National Defence Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2009

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Two minutes.

My first question relates to the agreement signed in September 2008. You note that you're still waiting for a mandate to begin the formal negotiations. I wonder if you could just tell us a little about where that is in the process.

My second question is unrelated. I read the Berger report about a year and a half ago, not recently. How important are the recommendations of the Berger report to the issues we're discussing here today?

[Paul Kaludjak]

Thank you, Madam and Mr. Chairman.

Yes, the Berger report was extremely important to us. It reaffirmed our argument. It reaffirmed our cause, and that's what we had been saying all along. He was directed to find the implementation difficulties that we were having in our claim in Nunavut, and he identified very specifically and was quite focused on the education, the training need for Nunavut, something we'd been talking about for many years, which is lacking. The training needs to fill capacities in Nunavut were critical, to have a training component, and it reaffirmed that argument.

In terms of the devolution negotiations, an appointment was made by the federal government some time ago and the appointee was directed to work with us on devolution matters and start the process of negotiations to come up with a work plan with us and a timeframe. That work is ongoing as we speak. We have not formally sat down to execute that action plan right now. I hope in the next few months we can expect the government side to proceed with the talks and discussions on devolution matters before us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Ms. Neville.

Now I will give the floor to Monsieur Bachand for seven minutes.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You'll need your translation device, as I'll be talking in French. I'm very proud of my language, just as you are of yours.

First of all, Mr. Kaludjak, let me say that I am proud of my language and of the Inuktitut language. I was involved in Indian and Northern Affairs for seven years, from 1993 to 2000, and I loved to attend First Nation or Inuit gatherings at which people began the meeting in their official language. Your official language is Inuktitut and that is perfectly understandable.

I have a comment and I will then turn the floor over to my colleague who has some questions.

When I was elected in October 1993, my life in politics got off to a good start because my first trip in November of 1993 was to Iqaluit in Nunavut. The first thing that surprised me was the length of the flight, about three hours or about the same time it takes to fly to Florida. However, when I got off the plane, the temperature was not 30⁰ Celsius, but rather -20⁰ Celsius. That's quite a difference in temperature.

Well, I proceeded to walk around the village of Iqaluit. I admit I didn't have any plans, until I saw a building with the inscription “Nunavut Tunngavik“. I entered the building and told the person I encountered that I was a federal member of Parliament from Quebec representing the Bloc Québécois, as if I were an alien of some kind appearing out of the blue. He offered me a coffee and that broke the ice. I sat down with the people and they explained to me what steps they were taking, steps that eventually led to creation of Nunavut on April 1, 1999. I was on hand for that occasion, along with the Prime Minister and many other people.

I greatly enjoyed the time I spent in Nunavut. Your culture is truly extraordinary, as was your cuisine. There was no alcohol available. I recall that we made a toast with a small shooter of pure Nunavut water. It was a very memorable moment for me. I later returned to visit the Parliament of Nunavut, an absolutely amazing chamber. I have also met your Premier, Mr. Paul Okalik, on several occasions.

With respect to the Arctic, First Nations and the Inuit, the Bloc has taken the position that the Inuit are the key component of a new policy for the North. This is truly important for our party and I simply wanted to let you know that.

Regarding motion 387, I promise you that I will speak to my party's critic. It would be more respectful, and more in keeping with a good understanding agreement, to recognize that you are the people who have been living in this part of the world for thousands of years. It would be fitting for the Northwest Passage to have an Inuktitut name.

Thank you for listening to me. I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Paillé who has some questions for you.

[Pascal-Pierre Paillé, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you. I too will be speaking in French.

The committee has been studying the issue of the Northwest Passage for some time now and, as you must surely know, the commercial sector is beginning to show an interest in this waterway. At some point, industry will be ready to increase its usage of the Northwest Passage and perhaps to invest in northern Nunavut.

My question is simple. It concerns the current situation which is likely to change at a dramatic pace. Is Nunavut ready, and are the Inuit people ready to welcome this new reality and the changes that are likely to happen quickly?

[Paul Kaludjak]

Okay, thank you, sirs, for that comment and also for the question.

Mr. Chairman, let me first say this in my own language. [Witness speaks in Inuktitut]

Firstly, thank you. The gentleman before you visited our office back in 1999, or thereabouts.

Yes, Inuit are different in that way: we try to accommodate visitors as much as possible, and we will welcome everybody. On many occasions we take the back benches and try to accommodate our visitors as much as possible to make them understand our culture and to welcome them the best way we can. We continue to do that today, and even allow ourselves to be inconvenienced because of it. That's just the culture we have of welcoming visitors to our territory.

You mentioned it was minus 20 degrees, and I was thinking, that's only minus 20; we usually get minus 40 to minus 50, or in that range, in the winter. Again, thank you for visiting Nunavut.

Just to let you know, we have recently moved to start protecting our language through legislation through our Nunavut government, which we were really happy to be part of.

In terms of your question on the development of change, we are already there. We have already adjusted, I suppose, to the change that is before us in Nunavut. We have maintained that we will be receptive to new changes coming forward and to do the best we can to accommodate those changes. The changes are there already; they've happened already, and we're dealing with them as best we can.

I know we are encountering challenges before us. There's a social challenge before us. Those challenges are before us, and we try to be as patient as possible so we can resolve those issues one by one. They cannot be resolved overnight; it takes time to resolve the issues we're dealing with in the modern day. We will continue to work to do the best we can to accommodate change as it comes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

I will give the floor now to Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much for coming to present to us.

I appreciate very much your speaking to us in your own language--one that I don't understand. I understand very much how important that is to your culture and identity, but I would go further and say it is important to the survival of the people of Nunavut. I see that reflected in what Mr. Berger wrote on the importance of recognizing the need for support for bilingual education in Nunavut. It's important to your identity, but also to the identity of young people who have to see themselves as having an important language.

Bilingual education seems to be key to this whole notion of a partnership. I agree with you that the key to effective assertion of Arctic sovereignty lies in the partnership between the Inuit and the Government of Canada. I supported the creation of Nunavut in the legislature of Newfoundland and Labrador on April 1, 1999. I joined in recognizing and celebrating the creation of Nunavut, as I did a few years later on the creation of Nunatsiavut in Labrador, which translates as “our beautiful land”. I guess it's a take-off on Nunavut. So that's very important to the future of Canada. I know that in 1993 the Inuit actually ceded the aboriginal title to Canada, thus giving Canada the sovereignty it can now assert. So it's extremely important that we as Canadians follow through on that in good faith, and I'm very disappointed to hear that's not happening.

In Mr. Berger's letter in his report on the Nunavut project, he said that an ambitious program of bilingual education that would allow graduates in Nunavut to be able to speak in Inuktitut and English and participate fully in government and society would cost approximately $20 million per year. It's a lot of money if you don't have it. But in the Canadian context it doesn't seem like a lot of money when military exercises in the Arctic probably cost millions of dollars a year.

Do you expect the Government of Canada to support bilingual education in Nunavut in the same way as it supports bilingual education in French and English elsewhere? Is that something you support, and are you making any progress in getting the Government of Canada to adopt that?

[Paul Kaludjak]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I guess I'm used to protocol where the chairman acknowledges when I'm ready to speak, or when somebody is ready to speak, so my apologies.

In terms of the Berger report, as I said before, we were extremely proud of the findings, which reaffirmed the arguments we were making with the federal government in terms of lack of training in Nunavut. It very much addressed the need to improve the educational system in Nunavut, and that's something we've been saying all along.

I believe about four years ago we submitted to the Nunavut government that we needed to see an overhaul of the educational system in Nunavut. Again, Berger reaffirmed that argument that we had. Still, we very much support bilingual education in Nunavut and we demand that Inuktitut be at the forefront, the first language you learn, and that it be the priority of this government.

We have moved towards that. The current government has adopted a language policy and language initiative that we have now to make sure that when people enter Nunavut they understand that the first working language in Nunavut will be Inuktitut. We work together as a team to make sure we achieve that, and I think we're there now.

Also, the cost of education, the $20 million, is minuscule. It's far short. It's lots of money, but for the Nunavut region it will still not reach the need to fully accommodate the language initiative that we want to undertake. I know we're going to have to keep arguing our case and justify the need for appropriate resources for that. That will continue.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Can I interrupt for one second? Has that been adopted by the Government of Canada, that recommendation of Berger, and have they supplied money for that project?

[Paul Kaludjak]

I was getting to that.

It remains that through our initiative with the Nunavut government and our MOU that we signed, hopefully we can take those steps in devolution and make sure that, with the agreement we have with the federal government, some of these things can kick in.

For example, the commitment to adopt the Berger report was done on our behalf, and also by the Nunavut government, when we signed it. To this date, we have not seen a full commitment from the federal side endorsing it. So it's difficult to say yes or no, because to this date we have not had any indicators from the federal side as to how they felt about the Berger report when it was submitted, and it has been three or four years now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Mr. Kaludjak.

Now I will give the floor to Mr. Braid.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Kaludjak, for being here this morning, along with the members of your delegation. Thank you for providing us with an excellent presentation as well.

I would like to start with the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. It was, of course, signed in 1993. Why was nothing done for 12 or 13 years with respect to the implementation of the treaty?

[Paul Kaludjak]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, sir.

Just so that people around the table understand, the understanding must be that some of the implementation did happen within the 15, 16, 17 years now, since 1993. There was some work done. It's not as if there was never any work done, but there was a process made and progress made, and today the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement remains about 50% unimplemented, about half way. It's long overdue.

It seems as if it slowed down about eight years ago. That's when we started to sound the alarm that nothing was being done on the federal side to implement the claim respectably. There were many articles outstanding. As a result, we commissioned Price Waterhouse to do a report for us to justify the cost of the loss we are getting because of lack of implementation. At that time when we did the commission on the report in 2003, the loss we got every year—this is annual—was $137 million that we were losing because of the land claim not being implemented. This is how much Inuit were losing per year, for example.

We've lost a lot. That's why we're challenging the federal government today, because of that loss. We didn't like it, but that was the necessary step we had to take, drastically. It was not the best thing, but we had to get serious and we wanted action, and that was the only ultimate option left for us to do. We submitted a claim against the federal government in 2006.

Thank you, sir.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you.

So about 50% was implemented. More recently, it sounds as if more progress is being made with the signing of the protocol. Clearly there's still more work to do and challenges to overcome with respect to the implementation of the treaty, but at a high level, could you just speak about the positive aspects that the signing of the treaty and the aspects of the treaty that have been implemented have brought to your people?

[Paul Kaludjak]

Thank you, sir, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, some progress has been made with respect to engaging or creating what we call IPGs, independent public government bodies, that were created through the claim to work on environmental assessments and work on land use planning that I mentioned—what is the purpose of the land going to be for the future: five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, infinity? To assess the land need for the years we have what we call the water board that is created to look after the interests of water. Some other gentleman had mentioned drinking pure water, and we want that to remain for infinity as well.

Those kinds of implementation initiatives have been taken. Those boards are functioning accordingly. Again, it's not without growing pains. They have their own challenges because of lack of resources from the federal side to fully perform their mandate. They have difficulty in that, and that continues.

That's again part of our challenge with the federal government, to fully and adequately resource those agencies so they can appropriately achieve their mandates, so they can do their job efficiently, basically. Right now, because of lack of funding and lack of implementation they're having great difficulty in making sure things are done on a timely basis and their mandate is achieved in the time limits. Because of the seasons in Nunavut, you have to hurry in many cases because the mineral explorations and people who want to use the land require permission through some of those agencies. It takes a long time for turnaround at times because of the short seasons to work in the north in the summer for many. Those challenges are before us today, but we're working in the best way we can to accommodate them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I think Ms. Pelly wants to add something.

[Laurie Pelly, Legal Advisor, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To add to what Mr. Kaludjak was saying, the $137 million annually is lost Inuit wages and the cost of importing labour from the south to take jobs in the Nunavut government public service that are intended by the land claim agreement to be taken by the Inuit in numbers representative of Inuit population in Nunavut, which is 85%.

The $20 million that Mr. Berger discussed was $20 million per year for near-term initiatives prior to the full implementation of a bilingual education program. That adds up to $100 million over five years. In comparison to that, we're losing $137 million per year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll give the floor to Ms. Neville, for five minutes.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

Again, I'm pleased that you're here this morning.

I was skimming through the Berger report as you were speaking--Mr. Harris dwelt on it before--and he talked quite eloquently about the social implications of not implementing both the land claims agreement and his recommendations. In one startling sentence he speaks about a colonial mentality that still exists in Nunavut. I would welcome your comments on that.

He concludes his report by saying that through the Nunavut project they've realized there's no affirmation that Canadian Arctic sovereignty will be complete unless the people of the Arctic, the Inuit, are partners in the task.

If you were prioritizing the steps to being real partners in the task, how would you prioritize those issues?

[Paul Kaludjak]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Madam, for your comment. As we said before, if we want to assert sovereignty the highest level we would need is to safeguard the environmental surroundings in that area. As I said before, for no matter which area of Nunavut--it doesn't have to be specifically the Northwest Passage, we look at the whole of Nunavut--the interest base on it is that the highest regard be given to the environment. Because of the high demand for use now of the Northwest Passage and the high demand for mineral exploration activity in Nunavut right now, the priority is to make sure there is the highest regard and respect for the land. We want to accommodate having appropriate arrangements with the government so that we have a cooperative initiative between the two of us, the federal and territorial governments. We want to ensure we have what we call an IIBA, Inuit impact benefit agreement, which will stipulate the training needs and the business needs, and the benefits for Inuit on whichever project it may be.

The land claims agreement provides that direction. We must be party to any development or any activity, whether that be mining, development in the community, ports, you name it. Inuit have to be a partner. That's what the land claims settlement directs us to do, and to make sure that in terms of priorities we accommodate that. We've been telling the federal government that Inuit need to be hired. Laurie mentioned the lack of employment. Because you didn't hire Inuit they lost so many dollars.

In terms of that, article 23 stipulates that the two governments, territorial and federal, must increase their Inuit content, which means they must hire up to 85% or better Inuit content within the government. Today the Nunavut government is about 47% Inuit content, which means that 47% are Inuit employees in the territorial government. The last time we checked with the federal side, specifically INAC in Nunavut, they were sitting at 33%, and I understand in the last few months it went down. Those levels that we give priority to are not even being achieved, and are already being lost today. This is something that is disturbing. It tells us that the implementation is not working, and those will be our highest priorities. For examples, I gave you two.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Mr. Kaludjak.

I will give the floor to Mr. Payne. It is your turn.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kaludjak and witnesses, welcome. I am very pleased to be here today to listen to your presentations. I would also like to welcome the entourage that's here with you as well. It is a great opportunity for them to come to listen as well.

I have a couple of questions.

I was quite interested in your suggestion of a name change regarding the bill that is currently before the House, and suggesting that it be an Inuit name. As I understand it, the Northwest Passage is a name that has been used for at least as long as I can remember, and I might even have a couple of years on you. In terms of changing the name to an Inuit name, how do you see that being recognized around the world to be Canadian sovereignty?