Arctic Sovereignty - Presentation to House of Commons Committee on National Defence * Thursday October 1, 2009 * Ottawa, Ontario

Good morning.

I would like to thank the Standing Committee for the invitation to appear today to speak to the topic of Arctic sovereignty.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami --- ITK for short --- is the national organization for the Inuit of Canada

ITK represents the Inuit who live in the four regions that make up Inuit Nunangat --- the Inuvialuit Region in the Beaufort Sea Region, Nunavut, Nunavik in Arctic Quebec, and Nunatsiavut in Labrador.

All of the four Inuit regions that comprise Inuit Nunangat have entered into land claims agreements - modern treaties - with the Crown. In this context the Crown represents the Canadian state and the people of Canada as a whole.

These land claims agreements are protected under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

Land claims agreements provide much of the contemporary institutional structure to our contemporary relations with the Crown, but it is important to remember that our special relationship with the Crown goes back much further in history.

From the time of Martin Frobisher, and continuing through centuries of voyages and activities involving naval ships, whalers, traders, missionaries, police and public servants, Inuit have been working within a specific political and legal relationship with the Crown.

That relationship has been an evolving one, and the pace of that evolution has increased in recent years.

In the period leading up the 1960s and 1970s, the relationship between the Crown and Inuit was a grossly one sided one, with Inuit suffering a steady loss of control over our ability to make decisions both for ourselves and for the lands and waters that have sustained us for thousands of years.

Perhaps the bottom point of this one sided relationship was experienced in the period when Inuit households were coaxed into relocating thousands of miles in order to serve agendas developed elsewhere, and 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 rupturing of the bonds between parents and children.

In more recent years, the relationship between the Crown and Inuit has re-gained some, if still not complete, balance.

Courts have recognized common law responsibilities of the Crown in relation to such things as aboriginal title, aboriginal rights, the honour of the Crown, a fiduciary relationship, and the duty to consult and accommodate.

Since 1982, aboriginal and treaty rights have Constitutional status and Constitutional protection.

Accompanying this effort to re-balance the political and legal relationship between the Crown and Inuit within Canada has been a changing international understanding of how the rights and roles of states interact with the rights and roles of the peoples of the world, including indigenous peoples.

The rights and roles of states must now be situated alongside established and emerging concepts of fundamental human rights, both collective and individual.

This new reality has figured prominently in Inuit thinking about sovereignty in the Arctic … and not just the Canadian Arctic, but also the larger circumpolar Arctic.

Inuit are an aboriginal people of Canada, but Inuit are also an indigenous people of Greenland, and Alaska, and the far eastern tip of Russia.

In April of this year, Inuit from across the circumpolar world adopted a key document entitled “A Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Sovereignty in the Arctic” … I have brought extra copies of that document with me today.

Section 2 of that Declaration is entitled “The Evolving Nature of Sovereignty in the Arctic, and it puts forward six key propositions in that regard.

Given the topic before the Committee, section 2.1 is worth quoting in its entirety.

“Sovereignty” is a term that has often been used to refer to the absolute and independent authority of a community or nation both internally and externally. Sovereignty is a contested concept, however, and does not have a fixed meaning. Old ideas of sovereignty are breaking down as different governance models, such as the European Union, evolve. Sovereignties overlap and are frequently divided within federations in creative ways to recognize the right of peoples. For Inuit living within the states of Russia, Canada, the USA and Denmark/Greenland, issues of sovereignty and sovereign rights must be examined and assessed in the context of our long history of struggle to gain recognition and respect as an Arctic indigenous people having the right to exercise self-determination of over our lives, territories, cultures and languages.”

How should the Government of Canada’s domestic and international policy making for the Arctic build on the new and evolving realities identified in the circumpolar Inuit Declaration?

I would suggest there are six key things that the Parliament and Government of Canada should do.

Recommendation Number One. 

In all its key assertions as to sovereignty and sovereign rights in relation to Arctic lands and waters, the Government of Canada should acknowledge the central importance of Inuit use and occupation of the lands and waters of Inuit Nunangat since time immemorial.

The history of Inuit use has been acknowledged at various times and at various places in the past … for example, the 1930 understandings with Norway as to the Sverdrup Islands recognized the critical importance of Inuit hunting activity.

And the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement expressly recognized the contributions of Nunavut Inuit to Canada’s sovereignty arguments. 

Consistency in acknowledging Inuit use and occupation isn’t just a matter of effective advocacy before an international audience.

It’s also a matter of fundamental respect owed to Inuit.

Recommendation Number Two. 

Coherent Government of Canada policy making for the Arctic must be built around the idea of a core partnership relationship with Inuit.

The circumpolar Inuit Declaration put this in the following way in section 3.3 of the Declaration:

“The inextricable linkages between issues of sovereignty and sovereign rights in the Arctic and Inuit self-determination and other rights require states to accept the presence and role of Inuit as partners in the conduct of international relations in the Arctic.”

The idea of partnership with Inuit is even more compelling in the domestic policy context.

To be credible and constructive, partnership must be more than tokenism or lip-service.

Any Arctic strategy worth pursuing must put working with Inuit at its heart, not at the periphery.

The current federal Arctic strategy should have been more of a collaborative writing project within an expedited timetable, on a partnership basis with Inuit.

Recommendation Number Three.

Partnerships that are not built on trust will always fail.

And trust requires, at its most basic level, confidence that promises made are promises kept.

Unfortunately, some base-line promises made to Inuit are still unfulfilled.

The most compelling examples of this are found in the billion dollar lawsuit that Nunavut Inuit had to initiate in the fall of 2006 because the Government of Canada would not act on a conciliation report on how to implement fairly the promises made in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.

That’s simply not good enough.

Recommendation Number Four. 

The Government of Canada cannot expect the world to give full respect to arguments built on Inuit use and occupation of Arctic lands and waters when Inuit continue to lag so far behind other Canadians in relation to such things as minimum education, health, and housing standards.

The world will increasingly tie assertions of sovereignty to questions involving other expectations of the international community, including expectations as to the treatment of aboriginal minorities and regard for key environmental considerations.

Inuit are a patient and practical people.

We know that the economic and social problems that we face did not come about overnight, and will not be remedied overnight.

We know that most of these problems are problems of history and circumstance, not prejudice or bad intentions.

But we also know that sovereignty will not be enhanced if it ignores or understates the basic material needs of the permanent residents of the Arctic, or fails to understand that the alienation of the young is the surest way to undermine respect for the law and toleration for others. 

In that very real sense, sovereignty must begin at home.

Recommendation Number Five. 

Partnership with Inuit in the Arctic cannot be divorced from the Government of Canada’s willingness --- or unwillingness --- to stand up for aboriginal rights everywhere.

It is time for the Government of Canada to act in concert with the resolution adopted by the House of Commons and express its support, along with almost the entirety of the global community, for the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

And the Government of Canada’s broader reputation and capacity in relation to Arctic issues would be enhanced by the re-appointment of an Arctic ambassador.

Recommendation Number Six. 

For Inuit, the concept of a highly visible, highly durable partnership has more than symbolic and moral weigh, however important that is.

A creative partnership also opens the possibility of tackling challenges in ways that could be freshly beneficial for Inuit and for Canada as a whole.

For the sake of illustration, it might be productive to explore the possibility of a joint Inuit/federal government Northwest Passage authority that would offer a pro-active regulatory regime against the expected increase in ship traffic while at the same time respecting the history of Inuit use and the central importance of sustainable economic development for Inuit communities.

If we can have a seaway authority for the St. Lawrence on a joint Canada-US footing, there is room to consider an analogous authority for the Northwest Passage built around an Inuit/federal government partnership.

I am sure many other examples would benefit from such partnership efforts. Thank you for your attention. I would be happy to try to answer any questions that you might have for me today.