Generally the implementation of land claims takes on many different permutations because it is so complex. I guess the overarching comment or observation that Inuit have had is that the federal government has seen these land claim agreements more as one-time negotiated agreements that then are done with, rather than living treaties that require constant interaction and work with the other party. For Nunavut Inuit, that really isn't an exception.
With regard to some of the social issues that you mentioned, especially suicide prevention, Nunavut is in the final stages of creating a Nunavut suicide prevention strategy. There is no national suicide prevention strategy, which is unfortunate. There is some focus within Health Canada on aboriginal youth suicide prevention, which is a component of suicide prevention, but we feel that there is a larger role for the federal government to play within suicide prevention and within the area of mental health in general.
There is this concept called “historical trauma”. It's only since the 1950s and 1960s that Inuit have lived in southern-style communities, with houses and a central administrative body run first from the federal government, or even from missionaries or Hudson's Bay. We've only had 50 or 60 years of this new way of living.
People of the first generation who grew up in these communities were exposed to many different things that have had a tremendous impact on all subsequent generations, things that have never been overcome. You've probably heard in the past of the sled dog slaughter, where the dogs that were used for transportation for Inuit were shot within communities, or of the residential schools, with the forced relocations. A number of things are barriers to those people fulfilling all the other things they could be doing in their lives.
We feel that there still is a lot of healing and a lot of mental health work that needs to happen in our communities in order to unlock our true potential, which is why it was so unfortunate that the Aboriginal Healing Foundation funds were cancelled. Especially in Nunavut, we had developed 12 different projects across the territory that were providing healing opportunities so that people could become more productive members of society, so that they could become more stable, so that they could have the mental grounding in order to be successful in life.
So I do believe there is a lot more the federal government could do to help.