Inuit, Climate Change, Sovereignty, and Security in the Canadian Arctic
Remarks by Sheila Watt-Cloutier, President of Inuit Circumpolar Conference (Canada) and Vice-President of Inuit Circumpolar Conference at a Conference Sponsored by the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, the Canadian Polar Commission, and the University of Calgary Centre of Military and Strategic Studies
Ottawa
January 25, 2002
Introduction
My name is Sheila Watt-Cloutier. I'm President of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference Canada. Kuujjuaq, in northern Quebec, is where I was born and raised, but Iqaluit in Nunavut is where I currently live. I am very pleased to be here today, and I thank CARC and the Canadian Polar Commission for the invitation to share some thoughts with you.
This conference is very timely. Bill Graham, Canada's new Minister of Foreign Affairs, is a noted friend of the North and of Inuit. He chaired the House of Commons Committee on Foreign Affairs that a few years ago produced an excellent, I would say path-breaking, report urging Canada to develop a northern dimension to its foreign policy. So let's use the next couple of days to craft clear and pointed recommendations that CARC and CPC can jointly send to the minister.
Arctic sovereignty is to be discussed in the next session, so before I talk about climate change I want to outline briefly an Inuit perspective on Canada's Arctic sovereignty.
Sovereignty
Inuit support Canada's assertion of full and complete sovereignty over the Northwest Passage, as expressed in September 1985 by Joe Clark, then Minister of External Affairs. Mr. Clark stated,
Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic is indivisible. It embraces land, sea and ice. It extends without interruption to the sea-ward facing coasts of the Arctic islands. These Islands are joined and not divided by the waters between them. They are bridged for most of the year by ice. From time immemorial Canada's Inuit people have used and occupied the ice as they have used and occupied the land.
Inuit have been instrumental in exerting Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic. Our use and occupation of the land was complete; as nomadic people, my ancestors travelled the length and breadth of the Arctic. In the 1940s and 50s the Canadian government relocated many Inuit from traditional lands to strategic communities in the high Arctic, in an effort to establish permanent settlements and solidify the Canadian claim to sovereignty. These Inuit became known as the "exiles." This was a tragic chapter in our history, but Inuit have dealt with it and moved on.
Many people here likely remember the uninvited transit through the Northwest Passage in 1985 by the American icebreaker Polar Sea. Lawson Brigham, who addresses this conference tomorrow about the Northeast Passage, was captain of the Polar Sea at that time.
The Government of Canada was rather slow, at least initially, to respond to this challenge to our sovereignty. Although straight baselinesa legal devicewere drawn around the Arctic in January 1986, the promised Polar class 8 icebreaker and proposed subsurface surveillance system, which would have physically expressed Canada's sovereignty over and control of the passage, have not materialized.
Don McRea, a well-known law professor at the University of Ottawa, suggested in 1994 that Canada needed to monitor subsurface as well as surface transits of the Northwest Passage to protect and preserve its sovereignty claim. I hope that the first panel at this conference will address this point.
Inuit responded quickly to the Polar Sea incident. The late Mark R. Gordon, an Inuk leader from northern Quebec, urged the federal government to use the well-documented use and occupancy of the Arctic by Inuit to confirm, assert, and express Canada's sovereignty over the Northwest Passage.
Mark was, I think, saying two things: 1. Inuit are proud Canadian citizens and our commitment to the country is enduring; and 2. Inuit will hold up the Canadian flag. This is, in effect, what the Inuit Rangers do. During the cold war, the Inuit Rangers were given some training from the military, rifles, and radios. While hunting and carrying out their daily lives in the Arctic, they were, in essence, the first line of defencethe Canadian high Arctic surveillance system. If the Russians came over or even under the pole, it is likely that it would have been an Inuit Ranger who first alerted the Canadian government. Inuit Rangers continue today and have broadened their surveillance beyond military applications.
We must also look at the changes such sovereignty issues, including an ice-free Northwest Passage, may bring. Inuit may realize some benefits from such a shipping route, but in reality would likely experience disproportionate adverse impacts from potential environmental incidents such as oil spills, wildlife effects such as changes in breeding and migration routes, and socio-economic disruption such as illegal immigration and increased drug trafficking.
Northern land-claim agreements are relevant to the sovereignty debate. Please take a look at the preambular clauses to the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, which acknowledge the Inuit contribution to Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic. The Nunavut Agreement, particularly the institutions it establishes to manage the ocean environment, may assume some importance in future debate if the United States, the European Union, or Japan presses the issue.
I suggest CARC and CPC recommend to Mr. Graham fuller use of Inuit in international events and as members of Canadian delegations to express Canada's Arctic sovereignty.
Climate Change
Let me now move on to climate change. More and more, Inuit are talking about climate change. We have seen the climate scenario computer models. We have talked with climate scientistssome of the world's best climate scientists are Canadian. We have read the prediction by the federal Department of the Environment that a global doubling of carbon dioxide emissions could cause temperature increases over the Canadian Arctic mainland of nearly 5 degrees C in summer and 5-7 degrees C in winter. We know there is a scientific consensus that climate change will be most pronounced in high latitudes.
But we also know something else. Climate change is not a long-term issue; it is happening now and it is a concern to Inuit now. We hear regularly on community radio that the hunters' favourite place to retrieve tea water from ice has disappeared over the last couple of years.
Daily and weekly hunters and elders across the North are reporting changes to the natural environment as a result of climate change. In Sachs Harbour, Inuvialuit report increased snowfalls, longer sea ice-free seasons, new species of birds and fish, and a general warming trend. This warming trend has also brought with it a myriad of insects. Most Inuit, by the way, have an absolute terror of bugs. Long-time Arctic resident Andy Carpenter offers as an indicator of climate change that kerosene and fuel oil no longer resemble milk and jelly.
In March 2001, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. brought together in Cambridge Bay elders and hunters from 15 communities. They reported melting permafrost, retreating glaciers, shorter snowmobile seasons over sea-ice, more pronounced windstorms, and strengthening sun. Elders joked about the need for Inuit hunters to use stronger sunscreen lotion, which suggests growing problems with UVB radiation.
In 1997 CARC and the community of Sanikiluaq published Voices from the Bay. Cree and Inuit from 28 communities participated in this traditional knowledge study that documents ecological change in Hudson Bay. The changes that appear to be results of climate change were profound, including the number, size, and location of polynasopen-water areas in winter.
These examples illustrate an important fact: many impacts of climate change on Inuit and likely other northern Indigenous peoples will be channeled through ecological changes, to which we will have to adapt.
Inuit have a well-earned reputation for resilience and adaptability. But resilience has limits. Each year it seems hunters are waiting longer and longer for the ice to come. Some Inuit are now asking whether the long-term impacts of climate change will fatally erode our hunting way of life. If so, what does the future hold for my people?
To conservation organizations, climate change in the North is an environmental issuefewer and thinner polar bears. With the bears so hungry, there are more nuisance bears and even more bear attacks in our communities. Recently, in one of our communities, a man unsuccessfully tried to save his wife from a bear; he received an award for bravery.
To us, however, climate change is about culture, health, and our very survival as an Indigenous people. I ask you to keep this in mind as you discuss potential recommendations to Mr. Graham.
In light of the actual and potential consequences of climate change in the North, you may be surprised to learn that the federal government has done little to effectively engage Inuit organizations on this issue. For example, the 16 Multistakeholder Issue Tables set up by the federal government in April 1998 to produce options for the National Implementation Strategy on Climate Change virtually ignored Indigenous peoples.
For some time Inuit and other northern Indigenous peoples have been trying to partner with the federal government to address climate change. Inuit are not prepared to be seen, to be treated, or to act as powerless victims of external forces over which we have no control. In fact, Inuit are involved in every aspect of life that affects us, from the science to the policy, in the communities, in Canada, in the circumpolar Arctic, and globally.
Unfortunately, the federal government seems to think our role is to adapt to climate change. But that is only part of our role. We intend to bring our concerns, interests, and perspectives, and those of the Arctic more broadly, to the attention of international decision-makers. We must give climate change in the Arctic a human facean Inuk faceand we must show climate change negotiators that impacts in the Arctic foreshadow impacts around the globe. We want to do this in co-operation with the Government of Canada and other Arctic states. Contrary to recent statements implying that Aboriginal peoples are not real people, Inuit are real, living people experiencing disproportionate challenges.
This may seem a very tall order, and it is. But there are precedents on our side. For the last five years, we have worked with the Government of Canada to persuade the international community to negotiate, sign, and ratify a global convention to eliminate emissions of certain persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including insecticides, pesticides, and waste combustion products. Released to the environment in tropical and temperate countries, many of these POPs end up in the Arctic, contaminating our environment, country food, and our very bodies. This convention--signed in Stockholm last spring--singles out the Arctic and Indigenous peoples.
This convention protects the Arctic and represents a major political success. It came about because federal agencies and northern Indigenous peoples jointly managed the Northern Contaminants Program to evaluate the nature of the issue. Through this program we learned about POPs science. This partnership was then replicated in the international POPs negotiations. Inuit may be few in numberonly 150,000 in the entire worldbut we can "punch above our weight." Indeed, Inuit of the world are stewards of a vast territory, both marine and terrestrial. We can also bridge north and south--the developed and developing worldsand remind the United States that it is an Arctic state with Arctic-specific responsibilities.
This precedent raises an obvious question: What "value added" can we bring to the global climate change file to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases globally, if the federal government endorses and adopts a partnership model?
Bob Corell spoke to this conference about the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment being conducted under the auspices of the eight-nation Arctic Council and the International Arctic Science Committee. ICC is participating actively in this exercise, and we have full confidence in Bob's proven ability to steer it to completion.
The assessment, to be completed in 2004, is important for two reasons. First, it will fill a Canadian void. Although climate change-related projects overseen by the territorial governments are under way in the communities, we have no strategic overview or assessment of climate change trends, impacts, and effects for northern Canada as a whole. Of course, in the POPs debate the Northern Contaminants Program filled this void. I expect Bob's circumpolar document to stimulate debate within Canada.
Second, it will provide a firm basis upon which the Arctic states, aided by Indigenous peoples, can work in concert in international fora, reminding all of the Arctic dimension to this global issue. Indeed, many eyes will be focused on the Arctic Council when Bob and his colleagues deliver their Arctic climate impact assessment to ministers.
I have spoken at some length about the desire of Inuit to play a number of roles in the climate change debate. As evidence of our desire and intent to work with the Government of Canada, I am releasing today correspondence between political leaders of Inuit, Dene, and Yukon First Nations and federal ministers of Natural Resources, Environment, Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and Indian Affairs and Northern Development. This correspondence establishes the basis for future co-operative action.
Nakurmiik
