Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[Witness speaks in Inuktitut]
Thank you for the invitation to appear today.
The Canadian Arctic is home to some 55,000 Inuit. We call it Inuit Nunangat—the Inuit homeland in Canada. It is an intrinsic part of our identity as a people. Future generations of Inuit must inherit a homeland that will continue to provide for them. To that end, Inuit land claims agreements, wildlife management systems, and harvesting practices have all been shaped to ensure that our wildlife resources are to be harvested at sustainable levels. Conservation of wildlife is not just about food. It is also about economic development in the form of wildlife products, tourism, and trade. A viable, contemporary concept of conservation should not create artificial barriers to making best use of wildlife harvested in an environmentally responsible and humane way.
A vibrant renewable resource economy in the Arctic is a major contributor to a balanced overall economy in the Arctic. We look forward to promoting and meeting the ongoing and sustainable demand for all our wildlife products and activities. We have been insistent on this. Our legal challenge to the European Union import ban on seal products is a good example of our determination, as well as our efforts to promote sustainable use and conservation. Conservation planning and policy development, like ail coherent resource management planning and policy development, must be anchored in sound principles, aimed at meeting sound objectives, and implemented in accordance with sound evidence.
As part of that evidentiary base, Inuit continue to advocate for a broader recognition of Inuit knowledge of the Arctic environment and wildlife. Our knowledge is invaluable to us as Inuit, but our knowledge is also a key part of collaboration with governments and others in the areas of research, management, decision-making, and policy development. We work to have Inuit knowledge promoted and recognized on both domestic and international levels. The world will not take seriously a conservation plan for the Arctic that has not been developed and implemented in full and fair partnership with Inuit, or does not place Inuit needs and ideas at its centre.
ln the pursuit of a collaborative approach, we have seen some good precedents. On a national level, Inuit have worked with Environment Canada on processes connected with the Species at Risk Act and CITES. We have had similarly productive working relationships with territorial governments and Arctic co-management bodies in relation to various wildlife issues and problems. We are collaborating with the Government of Canada on our defence of sealing, and appreciate the federal government's support on this issue.
Those things said, there is room for more to be done at the federal, provincial, territorial, and aboriginal levels to make Inuit positions and interests a more prominent feature of relevant processes, projects, and outcomes. We can expect increasing complexities, in the form of both challenges and incentives, in striking the right balance between the conservation of natural resources—lands, oceans, and wildlife—and industrial development. The current controversies in Canada with respect to pipelines serving oil sands development and Arctic oil drilling offer good illustrations of this point.
Inuit from around the circumpolar world have recently given the world some key principles about how to get that balance right, while also respecting Inuit rights and values in the Arctic. A national conservation plan should expressly support this document: A Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Resource Development Principles in Inuit Nunaat. I brought extra copies, which I think the clerk has received, of this important declaration we developed.
ln keeping with that declaration, and for numerous other sound reasons, Inuit Nunangat, the Inuit homeland, should be identified as a separate, high-profile region in an NCP. This means including Arctic Quebec and Labrador, as well as the territorial Arctic. It means treating Arctic land and marine areas as equal components of an Arctic regional plan.
Inuit land claims agreements provide good examples of how land and marine issues can be dealt with in a highly integrated way. As Inuit priorities must feature in the heart of the Arctic component of an NCP, so too are Inuit a central and necessary partner in its development and implementation. There are many compelling reasons for this: legal and political reasons, land claims rights, the crown's constitutional duties to consult and seek accommodation, international human rights standards, and political and moral reasons. Inuit will expect and demand no less. There are also practical policy and business reasons. Inuit make creative, reliable policy development and business partners.
Prudent, effective, and state-of-the-art laws and policies are needed to govern all oil and gas exploration and development in the Arctic, particularly in relation to the marine areas. Regions must have a final say on whether uranium mining should be allowed to proceed in parts of the Arctic. Even in advance of formal devolution of greater natural resource development powers, major industrial projects should have political buy-in at the regional level, as well as at the national level. Greenlanders have sometimes called this a twin-key approach.
An NCP must support and accelerate full implementation of Inuit land claims agreements, including both their fundamental objectives and their specific provisions dealing with land, wildlife, and resource access and management. Human and environmental health intersect and overlap in the Arctic. An Arctic portion of a national conservation plan must put the well-being of Inuit communities at the fore, and it should include measures aimed at closing the severe and unacceptable gaps in the health of Inuit and other Canadians.
An NCP should stipulate that rational, sustainable use of resources, especially wildlife, cannot pander to animal rights extremists who wish to close down aboriginal livelihoods altogether, or respect the rights of aboriginal people only when they are exercised in some kind of antique, folkloric way divorced from the realities of modern, mixed, and monetized economies. An NCP should stand up to the misguided foreign governments and organizations that have bought into a distorted, unreasoned animal rights agenda.
An NCP should show respect for Inuit knowledge and other forms of aboriginal knowledge, and champion adequate public sector and private sector funding for aboriginal organizations who are working to maintain, amplify, apply, and communicate aboriginal knowledge. To this end, I would encourage policy-makers to consult the Inuit Qaujisarvingat: the Inuit Knowledge Centre created by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami to connect the scientific community and Inuit knowledge holders.
An NCP must serve to sustain cultural diversity among human populations, as well as genetic diversity among non-human populations.
Cultural sustainability and the success of educational systems are inseparable in the contemporary world. Maintaining cultural continuity means having a mix of policies that allow for an ambitious Arctic-based education and training system. We seek to maximize support across jurisdictional, geographic, and public sector and private sector boundaries.
My presentation is a little bit long. I guess the clerk has a copy of this. You say I have one minute left?
To finish it off, I think the Arctic regional component of the NCP should fit into a broader set of national policies directed toward sustainable development in the Arctic and elsewhere. The NCP has to be part of a coherent international effort with respect to conservation and environmental issues generally. To this end, I have three more pages, which I will provide to you.
I thank you very much for allowing me to be here.