Foreign Affairs Committee on March 26th, 2013

[Chris West]

Thank you for the question.

First of all, the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association looks after the visual arts side. There is another component that looks after the music side. Iqaluit hosts the Alianait Arts Festival each year, which promotes the music of the territory, and they have been doing so for quite a while now.

If I may, I am also the executive director of the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce. Throughout the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce we support the arts and the artists in a number of ways, like my volunteering to be on the NACA board. We also host trade shows where we offer artists reduced fees to show their art at the trade show, be it visual or music.

Nunavut has a rich culture of throat singing. Anybody who's travelled through the north would appreciate singing without instruments. So there are a lot of unique things there. I'm sure as time goes by they're developing more and more now.

I hope that answers your question.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you. Does Mr. Arreak have time to respond?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Arreak, a quick response, please.

[James Arreak]

Thank you for the question.

Digitizing would give us the ability to communicate our baseline data not only with stakeholders like yourselves but also with other nations, to demonstrate that we were here and that we use this land. Some really good work, produced in about 1972–1973, has become the baseline information. It has helped us move forward with a lot of these things, as evidence that we use this land and that Inuit have a role to play in Arctic sovereignty.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay. We don't have a lot of committee business. Before we start with Mr. Van Kesteren, does anyone else have any additional questions?

Dave, do you have a quick question?

Is that all right with our guests?

[Dave Van Kesteren, Chatham-Kent—Essex, CPC]

Thank you, guests, for coming.

Mr. Arreak, I appreciate what you said about the Inuit and their affiliation to Canadians. Coming from a European background, we have the same affiliation. You must know that too, when we think about your people in the north. That's just a great picture of Canada you gave. So I really appreciate what you said.

I have a quick question. When I visited Iqaluit back in 2007 or 2006, I bought some stonework art and I have some art hanging in my office. A thought occurred to me at that time: what kind of guarantees or what kinds of things are you putting in place to ensure that you don't see forgeries? I watched some of them working there and I saw some of the power tools being used. What is stopping the Chinese, for instance, from saying “Hey, there's a market here. We're going to start cranking this stuff out”. What have you done to guard against that?

[Justin Ford]

There's already set in place a tag called the Igloo Tag, which authenticates Inuit art made by Inuit. Also, the Government of Nunavut is currently developing a tag called the Nunavut brand. It's a tag that would be on all pieces of art and it would be registered online. Therefore, anybody who purchases a piece of Inuit art would have a reference to the artist’s biography, what year it was made, what it's made of—and it would be registered online so it can be referenced at later dates.

[Dave Van Kesteren]

That's great. I think that will help us to guard against other nations trying to steal your art. But what if the people in the north themselves started mass producing it? Have you talked about that?

[Justin Ford]

I don't think there's really the infrastructure to do that in a mass sense. One of the biggest issues is, for example, sealskin garments. There are lots of ties and vests and things like that. There's a huge demand for them. But, honestly speaking, the artists can't keep up with the amount required.

[Dave Van Kesteren]

Do you have any standards, for instance, on not using power tools or only this type of power tool, etc.?

[Justin Ford]

No, there are no standards set as far as that goes. It's up to the artists.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. West, do you have a quick comment?

[Chris West]

I might add that power tools are not normal pieces of equipment used in producing art. We've probably seen the use of power tools in the last 20 years. Traditionally, everything is done by hand with files. The unique thing about the art of the north is that 99.9 chances out of 100, you will not see another tie exactly like this here. Every piece is unique; every piece is handmade. That protects the artist as well. It's important for anybody ever thinking about purchasing Inuit art or wondering if it's Inuit art to remember that if there are 25 of them on the shelf and they all look the same, it's not Canadian.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

To all our of our witnesses, thank you very much for being here today. We want to thank you, Ms. Talarico, from the Yukon Chamber of Commerce for being able to join us, and our guests here as well.

With that, I'm going to suspend the meeting.

We're going in camera so that we can look at some committee business.

[Proceedings continue in camera]