Shaping Inuit Policy The Minutes of the Eskimo Affairs Committee, 1952-62 Edited by Peter Clancy and P. Whitney Lackenbauer Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security (DCASS) ISSN 2368-4569 Series Editors: P. Whitney Lackenbauer Adam Lajeunesse Managing Editor: Ryan Dean Shaping Inuit Policy: The Minutes of the Eskimo Affairs Committee, 1952-62 Peter Clancy and P. Whitney Lackenbauer DCASS Number 13, 2019 Cover: “George Koneak, Eskimo from Fort Chimo, Que., addresses Eskimo Affairs Committee meeting, 1959.” Library and Archives Canada PA-114854. Cover design: Whitney Lackenbauer Centre for Military, Security and Centre on Foreign Policy and Federalism Strategic Studies St. Jerome’s University University of Calgary 290 Westmount Road N. 2500 University Dr. N.W. Waterloo, ON N2L 3G3 Calgary, AB T2N 1N4 Tel: 519.884.8110 ext. 28233 Tel: 403.220.4030 www.sju.ca/cfpf www.cmss.ucalgary.ca Arctic Institute of North America University of Calgary 2500 University Drive NW, ES-1040 Calgary, AB T2N 1N4 Tel: 403-220-7515 http://arctic.ucalgary.ca/ Copyright © the authors/editors, 2019 Permission policies are outlined on our website http://cmss.ucalgary.ca/research/arctic-document-series Shaping Inuit Policy The Minutes of the Eskimo Affairs Committee, 1952-62 Peter Clancy, Ph.D. and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Ph.D. Table of Contents Table of Contents Introduction: The Life and Times of the Eskimo Affairs Committee, 1952-62 .......... i Parameters of Eskimo Administration................................................................. iii The Origins of the Eskimo Affairs Committee...................................................... v The Committee in Action ................................................................................... ix “A Significant and Historic Step”: Inuit Delegates to the Committee ................ xix The Committee in Retrospect ......................................................................... xxiv About this Volume ............................................................................................... xxxi Acknowledgements .............................................................................................. xxxi List of Acronyms ................................................................................................. xxxii Minutes of the Eskimo Affairs Committee, 1952-62 0A. Excerpts from , “Survey of Economic Conditions among the Eskimos of the Canadian Arctic” (Cantley Report) ......................................................... 1 0B. Meeting on Eskimo Affairs, 19-20 May 1952 ............................................. 13 1. Minutes of the First Meeting of Special Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 16 October 1952 ........................................................................................ 27 2. Minutes of the Second Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 6 May 1953 ................................................................................................ 33 3. Minutes of the Third Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 20 October 1953 ........................................................................................ 38 4. Minutes of the Fourth Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 10 May 1954 .............................................................................................. 47 5. Minutes of the Fifth Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 29 November 1954 ..................................................................................... 56 6. Minutes of the Sixth Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 30 May 1955 .............................................................................................. 65 7. Minutes of the Seventh Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 28 May 1956 .............................................................................................. 72 8. Minutes of the Eighth Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 13 May 1957 .............................................................................................. 87 Shaping Inuit Policy 9. Minutes of the Ninth Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 26 May 1958 ............................................................................................ 107 10. Minutes of the Tenth Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 25 May 1959 ............................................................................................ 127 11. Minutes of the Eleventh Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 28-29 March 1960 .................................................................................... 156 12. Minutes of the Twelfth Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 10-11 April 1961 ....................................................................................... 198 13. Minutes of the Thirteenth Meeting of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs, 2-3 April 1962 .......................................................................................... 227 Appendix: Inuktitut Versions of the Minutes of the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Meetings of the Committee on Eskimo Affairs (1960-62) ....... 259 Further Reading ................................................................................................... 296 About the Editors ................................................................................................. 299 The Life and Times of the Eskimo Affairs Committee, 1952-62 The Life and Times of the Eskimo Affairs Committee, 1952-62 PETER CLANCY and P. WHITNEY LACKENBAUER The Eskimo Affairs Committee was established in 1952 as a means to bring together people within the public administration and outside it for consideration of Eskimo problems. It is chaired by the Deputy Minister of Northern Affairs and includes senior representation from that Department and from National Health and Welfare. The Commissioner of the [Royal Canadian Mounted] Police, the Manager of the Northern Stores Department of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and Bishops of the two churches, or their representatives, normally attend. The Committee does not have any executive power, but has been an influence on other government departments and others in the execution of policy in the Arctic. R.A.J. Phillips to Lionel Massey, Secretary to the Governor General, 20 April 19591 During the critical decade of the 1950s, Canada’s federal government identified the northern territories as an object of policy meriting systematic attention. With the deepening of Cold War tensions the region assumed greater strategic and defence significance, renewing concerns about continental defence and Canadian sovereignty. At the same time, a growing awareness of social forces within the North generated changes that called for a state response. The economic pressures within the Indigenous hunting and trapping economy inflicted considerable hardship on most residents, while the advance of southern Canadian industrial interests into the North obliged the state to assume new regulatory and promotional roles. In responding to these drivers, Ottawa faced a complicated field of administrative jurisdictions, ecologies and social structures scattered across the largest land mass in the nation. For ten years, 1952-62, the Eskimo Affairs Committee (EAC) served as a special mechanism to deal with some major public policy issues affecting the barrenlands of the Northwest Territories (NWT). During this time the economic future of Inuit (or “Eskimos,” as they were known in non-Inuit or qallunaat circles at the time) was subject to extensive review. Specialists judged that the “traditional” wildlife harvesting economy was in decline, and they struggled to discern new structures to replace it. 1 R.A.J. Phillips to Lionel Massey, 20 April 1959, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), RG 85, vol. 1513, file 1012-9(1). i Clancy and Lackenbauer Furthermore, elements of the post-war welfare state were reaching the northland, provoking an extended debate on their prospective impact. Concomitantly, the state faced the task of establishing an administrative field presence sufficient for its new responsibilities. It was thus questions of state intervention in economic structure, as well as social, educational and health services, that dominated the northern policy agenda during this decade. The EAC contributed to this process in several respects. At a time when formal channels between Ottawa and Indigenous arctic interests were virtually non-existent, the committee provided a link. In differing degrees it offered a forum for representation (albeit circumscribed), coordination, consultation and legitimation. Canada’s northern state had not lacked for coordinative and decision-making mechanisms before this time. Within the bureaucracy, interdepartmental bodies had long operated at senior and intermediate levels. Prior to 1951, the Northwest Territories Council, by virtue of its membership, functioned as a senior coordinating committee. From 1948, the Advisory Committee on Northern Development (ACND) widened the range of bureaucratic players, even if it failed to match the working calibre of the council.2 At intermediate levels, various committees handled more specialized issues, such as the Advisory Board on Wildlife Protection, created in 1916, that advised the council and the federal cabinet on policy and legislative changes for half a century.3 When it came to representation, however, the lack of avenues for Northerners’ popular input and control exemplified the strongly colonial character of post-war