“The Inuit, the Economy, and You” - Economic Club of Canada - Toronto, Ontario - May 26, 2010

(Inuktitut Introduction).

Some of you may be worried that my opening remarks were in a language invented by the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund.

Rest easy.

I was speaking to you in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit.

Inuktitut is not likely to become the official language of Toronto.

However, I should warn you.

If Inuit buy the Leafs, negotiations will be in Inuktitut only Gary Bettman.

I would like to thank the Economic Club of Canada for the invitation to be with you, and speak to you, today.

Let me also take a moment to recognize Inuit singer-songwriter Susan Aglukark who is here today, and Chair of the Arctic Children and Youth Foundation.

The topic for my address today is: “The Inuit, the Economy, and You”.

Let me begin with the ‘Inuit’ part of the address topic … who we are and what we face.

There are approximately 55,000 Inuit living in Canada, spread from Labrador in the east to the Northwest Territories in the west.
The Arctic is roughly one-third of Canada’s land and marine mass.

It has 50% of Canada’s shore line.

There are 53 Inuit communities.

Populations range from more than 5,000 to as small as a few hundred.

Unlike many First Nation communities, Inuit do not live on reserves.

We have chosen municipal status within our respective territories and provinces.
Inuit are the solid majority of the permanent population in the Canadian Arctic as a whole.

We are also a clear majority in all permanent communities, with the exception of Inuvik and Iqaluit.

Inuit are also becoming more numerous in some southern cities, such as Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg and Toronto.

Inuit have lived in the Arctic since long before historical records.

Our life in the Arctic was built around the opportunities, risks, and realities of a hunting way of life.

Until relatively recently, most Inuit lived a nomadic lifestyle, hunting and fishing, and with very little contact with the ‘outside world’.

The depth of contact between Inuit and European peoples was limited on a day-to-day basis before the first half of the twentieth century.

But our relationship to the world changed forever as a result of that contact.

From the time of Martin Frobisher’s ill-fated voyage and continuing through centuries of activities involving naval ships, whalers, traders, missionaries, police and public servants, Inuit have been living through an ever-evolving inter-societal relationship with qablunaaq (our word for non-Inuit people).

More specifically, we have experienced a strong political and legal relationship with the Crown --- first the British Imperial Crown and then with the Crown in right of Canada.

In the period leading up the 1960s and 1970s, the relationship between the Europeans and Inuit was a grossly one-sided one.

Inuit suffered a steady loss of control over our ability to make decisions.

Decisions for ourselves and for the lands and waters that have sustained us for thousands of years.

We were pushed to the margins of political and economic and social power in our own homeland --- what we call Inuit Nunangat.

The low point of this one sided relationship was experienced in the period when entire family camps were wiped out by measles …
when Inuit households were coerced into relocating thousands of miles in order to serve agendas developed elsewhere …
when Inuit children were taken away to residential schools.

A society’s loss of control cannot be illustrated more pointedly, or more painfully, than through the forced rupturing of the bonds between parents and children.

We became part of what many Canadians viewed as Canada’s “Native Problem”.

We were caught up in policies seeking assimilation on the one hand …
…and the relentless push to extract or develop natural resources in the interests of Canadians on the other.

Our rights as aboriginal peoples --- let alone our preferences and sensibilities --- were not part of the picture.

Yet we did not reconcile ourselves to our colonization or our marginalization.

We mounted a great effort, along with First Nations and Métis peoples in Canada, to make our voices heard.

We did everything we could to re-assert our rights over our lands and waters of Inuit Nunangat.

And over our future.

To make our case, we used meeting halls.

And the airwaves.

And negotiating tables, when we could get people to talk to us.

And when we couldn’t, the courts.

In the years of the late 1960s and 1970s, we quickly came to see three major opportunities available to us.

First, new issues of common law aboriginal title and aboriginal rights arose in a series of landmark court cases.

These court cases re-opened what had been considered long-settled case law rejecting legal rights flowing from aboriginal use and occupation.

Second, there was the growing search for Constitutional reform in Canada.

This was fuelled largely by Quebec’s restlessness but was accompanied by other issues, such as guarantees for fundamental of individual and minority rights.

And third, the internal map of Canada left much of the Arctic --- for example, the Northwest Territories and regions such as northern Quebec and northern Labrador --- in what could be described as a ‘holding category’.

Removed from mainstream political focus, but at the same time also removed from some traditional brakes and barriers to political change.

Our comprehensive land claims agreements with the Crown --- modern treaties --- and other political achievements have opened a new chapter.

These large regional modern treaties began with the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement in 1975, and continued until the Labrador Nunatsiavut Inuit Agreement of a few years ago.

They form a continuous chain across the Canadian Arctic from the Alaska border to the Labrador coast.

For Inuit, the modern treaty making process is virtually complete, and common law Inuit rights have now been codified into the law of treaties.

These treaties are all protected by section 35 of the 1982 Constitution Act.

They have primacy over any conflicting federal, provincial, and territorial laws.

Together, these treaties make Inuit the largest non-Crown land owners in Canada by a considerable distance.

Much of this land has rich mineral potential.

The treaties have provided Inuit with certain capital funds to run Inuit organizations and to help kick-start economic development ventures.

These property rights and benefits work alongside a restructured jurisdictional world.

The treaties, directly and indirectly, have given rise to the creation of the Nunavut territory, with a strong Inuit majority of citizens.

They also form the basis of new and enhanced regional and municipal government structures and powers in other Inuit regions outside Nunavut.

The treaties have created new, more coherent regulatory machinery for the management of lands, waters and wildlife, and for the review of development project proposals.

Appointments to joint resource management boards are made both by senior governments and by representative Inuit organizations.
Speaking about regulation, I would like to digress to comment on a topic that, against the backdrop of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has been much in the news of late: offshore drilling in the Arctic.

Building on public comments already made by the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated – the land claims organization for Nunavut - I have written to the Prime Minister today to underline some of the safeguards that Inuit expect.

Inuit seek the following eight things.

1. An immediate pause or “time-out” on drilling in the Beaufort Sea in order to take stock.
2. A commitment that any future drilling proceed only on the basis of the best safeguards available.
3. The adoption of supplementary environmental protection measures that address unique Arctic vulnerabilities.
4. Rejection of the December 2009 proposal to relax mandatory offshore drilling regulation in favour of developer generated undertakings.
5. Ensure that the timing and pace of Arctic oil and gas development balance two primary considerations --- the energy security of Canadians and improving the well being of Inuit --- while contributing to a larger Canadian and global strategy to reduce carbon emissions.
6. Acknowledge that Inuit knowledge of unique and fragile conditions is vital to decision making on environmental protection and emergency response.
7. Reconsider the adequacy of the Ship Source Oil Pollution Fund as set out in the Marine Liability Act … and
8. Act on the recommendations of the Arctic Council Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report.

Returning to broader themes …

… the various proprietary and jurisdictional features of our treaties are complementary.

They work together to deliver a decisively re-balanced distribution of power between Inuit and the Crown …

And, by extension, between the Inuit residents of Inuit Nunangat and Canadians living in southern Canada.

They govern how development will take place.

They guarantee a strong, if not exclusive, role for Inuit in the assessment of development proposals.

These agreements do not give Inuit an unqualified veto on most forms or occasions of resource development.

They do, however, create a kind of big ticket ‘tripwire’ … with a very clear message attached.

And what is that message?

That message is that Inuit support resource development but proponents of major development projects in the Inuit homeland must actively seek Inuit partners.

And, in all cases, they must turn their minds to how their proposals can deliver maximum benefits to Inuit communities and households as well as to their shareholders.

Our treaties have been creative and constructive in providing a more predictable and inclusive business environment in the Arctic.

And they highlight our great determination to achieve a new level of economic self sufficiency, and to do so in ways that bring our cultural values into the new economy.

But treaties only reach so far.

For all their creative and constructive contents, the re-balancing of inter-societal power through our treaties must operate alongside the logic and discipline of free market forces.

I am sure no member of the Economic Club of Canada would disagree with that.

Treaties do not decide the costs of extracting and shipping minerals or the cyclical nature of global commodity prices.

Our political breakthroughs have occurred in the midst of ongoing and still unresolved economic hardships and challenges.

Today in the Arctic, the cost of living is staggering.

I can fly economy class at least twice from Toronto to Hong Kong for the same price as flying from Toronto to a community, such as Pond Inlet, on Baffin Island.

Foods and commodities that supplement traditional country foods are three or four times more expensive.

A loaf of whole wheat bread in Paulatuk, in the Northwest Territories, is $8.00, while two litres of milk in the same community costs $13.00.

Incomes are often shared in order to support a hunter within a family in order to assure access for the whole family to country food.

With few exceptions, there are no road connections to the rest of Canada.

Transportation is by air and sea.

Geography presents Inuit with many serious and stubborn challenges.

These challenges reinforce many of the difficulties left behind by history.

Today, we still experience youth suicide, violence and substance abuse.

We grieve for these things.

Let me give you a few other hard facts.

We have far lower educational outcomes than other Canadians …

Our high school non-completion rates are often in the 75% range.

Our housing conditions remain well below the Canadian standards.

Our health indicators continue to lag behind the rest of Canada …

The enormous cost of imported food, combined with the cost pressures that complicate the reliable supply of traditional country food have made hunger a problem.

A Canadian Medical Association Journal article earlier this year documented that more than 70% of households in Nunavut with pre-school children experience food insecurity in the course of the year.

These kinds of fact are both shocking and shaming … for us, as Inuit, for all of us, as Canadians, and for family members of a shared humanity.

It is not acceptable for citizens of Canada, a G8 member, to be suffering this level of fundamental socio-economic distress.

It is not acceptable to let facts such as these become paralyzing rather than motivating.

We do not believe that other Canadians are antagonistic or ill-disposed to us.

We continue to hope that other Canadians seek and support creative solutions to our issues in ways that will benefit both us and Canada as a whole.

We are not silent or passive.

Despite the tremendous distances, the Arctic is now connected by modern communications technologies to the rest of Canada and the world.

We seek to make best use of the limited investment capital at our disposal or within reach.

We own air and marine transport companies, fishing companies, service industries for oil and gas development, and are joint venturing with various business enterprises.

There are many major resource development projects up and running or being considered:
… the MacKenzie Valley Pipeline
… many mining projects: Baffinland, iron ore; Voisey’s Bay and Raglan, nickel; Meadowbank, gold … to name a few
… ongoing exploration for diamonds and uranium
… the proposed Bathurst Inlet port and road project
… the Manitoba- Nunavut road/rail link.

We are using our Inuit political organizations at every level --- national, provincial and territorial, regional and community.

We use them to steer available public sector investment towards key economic drivers …

Notably towards basic infrastructure in the form of such things as small craft harbours and broadband, and towards every available aspect of education and training.

Prime Minister Harper has talked about Canada’s natural resource wealth in numerous speeches before business audiences in Canada and abroad.

He has predicted that this wealth, particularly in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, positions Canada to become a mineral and energy superpower.

Much of Canada’s mineral potential is within Inuit Nunangat.

Inuit are conscious that many factors contribute to our facing a level of uncertainty that is as great as virtually any other society on earth.

Historic disempowerment.

The pressures of rapid cultural adaptation.

A young and rapidly growing population.

An intimidating high cost setting.

Not to mention being what has been called the ‘canary in the mineshaft’ with respect to the regionalized impacts of global climate change.

The future threatens to be something of a roller coaster ride.

But we are mindful that change can be for the better as well as the worse.

Vulnerability may increase stakes without predetermining the outcomes.

It is heartening, for example, that the rights of aboriginal peoples, so long ignored, are now acknowledged by the world through the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

It is similarly heartening that, at the meeting of Arctic coastal states foreign ministers in Chelsea, Quebec, in March of this year, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton underscored that the representatives of aboriginal peoples resident in the Arctic must be provided a role in international discussions about the Arctic.

You will recall that the topic of my address is ‘The Inuit, the Economy, and You’.

And so, before liberating you to the lunch service, I would like to come back to the most important person in the room: ‘you’.

I am sure that everyone in this room is a mover and shaker of some sort …

A representative of industry, finance, academia, politics, or the like.

You are important opinion makers and shapers in Canada.

I invite you to consider putting your support, and your shoulder to the wheel, behind a number of propositions that, I believe, follow from my remarks to you.

I would hope that, wherever you work and however you socialize, you might lend your voice to these propositions.

Team Inuit always has room for a fresh recruit …

First, big problems require big thinking.

I encourage you to get behind a national initiative … to be lead by the federal government and in cooperation with aboriginal organizations and provincial and territorial governments … to establish clear targets, priorities, mechanisms, and timetables …

To shrink and then remove the sad disparities that separate aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians.

Our hearts should lead us to make such effort.

But also our heads.

Aboriginal peoples are of ever-expanding importance in Canada’s future demography.
Canada cannot afford to forego the economic productivity --- or underwrite the cost --- of aboriginal peoples falling permanently behind.
Second, education and training are key.

I urge you to support education and training … in their broadest sense … as the most reliable drivers of improved economic development results for Inuit and for the Arctic.

Third, infrastructure.

I urge you also to push for a sensible and long term program of investment in basic infrastructure in Inuit regions and communities …

Adequate baseline infrastructure is vital to both Inuit and regional economic diversity and competitiveness.

The most basic and needed infrastructure for Inuit is housing. If governments were to do one thing that would have a domino effect in improving Inuit health, and increasing education rates, it would be to solve the Inuit housing crisis. We need substantial financial expenditure to solve this problem.

Fourth, investment.

Wherever and however the opportunity arises, I invite you to put private sector resources to work through direct and indirect investment in Inuit regions and communities.

Finally, I invite you to recognize a compelling new political, ethical and legal reality in the Arctic.

Any major expansion in natural resource development in Inuit Nunangat --- the Inuit homeland of Arctic Canada --- must be contingent on genuine partnership with Inuit …

And must deliver tangible and substantial economic benefits to Inuit regions and communities experiencing the impacts.

(Inuktitut).

Thank you for your attention, and the opportunity to be with you today.