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ADM Forum on Globalization, Identity and Citizenship

 

Remarks by Sheila Watt-Cloutier

Chair, Inuit Circumpolar Conference

 

Ottawa, Ontario

October 27, 2004

 

Check Against Delivery

 

Good morning. My name is Sheila Watt-Cloutier. I am the elected Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC). I was born in Kuujjuaq in Nunavik, but live now in Iqaluit.

 

I am very pleased to be here, and thank Barry Stemshorn and Liseanne Forand for the invitation to speak with you.

 

About 155,000 Inuit live in northern Canada, Alaska, Chukotka in the Russian far east, and Greenland. Formed in 1977, ICC represents Inuit internationally. So I am on the road a great deal explaining to decision-makers and opinion leaders in countries far to the south what the Arctic is like, why it is important globally, and what it is that Inuit stand for.

 

Your topicglobalization, identity and citizenshipis of real interest to Inuit. We are one people but live in four countries with different histories, traditions, and political systems. We are also going through tremendous economic and social change. I traveled by dog team for the first ten years of my life but now I fly around the world in jumbo jets to meet politicians and decision-makers.

 

Globalization is all about connectionssocial, economic, environmental, culturalthat are growing between us. We Inuit are trying to find our place in the new world order that is being fashioned by globalization. A place that affords us self-respect and security, and in which we also contribute to the well being of others

 

Inuit dont necessarily fear globalizationit provides opportunities as well as challengesas long as we have a sense of control over what it means and what is coming. We come from a still isolated region, but we welcome and seek out connections with others. My colleague Jose Kusugak, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, often says that Inuit are First Canadians and Canadians First. This phrase says much about how Inuitsecure in our identity as an Indigenous peoplesee ourselves also as proud Canadians.

 

I am here to suggest ways in which Inuit and the Government of Canada can work together to project Canadian values and to achieve national and international policy objectives. We can succeed in the globalizing world if we work together. I am going to start with an example that Barry knows very welltransboundary contaminants. Then I will suggest two areasclimate change and sovereigntyon which we should work more closely together.

 

In the late 1980s scientists from Laval and McGill universities found that many Inuit women had elevated levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as PCBs and DDT, in their blood and breast milk. In response, Canada put in place the Northern Contaminants Programme (NCP)only $5 million per yearto research the issue and to communicate results to northerners. Four federal agenciesHealth, Environment, Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and Fisheries and Oceanswere joined by the territorial governments and four aboriginal peoples organizations, including ICC, to implement the programme.

 

It became clear that POPs released to the environment in tropical and temperate countries were getting to the North on air currents and bioaccumulating in the food web, particularly the marine food web. By eating marine mammalsseals, walrus, whalesInuit were ingesting a cocktail of contaminants passed to the fetus through maternal blood and to infants through breast milk. The levels of POPs in Inuit raised truly worrying public health concerns.

 

The only long-term solution was to turn off the POPs taps at source, and that required international action. ICC led a coalition of northern Indigenous peoples in global negotiations that in 2001 resulted in the Stockholm Convention on POPs.

 

We levered ourselves into these negotiations and pressed the Government of Canada to take our case to the world. It was not easy. We had to constantly remind civil servants that POPs in the Arctic is an issue of health and culture. We had to bring civil servants out of their departmental cocoons and into the world of people.

 

Many civil servants were not used to working with us and few understood that in a very real sense they were accountable to Inuit and other northerners, not only to their ADMs and Deputy Ministers. But eventually we established a good working relationship. Aboriginal peoples from northern Canada and the Government of Canada eventually sang from the same song sheet, and other countries took notice of our co-operative relationship.

 

During the final round of negotiations in Johannesburg an opinion editorial in The Globe and Mail by Amil Attaran, a Canadian affiliated with an American environmental organization, accused the Government of Canada of sabotaging the convention. He suggested that Canada was insisting that DDT be banned immediately even though it protects people in the South from Malaria. He also accused the Government of Canada of failing to contribute financially to implement the convention.

 

Media in Europe picked up the story. Ministers and their deputies wanted to know why Canada was receiving such bad press. The telephones lines buzzed between Ottawa and Johannesburg, and Canadas negotiation team was thrown off balance.

 

We knew these accusations to be false and malicious. We told the Canadian delegation to remain focused on negotiations, to keep their eyes on the ball, and to let us defend them. A few days later The Globe and Mail published our forthright response. Not only did we set the record straight, we defended the honour of the Crown in a delicate and sensitive international situation.

 

Please think about this for a moment. The relationship between Canadian Indigenous peoples and the Government of Canada is often difficult. But we were prepared to come out publicly in support of Canada. Why? Because we had been working together with federal agencies for some years in the NCP. We had all been on the same learning curve. We had come to appreciate each others perspectives, to understand each others motives, and to trust each others actions. The result was effective political and policy action and a convention that singles out the Arctic and Indigenous peoples and protects the health of all Canadians. ICC continues to work closely with the Environmental Protection Service overseen by Barry.

 

The lessons of the NCP and the POPs convention can be applied elsewhere. In light of the Speech from the Throne and the Prime Ministers commitment at the April 19 aboriginal summit to establish an Inuit Secretariat we have an opportunity and obligation to do so.

 

The Speech from the Throne promises a comprehensive strategy for the North:

 

to foster sustainable economic and human development; protect the northern environment and Canadas sovereignty and security; and promote cooperation with the international circumpolar community.

 

This speech also promised that Canada would respect the Kyoto Protocol. The Prime Minister was eloquent about the North in his reply, and in his response, Mr Dion stressed the need to address climate change in the Arctic and the need to work with northern Indigenous peoples and with Russia through the eight-nation Arctic Council.

 

In light of these commitments I suggest we apply what we learned in the NCP and POPs debate to two key northern, national, and international issuesclimate change and sovereignty.

 

Climate change. On November 24, Ministers of the eight circumpolar countries to the Arctic Council will receive a comprehensive assessment, four years in the making, of the impacts of climate change. As a result of massive depletion of sea-ice in Summer, the assessment projects the extinction of polar bears, walrus, and some species of seals and marine birds by 2060 to 2090, and the destruction of Inuit as a hunting culture. Let me repeat, this assessment projects the end of Inuit as a hunting culture. As an elected leader I must do whatever I can to show the world the urgency of this situation.

 

As Liseanne knows, ICC is pressing hard for far-reaching policy recommendations on mitigation, adaptation, research, and communication to accompany the assessment. We look for vigorous Canadian support in this endeavour. I ask you all to make a note of this.

 

Like POPs, climate change in the North is a human and cultural issue. Senior officials to the Arctic Council must approach the circumpolar assessment not in institutional terms and not use it as a political football, but understand that it raises fundamental human questions and issues of cultural survival. Institutions must not win over people.

 

In the POPs case Canadian science was translated into national and international public policy. In climate change we will have to use a circumpolar assessment to do the same. This will be difficult. Remarkably, Canada does not have a national climate change assessment and has not seriously engaged northern Indigenous peoples on this file.

 

So, what should we do, bearing in mind that the Arctic is the globes barometer of climate change and that Inuit are the mercury in the barometer? We need a northern climate change programme modeled on the NCP and a strategy that knits together mitigation, adaptation, research and monitoring. We need to use northern land claims agreements to help Inuit adapt and as tools for Canada to achieve climate change related public policy goals. All of this will require vision and co-operation among and between federal agencies, and a partnership with the North.

I think this is what the Prime Minister wants and expects.

 

Five agencies: Natural Resources Canada, Environment, Fisheries and Oceans, Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and Foreign Affairs should engage the territorial governments and Indigenous peoples to develop the northern climate change programme and strategy.

 

Implementation of land claims agreements is ghettoized in DIAND yet these are agreements with the government as a whole. We need lateral thinking across departmental lines.

 

My second example is about sovereignty. I raise this for four reasons. First, the Speech from the Throne mentioned it. Second, at the aboriginal summit the Prime Minister asked what Inuit could do to support Canadas Arctic sovereignty. Third, the circumpolar climate change assessment projects sovereignty problems as a result of the opening of the Northwest passage to general cargo vessels. Fourth, Inuit in all parts of the Canadian Arctic support Canadas Arctic sovereignty and the Nunavut Agreement formally acknowledges the Inuit contribution to Canadas Arctic sovereignty.

 

Paul Celluci, Ambassador of the United States to Canada, recently raised the question of whether the United States might acknowledge Canadas sovereignty over the Northwest Passage in order to better secure the continents northern boundary. The time is right for serious legal, policy, and political work on Arctic sovereignty in co-operation with Inuit. The Department of Foreign Affairs has for years refused to discuss Arctic sovereignty for fear that talking about it is tantamount to acknowledging that an issue exists. Once more it is time for lateral thinking. Here is a major research issue for the promised Inuit Secretariat.

 

Let me end with an invitation and a challenge. At the request of the Prime Minister a series of round tables will be held in coming weeks in which Indigenous peoples and governments will address pressing social, economic, environmental and cultural issues. Lets us use these round tables to fashion policy suggestions on climate change and Arctic sovereignty for the Prime Minister and Cabinet to consider.

 

I have said that we are one people living in four countries. We have lived in the Arctic for millennia using our resources sustainably. I know we make a contribution to Canada and the world at large out of all proportion to our limited numbers. The Inuit storyof a people small in number fighting for their culture and way of life in the face of globalization, and doing so in a world that knows little about us and the Arctic, requires attention.

 

We are not just inhabitants of the Arctic we are citizens who have much to offer in the global debate about environmental protection and sustainability. It is our human right to live free of toxins and free of the ravages of climate change.  As Inuit whose culture is dependent upon it being cold and frozen, it is our human right to be cold.  You will become more and more aware of our work in linking the climate change issue to human rights.  The Human Right of Inuit to be cold will become more and more of an issue.  With that understanding we can move forward together.

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