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Report Expert Meeting: THE CANADIAN ARCTIC IN MOTION
Self Governance in Canada’s North: Nunavik and Nunavut
By Cunera Buijs, Leiden.
On the 26th of October an expert meeting on Nunavik and Nunavut was held at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. The meeting was organized by the Canadian Embassy, the National Museum of Ethnology and the Research Group Circumpolar Cultures.
The meeting was organized in connection to the visit of two esteemed guests from the north, Pita Aatami, President, Makivik Corporation, Quebec, and Jean-François Arteau, Legal Counsel and Executive Assistant to the President of Makivik Corporation. This provided an excellent opportunity to discuss developments in Nunavik and Nunavut in the past, the present and the future.
Papers were not only presented by Pita Aatami and Jean-François Arteau, but also by Willem Rasing and Kim van Dam, members of the Dutch Research Group Circumpolar Cultures (RGCC), and by Kees Bastmeyer, a professor at the University of Tilburg, department of law. Jarich Oosten, professor in anthropology at the University of Leiden, summarised the papers and the discussions and presented concluding remarks. Cunera Buijs and Willem Rasing were the day-chairs.
The expert meeting was limited in size and was organized as a round-table session. This provided ample opportunity for discussion. 24 participants were present at the expert meeting, some of them did research among the Sami, Siberian peoples, Canadian Inuit or in Greenland. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Arctic Centre and several Dutch universities were represented. Comparison of the Canadian situation to other Arctic areas and views and experiences from different disciplines led to a thorough and intense discussion on the self government, identity issues, exploitation issues and political or indigenous rights.
The northernmost part of the world has become a major focus of global concern, of growing political attention and increasing economic importance due to climate change and global warming. The Arctic is a source of oil, gas and other minerals and therefore of relevance for the energy supply of the world. New northern areas, new fishing grounds and previously not existing transport routes will become available and are or will be the subject of new claims. The political rights in the Arctic are already now debated. Kees Bastmeyer discussed the concept of ‘wilderness’ as nature is often seen through qallunaat (white) eyes, and studied the possibilities of ‘sustainable development’ and a balance between social, economic and ecological needs, taking into account the oppositions and values of various stakeholders.
The Inuit have taken up these challenges. Recent decades have seen a process of political self-assertion through land-claims and negotiations with the territorial and federal governments, as was put forward by Willem Rasing, Jean Francois Arteau and others. Pita Aatami: “The 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA), often referred to as the first comprehensive Inuit land claim in Canada, for ever changed the relationship between Canada, Quebec and the Inuit of Nunavik.”
Kim van Dam presented research among Canadian Inuit youth in connection to identity . Willem Rasing focussed further on elements of reinvention, re-establishing and reinforcing Inuit cultural identity. Jarich Oosten stressed the importance of a reappraisal of forms of indigenous knowledge (Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit), of cultural heritage and repatriation. Above all, the political process of negotiating land rights and self-determination has been quite successful in terms of establishing the new political entities in the Canadian North: Nunavut and Nunavik (northern Quebec). Aatami discussed the creation of Makivik Corporation, established pursuant to the JBNQA, its mandate, projects, activities and successes, including the creation of the first class Nunavik Research Centre located in Kuujjuaq, regional capital of Nunavik. In December 2007 an agreement was signed by the Inuit of Quebec, the province of Quebec and the federal government which will lead to a Nunavik Regional Government. The new regional government will not be an ‘Inuit government’ but a ‘public government’, representing all citizens of Nunavik.” The last decade also reveals an ongoing tendency of increasing autonomy in neighbouring Greenland.
The challenges of dealing with the impact of climate change and global warming on the land, sea, ice, weather, animals and people in the Arctic remain. These issues add to the problems of a more social, economic and psychic nature (consequences of the James Bay hydro-electric station, sustainable development, the killing of sledge-dogs, sedentarization and relocation of the Inuit population, impact of residential schools, unemployment, high drop-out rates, alcohol and drug abuse and suicide), which the Nunavut and Nunavik governments are facing at present. Pitaa Aatami discussed these issues as well: “Nunavik is also confronted to serious social, cultural and community issues that have to be addressed. It is very importance for the Inuit to be involved and become also partners in these projects for the betterment of Nunavik.”
The discussion addressed many different elements of the recent developments, like what are the results of 10 year Nunavut, what makes Inuit in a fast changing world, influenced by globalization, still ‘Inuit’. Pitaa Aatami and Jean François Arteau stressed the importance of hunting, even nowadays people have paid jobs, internet and mobile telephones, “Inuit have always been modern, we always have been adapting to new circumstances. But we still go out on the land during the weekends. We will stop to be Inuit when we no longer hunt..” What are the major benefits of self government? “The Inuit have developed a vision: to run our their own affairs with an autonomous government that is adapted to the realities of the Inuit and the in line with the country’s fundamental legal framework”, according to Pitaa Aatami.