The Fifth Element of the Northern Strategy

The four priorities of exercising Arctic sovereignty, protecting environmental heritage, promoting social, and economic development, and improving and devolving Northern governance, set out in the recent federal Northern Strategy paper are good as far as they go, but a critical fifth priority is missing.

That fifth element should be a specific and direct relationship with the four Inuit land claims regions that make up the Canadian Arctic. The Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Nunavut, Nunivak, and Nunatsiavut form a continuous chain across the Arctic that stretches from the Beaufort Sea in the west to the Atlantic Ocean in the east, and the land claims agreements compromising those areas recognize the Arctic as the Inuit ancestral (and modern) home within Canada. Our term for this vast Arctic region is called “Inuit Nunangat”.

The document acknowledges that Canada’s claim to the Arctic is “due in large part to contributions of Inuit” but neither envisions, nor sets forth, a partnership that includes Inuit in moving forward with the strategy based on that fundamental building block. This is absolutely critical if the Northern Strategy is to be successful and productive.

Inuit are ready to work with government to promote a national agenda that recognizes the Arctic as not only Canadian, but as our homeland. The development of the Arctic to that end is of mutual benefit to all of us. However it must be based on the full respect of our rights, our interests, and our concerns, within a genuine and mutually beneficial partnership agreement.

Technorati Tags: Inuit Northern Strategy Inuvialuit Nunavut Nunavik Nunatsiavut Arctic Sovereignty