{"id":1407,"date":"2007-08-21T14:20:55","date_gmt":"2007-08-21T18:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/?p=1407"},"modified":"2026-02-09T14:56:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T19:56:21","slug":"inuit-leader-asks-for-input-to-arctic-sovereignty-talks-at-montebello-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/press-releases\/inuit-leader-asks-for-input-to-arctic-sovereignty-talks-at-montebello-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"Inuit Leader asks for Input to Arctic Sovereignty Talks at Montebello Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"<strong>21 August 2007, Inuvik<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) Canada,\r\nDuane Smith, is concerned that USA President Bush and Canadas Prime Minister Stephen\r\nHarper are making important decisions about the fate of Arctic sovereignty without consulting\r\nInuit in Alaska and Arctic Canada. After hearing that Mr. Bush and Mr. Harper met just prior to\r\nthe opening of the North American Summit to discuss the Arctic, Mr. Smith stated Inuit have\r\nlived on the land and seas of the Arctic for thousands of years and according to Canadian,\r\nAmerican, and international laws, we have fundamental rights that cannot be ignored. He added,\r\nI am deeply concerned that Inuit were not invited to the summit and, more importantly, that\r\nclosed door discussions are being held without our input.\r\n\r\nICC is the international body that represents Inuit from Russia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. It\r\npromotes the human rights of Inuit, advocates for a clean Arctic environment, celebrates Inuit\r\nunity across four countries, and works on matters of international concern that affect Inuit. The\r\nArctic sovereignty issue was discussed during the summit itself, again with no Inuit present. I\r\nunderstand that Mr. Bush and Mr. Harper may not be interested in the views of Inuit from Russia\r\nand Greenland they might have trouble seeing us as one people transcending four countries\r\nbut the least they could do is consult with Inuit from Canadas Arctic and the coastal areas of\r\nAlaska, Mr. Smith added.\r\n\r\nIn addition to serving as ICC Canada president, Duane Smith is also Vice Chair of the pan-Arctic\r\nInuit Circumpolar Council. Mr. Harper doesnt seem to know that working together with us\r\ncould be very beneficial to him and to the goals of all Canadians, Mr. Smith concluded.\r\n\r\nFor further information, contact:\r\nICC Canada\r\n+1 613 563 2642","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-38","category-press-releases"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":987515289,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407\/revisions\/987515289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}