, Inuvialuit have the sovereign rights to “make meaning” and carve out a future as a sovereign nation within the country of Canada. This Inuvialuit ‘story’ is told with an informal framework through which it decolonizes academia, while also highlighting Indigenous voice through an Indigenous lens and worldview. The government and industry are called upon to meaningfully consult with Indigenous Peoples who have not only inhabited Turtle Island for millennia, but who have inherent Indigenous rights and freedoms, as Indigenous embodiment and well-being, and temporality and future-making are entangled with homelands. iii Contents Supervisory Committee ....................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .............................................................................................................................................. iii Contents ............................................................................................................................................. iv List of tables ....................................................................................................................................... vi List of figures ..................................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................................................viii Dedication .......................................................................................................................................... ix Preface ................................................................................................................................................ x Influence and Context ............................................................................................................................. 1 Ingilraani – time immemorial............................................................................................................... 1 Significance of the nuna....................................................................................................................... 9 Food sovereignty and Inuvialuit Pitqusimik Ilisimaniq ........................................................................ 13 Umialiit, Inuvialuit governance .......................................................................................................... 17 Foreign pressures, population decline and Inuvialuit suannqak.......................................................... 21 The Search: Oral Traditions ................................................................................................................... 27 Inuvialuit Narratives .......................................................................................................................... 36 Significance of the Story ........................................................................................................................ 44 Life in Transition: Pressures of Capitalism, the State and the Climate Crisis ....................................... 44 Significance of the search .................................................................................................................. 50 Food sovereignty, as sovereignty of the land and waters ................................................................... 53 Resurgence of Inuvialuit and the beginnings of Committee of Original People’s Entitlement (COPE) .. 54 Temporality of and connectedness to nuna: Inuvialuit Nunangat ...................................................... 57 The Inuvialuit Final Agreement, a constitutional right ........................................................................ 59 Entanglements .................................................................................................................................. 62 Climate crisis and development in the Western Arctic ....................................................................... 65 Meaning Making: The Inuvialuit Final Agreement ................................................................................. 68 The mobilization of COPE................................................................................................................... 71 Implications and necessities of oil and gas industry ........................................................................... 73 Meaningful consultation .................................................................................................................... 76 Power struggles and the road to the IFA ............................................................................................ 82 Meaningful Participation, uniqueness of the IFA ................................................................................ 86 iv Implementation challenges of the IFA ................................................................................................ 93 From meaningful consultation to meaningful participants and making meaning ................................ 98 Meaning Making: Visions and Concerns of Inuvialuit .......................................................................... 101 Impacts of the anthropogenic climate crisis ..................................................................................... 103 Accelerated climate change impacts: the risks of camping, hunting and knowledge transfer........... 105 Increased marine traffic ................................................................................................................... 109 Knowledge of the Elders and knowledge of the IFA .......................................................................... 111 Inuvialuit practices of unity and sharing ........................................................................................... 113 Inuvialuit governance and state impingement ................................................................................. 115 Morals, Values, Teachings ................................................................................................................... 124 Swallow and adapt .......................................................................................................................... 125 Ethical dimensions ........................................................................................................................... 127 Mobilization: theory into practice ................................................................................................... 129 Story as knowledge .......................................................................................................................... 130 Call to action ................................................................................................................................... 133 Land freeze to land claims and land rights ....................................................................................... 136 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 141 Appendix 1 .......................................................................................................................................... 146 List of Committee for Original People’s Entitlement members ..................................................... 146 Appendix 2 .........................................................................................................................................
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