Ipsos-Reid Conference * Rethinking Canadian Foreign Policy * Case Study Session: Arctic Sovereignty * Monday November 30, 2009

 

Thank you for the invitation to be with you today, and to allow me to be with you via internet as I am giving a speech tomorrow at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

 

 

Canada’s Arctic has become the focus of a complex set of domestic and international geopolitical forces.

 

And all Canadians need to pay attention to that new reality.

 

In my capacity as Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs in the late 1990s, I was actively involved in crafting and promoting a domestic and international Northern agenda for Canada

 

Some 10 years later, we are facing many of the same challenges.

 

But with an increased sense of urgency.

 

The clock is ticking on climate change.

 

Prince Charles noted recently that we are living in the ‘last chance saloon’.

 

Our collective responsibility is to do what is needed to combat global climate change.  

 

We need to move beyond conferences and banal statements.

 

We must act, and act with decisiveness.

 

All countries must commit to slowing down and stabilizing, within finite timelines, the production of carbon emissions that will otherwise push planetary temperatures to disastrous levels.

 

The urgencies of addressing climate change transcend all other issues.

 

The sovereign claims of states in the Arctic will be of little value if humanity’s sovereign responsibilities for the earth as a whole are not respected.

 

It is true that there are more conventional issues of sovereignty in the Arctic.

 

Some fear that aspects of Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic are under threat, particularly in relation to marine and shipping issues.

 

Russia, the United States, Denmark, and now the European Union and countries even further removed are all part of the mix.

 

Yet it would be a mistake to see issues of sovereignty in the Arctic strictly in the old-fashioned sense of inter-state relations, military calculations and activities, and formal diplomatic agreements and exchanges.

 

Not that long ago, debate about the Arctic in southern Canada often involved discussions around the sale of unprocessed natural resources to foreign interests.

 

Our North was described by a senior Canadian politician “a frozen treasure chest”.  

 

But there is a big difference between those years and today.

 

The Aboriginal peoples of the Arctic are no longer willing to be at the margins of political and economic life.

 

Land claims agreements and new governance structures have been concluded across the North.

 

These agreements and structures set out many core rights of Aboriginal peoples, and provide an array of tools for us to participate more effectively in policy debates and decision making.

 

We are necessary players and necessary partners.

 

The rights of Aboriginal peoples in domestic law are supplemented by the increasing international recognition of the rights and roles of indigenous peoples.

 

The 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples acknowledges the collective human rights of indigenous peoples around the world, including the right of self-determination and extensive rights to traditional lands and territories.

 

The Inuit Circumpolar Council’s April, 2009, Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Sovereignty in the Arctic makes it very clear that Inuit must be actively involved in the conduct of international relations in the Arctic.

 

Legal, political and practical factors have all combined to create a new Arctic policy universe that requires recognizing that aboriginal peoples must be on the inside, not the outside looking in.

 

That reality plays across the spectrum of policy issues.

 

For example, science and research have very important roles to play in setting a new course in policy making.

 

The foundation of all good-decision making is appropriate information.

 

Decades ago, Aboriginal peoples had to push their way into the research agenda.

 

Today, science and research agendas for the Arctic must take their lead from the peoples of the Arctic, drawing on our capacity where it is abundant and contributing to its growth where it is lacking.

 

I cannot overstate the importance of Canada taking an enlightened and open-minded leadership role on every available front and every available initiative.

 

We have learned the value of cooperation through our work in the Arctic Council.

 

We have also felt the disappointment of misguided decisions by foreign governments.

 

One of my proudest moments was our launching of the Northern Dimension of Canada’s Foreign Policy in 2000.

 

Permit me to observe that “what goes around comes around”.

 

Many of the challenges we identified remain … only more so.

 

The pieces are in place.

 

Arctic peoples and governments are ready.

 

I would like to close by re-stating six recommendations that I put forward to the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence when I met with them several months ago to speak on the issue of Arctic sovereignty.

 

Those recommendations to Parliament and to the Government of Canada were as follows:

 

·      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.  Inuit Nunangat is the Inuit Arctic homeland in Canada, made up of land and marine areas that make up about a quarter of Canada, stretching from Labrador to the Alaska border, and now governed by a chain of contiguous land claims agreements. The four regions that make up Inuit Nunangat are the Inuvialuit Region in the Beaufort Sea Region; Nunavut; Nunavik, in arctic Quebec; and, Nunatsiavut in Labrador.

 

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

 

·      The Government of Canada should make the urgent and decisive investments needed to address and overcome the reality that Inuit fall shockingly and unacceptably far behind other Canadians in minimum standards of education, health, and housing.

 

·      The Government of Canada should 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.

 

·      The Government of Canada should re-appoint an Arctic ambassador.

 

·      The Government of Canada should be open to tackling challenges in ways that could be freshly beneficial to both Inuit and other Canadians … such as exploring the idea of a new Inuit/federal government authority to control ship traffic through what has been known, at least to English-speakers, as the Northwest Passage.

 

 Thank you for your attention.