Nakurmiik.
Good morning, ulaakut, everyone.
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami is the national organization representing approximately 65,000 Inuit in Canada, the majority of whom live in Inuit Nunangat. Inuit Nunangat is our homeland and the term we use to describe the roughly 35% of this country that is governed and controlled by Inuit interests, either through fee simple or through a co-management structure, through modern treaties or land claims.
ITK is governed by the elected leaders of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, Makivik Corporation, and the Nunatsiavut government. These four Inuit representative organizations and governments are Inuit rights holders under section 35 of the Constitution, having negotiated comprehensive Inuit-Crown land claim agreements between 1975 and 2005. Our ongoing relationship with the federal government, especially through budgetary processes, is relatively new and an emerging way in which we implement our modern treaties, but also the way in which we implement reconciliation.
ITK undertook an exercise to quantify Inuit-specific federal government investments proposed in budgets 2010 to 2019. Through this review, we found the following. Prior to federal budget 2016, there were no federal Inuit-specific fiscal investments as part of budgets. Any investments for Inuit tended to be indirect, either through public governments or through indigenous allocations, without any specific mention of Inuit specificity within the text of any budget. In fact, mention of Inuit at all in federal budgets was exceedingly rare. For example, in budgets 2010 to 2014, Inuit were mentioned only twice in each budget, and not in relation to any new investment.
Over the last four successive federal budgets, however, references to Inuit have continued to increase, with budget 2019 containing more than 90 references to Inuit. At the same time, Inuit-specific investment allocations have also increased across a broad range of areas, from health and social development to post-secondary education and early learning and child care. In the last two years, there has been an Inuit priority section within the broader indigenous chapter of the federal budget.
These are positive policy changes. They reflect the evolving and maturing relationship between Inuit and the Crown and better situate the meaningful place of Inuit within broader Canadian society and as one of the three indigenous peoples identified in section 35 of the Constitution. Federal budgets allow for the Canadian government to specifically tell Canadians how it will spend money. Unfortunately, in the past, the term “indigenous”—or the term “aboriginal”, which preceded it—allowed for complete lack of consideration of Inuit within any of the allocated funds.
Budget 2020 should build on progress made in the last four federal budgets by continuing to implement an Inuit Nunangat fiscal policy in the allocation of Inuit-specific funding. The inclusion of an Inuit priority section in the last two budgets was a welcome and positive development and should continue in budget 2020. Continued implementation of an Inuit Nunangat fiscal policy in federal budgets creates efficiency, cost savings and more immediate impacts and benefits for Inuit, which, in turn, benefit all Canadians.
In our pre-budget submission, we have gone through a number of things that we would like to see within the Inuit section of the indigenous chapter of the budget. It starts with a $1-billion investment in an Inuit Nunangat infrastructure fund, to consider eliminating the infrastructure deficit in Inuit Nunangat. It also calls for social infrastructure investments to enhance the health and safety of Inuit Nunangat communities, supporting women and also supporting the emerging workforce, and to create the environmental conditions necessary for lifelong development in children. We need investments in early learning and child care centres, family violence shelters and transitional housing, addiction treatment centres and social housing.
We also need investments in marine and air infrastructure. Inuit Nunangat encompasses all of Canada's Arctic coastline and significant offshore areas, yet its marine infrastructure is almost non-existent. This contributes to lost economic opportunities, greater fossil fuel emissions, as well as a higher cost of living and its associated challenges. In addition, most airport runways date from the 1950s and 1960s and are made up of compacted gravel. They can support only smaller aircraft, and they lack ability to operate in inclement weather or darkness.
We also need investments in renewable energy. No community in Inuit Nunangat is connected to the North American grid, and with the exception of Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, none is connected to the road system. Each community is served by a local power plant dependent upon fossil fuels, predominantly diesel, for power generation. To support the off-diesel transition, there is a need for an Inuit Nunangat renewable energy fund. There is also a need for an Inuit Nunangat feed-in tariff for Inuit-owned power projects serving our communities. This would transcend jurisdictional boundaries and differing energy policies, and provide direct support for Inuit renewable energy projects.
We also need investments in telecommunications. Incremental investment in satellite technologies confuses industrial policy with telecommunications policy and is not cost-effective or a long-term connectivity solution. In order to remedy these challenges, ITK is seeking federal investment in regional fibre projects, beginning with regional feasibility studies. Inuit Nunangat faces a dire digital divide, one that has been noted by the federal government since the 1990s and reiterated most recently in the 2018 report on rural broadband by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. Due to remoteness factors, Internet connectivity has a more critical role to play in Inuit Nunangat than in other parts of Canada in enabling access to health, education and justice services, and in reducing the overall costs of public service delivery in Inuit communities.
Other key investment areas include funding for the implementation of our national Inuit climate change strategy; funding for the implementation of our national Inuit strategy on research, supporting Inuit language and culture in schools; and also funding to implement the Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families.
The specific considerations in relation to our funding are contained within our pre-budget submission that was provided to the standing committee and that is also publicly available on our website at itk.ca.
Nakurmiik.