Ulaakut. Good morning.
My name is James Taqaugaq Arreak. I'm the chief executive officer of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., which I will refer to as NTI, the Inuit organization that implements the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, which I'll call NLCA. The NLCA is a modern treaty protected under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
Thank you for the invitation to appear this morning. I'm going to speak about the Inuit, Arctic sovereignty, and the NLCA.
As put forward carefully and thoughtfully in the April 2009 sovereignty declaration made by Inuit representatives from around the circumpolar world, sovereignty can carry multiple meanings in law and politics. Without detracting from that proposition, today I'll be speaking about Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic—that is, the sovereign rights of Canada as a whole.
Let me begin by saying that we have welcomed the personal interest of Prime Minister Harper in Arctic sovereignty over recent years. His annual trips to the Arctic have been appreciated. In the pursuit of all domestic and international Arctic policies, it's important that all Canadian political leaders give appropriate attention and weight to the status of Inuit as the aboriginal people of the Canadian Arctic and ensure that Inuit rights and well-being are effectively respected and served.
Notwithstanding the colonialism that marred the historic interaction of Inuit and the Canadian state, Inuit are proud Canadians. For years we have been holding up the Canadian flag over disputed waters of the Northwest Passage. Full and fair implementation of the NLCA must be part of our continuing to do so. In 2011, Minister Lawrence Cannon released the Government of Canada's statement of Canada's Arctic foreign policy. He said:
Canada's Arctic sovereignty is long-standing, well established and based on historic title, founded in part by the presence—since time immemorial—of Inuit people and other Indigenous peoples....
The NLCA was concluded 20 years earlier, and I'm quoting from its preamble:
...IN RECOGNITION of the contributions of Inuit to Canada's history, identity and sovereignty in the Arctic.
Article 15 of the NLCA adds:
Canada's sovereignty over the waters of the arctic archipelago is supported by Inuit use and occupancy;
Let me explain this a little bit. In the early 1970s Inuit hunters mapped where they went and what they did. These maps were aggregated and published by the Government of Canada in 1976. That's where the map I circulated comes from.
The important thing to note from this map is Inuit use and occupancy of Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, and the eastern portion of Viscount Melville Sound—the Northwest Passage. The Inuit contribution to Canada's Arctic sovereignty actually goes back many years. In the 1950s a number of families, about seven to eight, from Nunavik were relocated to the high Arctic in part to reinforce Canada's Arctic sovereignty.
In the early 1930s, the Government of Canada cited Inuit hunting as a reason for refusing Norway's request for special access to the Sverdrup Islands, visited 30 years earlier by Otto Sverdrup as a result of whose explorations Norway put forward some claims.
Faced with uninvited transits through the Northwest Passage by the U.S. tanker SS Manhattan, in 1970 Parliament passed the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act. This was an exercise in asserting Arctic sovereignty. This statute was justified in part by the Government of Canada to safeguard Inuit hunting.
Let's move forward to 1985, when Minister of External Affairs Joe Clark announced strait baselines around the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, a legal move to declare as internal to Canada all waters within the baselines.
Mr. Clark said:
Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic is indivisible. It embraces land, sea and ice. It extends without interruption to the seaward-facing coasts of the Arctic islands. These islands are joined and not divided by the waters between them. From time immemorial Canada's Inuit people have used and occupied the ice as they have used and occupied the land.
While they spoke 25 years apart, Lawrence Cannon and Joe Clark seem to have had the same briefing, interestingly enough. Certainly they both drew upon the map you have right now.
For the remainder of my time, I'm going to talk about the NLCA for sovereignty assertion purposes. At the present time the Government of Canada is not making full use of the NLCA because of its failure to implement the Nunavut agreement fairly and fully. It has, at least for the time being, impaired itself from making full use.
Let me give you three quick examples of opportunities missed.
One: in February 2006, we wrote to the Prime Minister suggesting how the NLCA could be used to support Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic. We recommended establishing the Nunavut Marine Council, which is covered in article 15, and the implementation of the general monitoring provisions, outlined in article 12. We focused on these articles because Canada's full sovereignty is in question only in the Northwest Passage, and knowing what's going on—that is, monitoring our territory—is required if we are to persuade others to accept our full sovereignty.
We assumed the Government of Canada would, as matter of urgency, work with Inuit. This has not been the case. Only after we went to court in 2006 have the general monitoring provisions of the NLCA begun to be implemented.
Example 2: in the summer of 2007, the Prime Minister said: “Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic.” He said, “We either use it or lose it.” Whatever its political appeal, this statement does not accurately reflect or respect the history or demography of the Arctic or relevant Canadian and international laws. As I said earlier, Inuit use and occupancy of the Arctic has been cited by the Government of Canada since the early thirties to support Canada's historic title to the Arctic and to negate the claims of other states.
Example 3: NTI initiated a lawsuit in 2006 to require the Government of Canada to live up to its obligations in the NLCA. As part of this ongoing lawsuit, in June 2012, Justice Earl Johnson of the Nunavut Court of Justice issued a summary judgment on the government's refusal to implement the general monitoring provisions. He characterized the attitude the Government of Canada as being indifferent toward the implementation of these provisions.
We ask the committee to take three recommendations to the Government of Canada.
First, the committee should recommend that the Government of Canada work with NTI to fully and fairly implement the NLCA, not only as a matter of public and private law and a responsibility to uphold the honour of the crown but also as part of its political and legal strategy to affirm and apply Canada's Arctic sovereignty.
NTI and the Government of Canada are required to negotiate the implementation of the NLCA for the next 10 years. These negotiations provide adequate funding to institutions of public government established through the NLCA to manage natural resources onshore and offshore.
The Government of Canada was obliged to appoint a federal negotiator in July 2012 to begin year-long negotiations toward the renewal of a new 10-year funding cycle beginning July 2013. Despite repeated requests from NTI, the federal government has failed to do so, in ongoing breach of this obligation.
In recommendation number 2, we recommend the full and effective implementation of the Nunavut Marine Council.
Lastly, we recommend full digitization of the maps in the 1976 Inuit land use and occupancy project, which you have in your hands. Currently gathering dust and mould in the National Archives, when digitized this information can be shared with countries yet to be convinced of Canada's full sovereignty over the Northwest Passage.
Qujannamiik. Thank you for your attention.
