Proceedings of the Special Senate Committee on the Arctic
Issue 2 - Evidence - February 12, 2018
OTTAWA, Monday, February 12, 2018
The Special Senate Committee on the Arctic met this day at 6:30 p.m. to consider the significant and rapid changes to the Arctic, and impacts on original inhabitants.
[English]
Maxime Fortin, Clerk of the Committee: Honourable senators, as clerk of your committee, it is my duty to inform you of the unavoidable absence of the chair and deputy chair and to preside over the election of an acting chair. I am ready to receive a motion to that effect. Senator Eaton?
Senator Eaton: May I nominate Senator Bovey to be our acting chair for this meeting?
Ms. Fortin: Certainly. Are there any other nominations? Thank you. It is moved by the Honourable Senator Eaton that the Honourable Senator Bovey do take the chair of this committee. Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Ms. Fortin: Motion carried.
Senator Bovey, I invite you to take the chair.
Senator Patricia Bovey (Acting Chair) in the chair.
The Acting Chair: Good evening and welcome to this meeting of the Special Senate Committee on the Arctic. My name is Pat Bovey; I’m a senator from Manitoba.
I welcome everyone in this room and viewers across the country who may be watching on television or online. As a reminder to those watching, these committee hearings are open to the public and also available online at the Senate website sencanada.ca.
This is our first meeting in which we are hearing from witnesses of this new special committee. It’s a real honour to be here.
I am now going to ask senators to introduce themselves.
Senator Eaton: Nicky Eaton from Ontario.
Senator Neufeld: Richard Neufeld from British Columbia.
Senator Gold: Marc Gold from Quebec.
Senator Pate: Kim Pate from Ontario.
Senator Oh: Victor Oh from Ontario.
The Acting Chair: Thank you.
Colleagues, it was in September that the Senate appointed this Special Senate Committee on the Arctic with a mandate to consider significant and rapid changes to the Arctic and impacts on original inhabitants. As agreed by all members last week, tonight is, as I said, the first of a few meetings organized to give us background on important Arctic issues.
Before I introduce our witnesses, I would like to inform you that, unfortunately, we had to cancel our first panel with David J. Scott, President and Chief Executive Officer, Polar Knowledge Canada, at the last minute given the fact that we experienced technical difficulties with the video conference. I am presuming we will be able to reschedule Mr. Scott for another meeting.
I want to thank our witnesses tonight. I’m pleased to welcome Stephen Van Dine, Assistant Deputy Minister, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada; and Wayne Walsh, Director General, Northern Strategic Policy Branch, Northern Affairs, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.
I invite you to proceed with your opening statement after which we will go into a question-and-answer session.
[Translation]
Stephen Van Dine, Assistant Deputy Minister, Northern Affairs, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada: Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee today. This is a timely moment for a Senate committee to take up some of the myriad policy questions facing Canada’s Northern and Arctic regions.
[English]
Today the Global Arctic is both driving and being driven by tremendous change. Canada’s Arctic is not immune and is witnessing an unprecedented level of accelerated social, economic and environmental transformation. The rapid acceleration of climate change is dramatically affecting the daily lives of Arctic Canadians as well as the region’s ecosystems and infrastructure. Arctic communities are close-knit, mutually supportive and strong in indigenous cultures and distinctively Northern ways of life. These communities, however, also face significant health and social challenges of which many are historically and geographically based and systemic.
Many Arctic Canadians are burdened by a legacy of colonialism, including the impacts from the Indian residential school system, the Inuit High Arctic relocation and other sources of intergenerational trauma.
[Translation]
As global attention continues to shift northwards because of opening access to resources and transportation channels, the Canadian Arctic has the potential to play a significant international leadership role with its co-management systems and self-governance agreements, as well as the world-class regulatory regimes that Canadian governments have established to oversee economic and resource development.
[English]
Many of the challenges and opportunities facing Canada’s Arctic have been examined by the Senate. In recent years, Senate committees have undertaken studies focusing on or including Northern and Arctic issues, such as the new relationship between Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples, defence, housing, international mobility and energy.
These topics convey the breadth of policy issues playing out across Canada’s Arctic. They also give a sense of the level of attention the Senate has devoted to investigating ongoing challenges in the region and formulating policy options for the government’s consideration.
Since Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s Northern Vision, successive federal administrations have sought to articulate their own visions for the Government of Canada’s role in the North.
This role itself has changed in response to major shifts in social, political and governance landscapes of the North. As the political and land claims institutions of the North have developed, the federal government has followed a gradual arc of increasing collaboration and partnerships with Northern public and indigenous governments and with other indigenous organizations.
In addition, indigenous representatives have increasingly sought a relationship with the whole of the federal government rather than seeing their relationship with the Government of Canada mediated through the Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs. The creation of permanent bilateral mechanisms, including the Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee, is a good example of this more fully realized federal indigenous relationship.
As one of the outcomes of the March 2016 Canada-U.S. Joint Statement on Climate, Energy, and Arctic Leadership, Minister Bennett announced the appointment of Mary Simon as the Minister’s Special Representative responsible for leading an engagement and providing advice on a new approach to shared leadership in Canada’s Arctic. As a distinguished former diplomat and life-long Inuit leader, Miss Simon brought the experience and expertise needed to advise the Government of Canada on the most pressing issues facing the Arctic.
Her reports on A new Shared Arctic Leadership Model capture the challenge we are now working with northerners to address. In her own words:
I feel it is important at this point to remind ourselves of the long history of visions, action plans, strategies and initiatives being devised ‘for the North’ and not ‘with the North.’ There have been numerous statements by Prime Ministers over the years declaring why the Arctic matters to Canada. Typically, these statements have been reactionary and not visionary.
Drawing on Miss Simon’s advice, the Government of Canada, acting in concert with key players, has taken a new approach to address gaps and ensure policies developed for the North are developed by and with northerners.
On December 21, 2016, Prime Minister Trudeau announce that Canada would co-develop a new Arctic Policy Framework with northerners, territorial and provincial governments, First Nations, Inuit and Metis people.
The co-development process provides a unique opportunity to jointly build a long-term vision for the region, identify shared priorities and desired outcomes, and to explore opportunities for partnership. Co-development also requires flexibility in terms of timelines and a collaborative and responsive approach by all partners.
The co-development of the new policy framework is building on the extensive work that has already been undertaken by key partners in developing priorities for their respective regions. The framework will also be informed by Miss Simon’s reports from the Shared Arctic Leadership Model Engagement. In particular, Miss Simon articulated a set of principles of partnership to guide the co-development of the Arctic Policy Framework and to improve Crown-indigenous relationships more broadly speaking. These principles continue to be foundational in our approach to co-development.
In addition to close collaboration with external partners, a whole-of-government approach has been adopted at a federal level. Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and Global Affairs Canada are co-leading federal efforts with the active involvement from over a dozen other federal departments.
The decision to dissolve Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and to create two new departments — the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs and Indigenous Services Canada — has further foregrounded the place of the Arctic Policy Framework and Northern policy issues in the government’s agenda.
The Prime Minister’s mandate letter to Dr. Carolyn Bennett as the first Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs asked her to advance work on a Shared Arctic Leadership Model and a new Arctic policy for Canada, and to support Northern programming governing institutions and scientific initiatives.
Minister Bennett has seized on this opportunity to position Canada as an Arctic leader at home and abroad. In her address to the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik this past October, Miss Bennett articulated the approach that has been central to our work on the Arctic Policy Framework.
In the minister’s words:
Our actions need to be grounded in the fervent belief that the future of the North must be shaped by northerners. Our job is to support their vision and their reality. . . .
. . . The future is about imagination and humility from those of us in the South. It’s time to listen to the first peoples.
On November 15, 2017, Minister Bennett and her colleague Minister Freeland announced a phase of public engagement on the Arctic Policy Framework. In collaboration with territorial and provincial officials, a discussion guide has been developed that identifies six themes as a starting point for engagement on the future of Canadian Arctic policy. These themes are: Comprehensive Arctic infrastructure; strong Arctic people in communities; strong sustainable and diversified Arctic economies; Arctic science and indigenous knowledge; protecting the environment and conserving biodiversity; and the Arctic in a global context.
From November to late January 2018, there were over 4,000 page views on our website which includes links to the discussion guide and an invitation to Canadians to offer their views on what Canada can do to support a strong, prosperous and sustainable Arctic. Our online engagement has been supported by a social media campaign which includes short videos on life, work and play in the Arctic, Arctic infrastructure, science and traditional knowledge and snapshots of regional engagement. Thus far, over 100,000 impressions — that’s all who have read or retweeted, liked or clicked on the links — and I would say only half of those are from me.
On our social media account, the announcement of our decisions to extend public engagement reached over 21,000 users on Facebook and Twitter. In addition to online engagement, a series of Ottawa-based round tables with stakeholders and experts, the department has worked with territorial, provincial and indigenous representatives to identify participants and to coordinate round table sessions in Arctic communities. Today we have held round tables in Churchill, Manitoba; Nain, Newfoundland and Labrador; Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador; Kuujjuaq, Quebec; Iqaluit, Nunavik; Inuvik Northwest Territories; Whitehorse, Yukon; and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. These regional round tables have been well attended, with a mix of participants from First Nations, Inuit and Metis representatives, economic development corporations, chambers of commerce, provincial and territorial officials, industry and several federal departments.
Reports from each of these sessions are in development and being shared with round table participants for validation before being posted on our website. A common theme, however, throughout the engagement process has been the concept of strong people and communities as the core of the Arctic Policy Framework. Essentially, what has been emerging is the importance of a person-centric approach with an emphasis on social development and wellness.
In addition to departmentally-lead engagement, Minister Bennett is personally active in the co-development process. She has held meetings on the framework in Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut and has recently worked with Senator Patterson to engage Nunavut’s regional Inuit associations.
In conclusion, while forces of change are posing unprecedented challenges to Canada’s Arctic, harnessing these forces can offer the region’s people, communities, territories and provinces, the country and the world, abundance of social, economic and environmental opportunities.
I look forward to the committee’s deliberations on the future of Canada’s Arctic and would be pleased to take your questions. Thank you.
The Acting Chair: Mr. Walsh, are you speaking next?
Wayne Walsh, Director General, Northern Strategic Policy Branch, Northern Affairs, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada: No. I would just like to thank the committee for the invitation to participate tonight.
The Acting Chair: I would like to open the floor to questions.
Senator Eaton: Thank you for this. Regarding the six themes of Mary Simon’s that you have mentioned we’re going to study, which one do you think long-term will provide the biggest challenge? Is it communities’ sustainability or the global threats now that we’re getting from places like China who are a near-Arctic nation? What do you think Mr. Van Dine?
Mr. Van Dine: Thank you senator for the question. The one thing that is very clear in working in the Arctic is that there are a lot of interrelationships. Given the fragility of the ecosystem, the abundance of natural resources and the more matured self-governing First Nations, the federal government doesn’t tend to do things small. When you are in a remote setting such as the Arctic, little efforts can have a very large impact — some of it intended; some of it sometimes unintended.
I think the biggest challenge for the Government of Canada is to organize its approach to the Arctic in a way that recognizes that northerners themselves are coming up with solutions to face —
Senator Eaton: Not to impose but to support them?
Mr. Van Dine: I think it’s the partnership approach we are trying to figure out. This is a relatively new space in terms of finding the equilibrium. As Mary Simon pointed out, there has always been an abundance of various northern visions and strategies prepared by the federal government. Territorial governments prepare their own visions. Indigenous organizations have prepared their priorities and vision documents. This is an attempt by the Government of Canada to try and develop a set of shared priorities and shared actions in which we can make some long-term progress. Not to be too simplistic, but I think it’s going to be a question of coordination and integration amongst the different federal actors.
Senator Eaton: Mr. Walsh, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Walsh: No. Dr. Simon’s report was very insightful. I think it was without coincidence the six themes were what they were. As Mr. Van Dine has indicated, they are integrated. Once you look at the challenges facing northerners, I think you look at multiple solutions. When you look at the six themes, you see they are integrated and very much linked.
To add to Mr. Van Dine’s point about partnerships, I think those days are long gone. In fact I would argue — and would many people would argue — that perhaps the days never existed where one jurisdiction had all the answers. If you’re looking now at a North where you have maturing territorial governments in a post-evolution environment and indigenous self-government throughout the North, then it takes those partnerships, those multiple jurisdictions, to work together in order to solve a lot of these challenges.
Senator Eaton: This is perhaps awkward, but it’s interesting to me. I sit on the Senate Finance Committee and Northern Affairs officials come before us, as Mr. Van Dine will know.
Mr. Van Dine: Yes.
Senator Eaton: If we work in coordination and support, is there any point where the Canadian government can ask for accountability? Every year when you come up with how much we are going to spend on indigenous housing this year I always ask, “Is it going to be built to code?” Somebody always very nicely says to me, “No, it will not be built to code.”
Will there be any form of accountability at all worked in when we start doling out the cash?
Mr. Van Dine: That is a question we always welcome when we have the opportunity to present our estimates.
Maybe one background comment before getting into the direct one. What we’re attempting to do through this particular exercise is a slightly different geographical definition of the North. The scope of this exercise of replacing Canada’s northern strategy with an Arctic Policy Framework is including the three territories, as well as northern Manitoba. We are also looking at Nunatsiavut and Nunavik. That’s new. We have had programming that has reached into those places. I provide that by way of background to get to your question with respect to accountability around certain standards.
Senator Eaton: There are health standards; education standards.
Mr. Van Dine: The language we’re using today is trying to get at results and outcomes. In discussing the results and outcomes we’re trying to get at, to take Mr. Walsh’s point, if we’re a able to identify our shared interest in those areas, how do we maximize our collective efforts in advancing progress?
A housing program becomes an economic development opportunity. A housing program also becomes a potential health solution around TB.
Senator Eaton: It has to be sustainable.
Mr. Van Dine: It has to be sustainable.
Senator Eaton: And it has to be part of the community.
Mr. Van Dine: And it has to be part of the community.
Part of the solution we are now being encouraged to examine are things like equity ownership models. Some of our indigenous partners, who are now benefiting from 20 or more years of settled land claims, are interested in looking at equity partnerships and taking an ownership role. We believe this has some merit in providing the sustainability that you’re pointing to.
Senator Gold: Thank you for being here. Today, across the Hill, a large group of Canadian medical students from across the country were meeting with parliamentarians to discuss mental health challenges faced by indigenous peoples. That’s the link to my question.
We know, tragically, that the suicide rate amongst Inuit is 10 times the national average or some unacceptably high number. Indeed, a recent article by Ashlee Cunsolo Willox on climate change and Inuit mental health — this goes back a few short years — noted there was a link between the changing weather conditions and an increase in depression, anxiety and other conditions amongst Inuit communities in the North.
What is the government doing in order to address this? How is it using, partnering and taking advantage of the knowledge, learning, healing practices and other initiatives of the local communities in the North?
Mr. Van Dine: Thank you for your question. That is, obviously, a bit of a crisis in some communities that requires a comprehensive approach. I believe Dr. Philpott, before becoming minister of the new Ministry of Indigenous Services, in her former capacity as Minister of Health, entered into an agreement with ITK, the national Inuit organization, around a mental wellness strategy. I don’t have the figures in front of me. I think it was in the order of $9 million over a time period in which they were coming up with solutions to address the urgent crisis, which wasn’t that long ago. I believe it might have been Budget 2016 in which some of those resources were found. We’ll have to check that.
What we are finding through our discussions and our round tables is an interesting call from communities. In one instance, we’re getting very strong representation from youth leaders who are looking to take a little bit of empowerment and start taking a more active role in their communities to bring about positive change. That is coming through our consultations.
We are finding that in cases of other jurisdictions and our indigenous organizations, they are looking at treatment facilities and seeing how we can be collaborators on finding investments to provide culturally sensitive treatment capacity.
Minister Bennett doesn’t talk about the North very long without mentioning the importance of on-the-land programming that she is finding coming up in many different areas, including the Northwest Territories and in other places
There are a multitude of ideas now coming forward that I think require a little bit of support and encouragement. The Arctic Policy Framework, as I alluded to, it’s becoming clearer that peoples and communities have to be a fairly important focus of how we organize this particular policy piece. We look forward to having that well discussed with our partners as we co-develop and finalize it.
To your point on mental wellness, that will likely be an ongoing area for collective action.
Mr. Walsh: There are two things I would add. The first is domestically. In the North, the majority of the population of the North is indigenous, but the North is not the South. The territorial government has a huge role to play when it comes to delivery of health services and providing outcomes with respect to the social determinants of health.
To Mr. Van Dine’s point earlier, it’s an opportunity and a must to partner with those territorial and indigenous communities to address crisis issues such as suicide.
With respect to the Arctic Policy Framework, the other element which is unique in this process is that we’re developing not just the domestic but the international perspective of Canada’s Arctic vision. The domestic view, or the domestic priorities, are very much hope that we hold and also influence our international outlook.
In the case of suicide, circumpolar countries are struggling with similar levels of suicide in their indigenous communities. So there is a lot to learn from each other in terms of what the Sami people are doing, for example, at their community level and what other indigenous communities are doing in the circumpolar world.
It’s not just about having dialogue with ourselves and our territorial and indigenous partners, but also sharing those best practices on an international perspective. Some of that has already been happening through the Arctic Council and the work of the Sustainable Development Working Group.
There was a conference in Iqaluit last year, RISING SUN, which brought in those partners. If there are more of those dialogues, not just domestically but internationally, that will help recognize problems exist, but also that we have shared solutions, hopefully, moving forward.
Senator Oh: I want to talk about Arctic infrastructure. The lack of energy, broadband and transportation infrastructure has an effect on the cost of living, community well-being and operating a business in the Arctic.
Mary Simon noted that federal infrastructure programs do not recognize the need for the Arctic to catch up to other regions of Canada. Participants at regional round tables in Nain and Churchill emphasized the need for transportation infrastructure, such as roads and ports, and stated that existing infrastructure is deteriorating.
What options are currently being explored to close the infrastructure deficit between the northern and southern part of Canada?
Mr. Van Dine: Thank you very much, senator. That’s a very timely question.
Mary Simon is a bit of a visionary, and she has a lot of experience in understanding the issues and challenges. Regrettably, we only had her for a short period of time. Her engagements covered a pretty focused time period, but within that short time period, she was able to offer us quite a bit.
Since Mary’s advice, the government has produced a federal budget, Budget 2018, in which some of the questions you’re raising have been touched on. Whether we have got it all right or whether we have addressed all of what Mary identifies as being of urgency is a question to be examined. However, our colleagues at Transport Canada are in the midst of doing some work on Arctic ports and corridors. Our colleagues at Infrastructure Canada have, through Budget 2018, identified some resourcing under the Arctic Energy Fund. On broadband specifically, Minister Bains has been travelling in the North, looking to advance connectivity.
Again, Mary’s got a tremendous amount of experience. The needs are, as you have described them, quite significant. There is a bit of a transportation and digital divide that continues to exist in the North in comparison to the rest of Canada. We are hopeful that we are able to keep that conversation and attention going to see if we can bring about some progress in reducing the cost of living for northerners.
Senator Oh: Do you have anything to add?
Mr. Walsh: No. The only thing I would add is what we have heard loud and clear from our engagement sessions with the various regions is infrastructure is an enabling central tool for making progress in outcomes, whether it’s in food security, economic development, delivering education in remote communities or even health services.
We’ve also been told to think about infrastructure differently. Infrastructure in the 21st century is not just about a road, per se, it’s broadband for a lot of communities. So one of the frustrations we’ve heard from northerners is the approach that’s taken in terms of public policy now tends to be community-based infrastructure as opposed to big regional projects or national building projects and they tend to be population-based formulas when it comes for infrastructure. If we continue to take that public policy approach, the North will never catch up because the population is just not there.
Those are some of the things we’ve been challenged to consider as we move forward in developing the Arctic Policy Framework.
Senator Pate: I’d like to join the two last questions that you had from Senators Gold and Oh and focus more on where some infrastructure decisions have been made and some of the quality of life and the theme of strong Arctic people and communities. As has been mentioned, living conditions are crowded. The Senate Aboriginal Peoples Committee has documented significant issues around housing, poverty, higher suicide rates, higher levels of violence against women and victimization generally, and also incredibly high levels of incarceration rates. I’m curious as to what you see Canada should be doing in the short, medium and long term, and how you square that with an infrastructure decision to spend upwards of $76 million on building another prison in Iqaluit.
When I was last there I noted that in between my two visits there were new jails but not new shelters and not new support systems in the community. We know what happens and in fact it was happening while I was there. A woman who actually needed support to be in a shelter because she was being battered was actually put in jail for her own protection. Everybody was able to articulate the inappropriateness of some of those decisions, but the lack of infrastructure to address the issues in a more proactive way didn’t result in higher incarceration rates, for example.
I’d be very interested in your perspective on how we actually address that and encourage different policy decisions to be taken so that infrastructure investments are happening in a way that is more productive to the theme of building strong communities and people.
Mr. Van Dine: Thank you, senator. Social infrastructure is certainly something we’re hearing about in all of our engagements. We expect the Government of Canada will continue to be encouraged to find opportunities to help deal with what’s a bit of an infrastructure gap on the social side.
At this point the policy framework is about getting the federal house in order, so to speak. How do we look at various issues from an integrated perspective so that we can make as maximum a positive impact as we can through our various efforts, be it housing, mental wellness supports and other programs and services? As Mr. Walsh has pointed out, in each of those circumstances we’d be looking to strong territorial government partners to try and figure out what it is we need to do as a collective.
We are hearing for the first time that some of the land claim organizations are coming forward and identifying capital resources they would like to put into some of these solutions. We haven’t fully explored what all that means, but for some of the members more familiar with innovative approaches to financing and ownership, what seems to be emerging is an interest in the fact that as long as government programming can provide the tenant supports, then the assets can be owned by someone else. As long as we can provide that long-term commitment, then the ownership models allow for dollars to work harder towards the social programming needs that you’re describing rather than being diverted to deal with both the capital and the programming challenge. That’s relatively new space for us, and we’re excited to explore what the full potential of that might be. We don’t have all of the levers, as Mr. Walsh has pointed out.
The other dimension is on the international level. It’s quite interesting to see how other circumpolar countries are addressing similar issues. There are different histories, different cultures, there are different other factors to consider, but there is always at least something to encourage you to pause and reflect on what can be adapted.
In the criminal system that you mentioned — and that’s not my neighbourhood, so our public safety people would be the best ones to ask — the Norwegians have taken a slightly different approach that I think we need to be more curious about and find out if there are other models that we can examine and learn from and apply.
Senator Pate: Thank you very much.
Mr. Van Dine and Mr. Walsh, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Walsh: Thank you for the question. One of the things Dr. Simon gets at with the concept of a shared Arctic leadership model, or a shared governance model for lack of a better term, is it’s not just sharing the responsibility in terms of kicking in resources to build things. Public policy has consequences. From her perspective, it’s what shared leadership do you engage with your partners to make decisions that drive certain outcomes. That goes a long way at the beginning stage to influence other decisions down the road, whether you’re investing in treatment centres versus correctional institutes, for example. It doesn’t just become a zero-sum game about a dollar being spent here versus there, it’s about working in the early stages with your partners on coming up with those public policy decisions to achieve those outcomes you’re collectively hoping for.
Senator McPhedran: Welcome to the committee. I want to go to page 7 of your presentation and ask for a little more detail about the round tables you listed at the top of page 7. I want to base my question on the statement below the list of locations where you indicated that there was good attendance, with a mix of participants, and then you listed them: First Nations, Inuit, Metis, economic development corporations, Chamber of Commerce, provincial and territorial officials, industry and several federal departments.
I was very heartened to hear in an earlier response when you noted that in fact at these round tables you feel that you’ve had a good representation from youth leaders.
I have a two-part question in relation to this. First, what was the representation of women? Among those women, what ages? If you can’t do it tonight, I’d appreciate if you could come back to the committee and give us an actual breakdown of the numbers and the participation.
You’re issuing a report that’s in process. Where does the report fit into the longer term, very resource-connected planning and implementation?
Mr. Van Dine: On the first part of your question, we’d be more than happy to provide the information with respect to the level of engagement for women and youth organizations through the process so far. We’ll provide that information.
A couple of quick highlights: We’ve had partnerships with the Inuit women’s organization Pauktuutit, and they had a session on the Arctic Policy Framework as part of their board meeting a few weeks ago. We look forward to having their views. In addition, Minister Bennett engaged with a youth group in Iqaluit that has a very strong involvement of youth and young women leaders.
We have also engaged the Jane Glassco Northern Fellowship through the Gordon Foundation, and they’ve been participating and providing views.
Prior to the end of February, we’ll be engaging, I think, up to 200 youths through another outreach, a combination of social media and teleconference, to allow people to come in from all across Canada and the North. So we are very interested in having those perspectives.
On where this fits, there are a number of things Minister Bennett is committed to in her mandate letter. In addition to co-developing a new Arctic Policy Framework, she has to deliver one. The delivery process of producing it, she has made clear certainly to me and to Mr. Walsh that prior to her having, I guess — I don’t know if “competence” is the right word but readiness of an Arctic Policy Framework to go in, she would like to have an indication from the various partners involved that they believe whatever draft we come up with has met their expectations.
So that’s our challenge. The timeline to produce that is still in discussion with our partners and subject to some decisions the government will have to take.
Senator McPhedran: If I may, I have a further request for clarification. If I’m hearing and understanding correctly, there is a bit of a distinction between “partners” and then those who are brought to the round tables for “consultation.” We all appreciate there’s a significant difference between consultation and follow-up engagement and partnership.
If you could, in that response back to us with more detail, help clarify who is a partner and who has been at one or more of those tables for consultation, we would appreciate that.
Mr. Van Dine: Absolutely. Thank you, senator. That would be our pleasure.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you.
The Acting Chair: Do you have anything to add, Mr. Walsh?
Mr. Walsh: Without going too deep in terms of the mechanics of our engagement process, I think we’re looking at different phases. The round tables played a very important role in the listening phase, hearing from northerners what their priorities and challenges were. So that was a goal of the round table.
The goal of the what-we-heard reports was twofold. One was to ensure what we heard was accurate. We had a validation of our partners on those what-we-heard reports. Subsequently, those what-we-heard reports, once validated by the participants at the round table, then get posted on our website.
What’s important in that is northerners from different regions can see and they can compare. More importantly, I think they can start to recognize some emerging themes and commonalties, and that forms the basis for our next stage, the drafting, which is “did we get it right,” and then the validation period, which Minister Bennett has challenged us to do once the round tables are done.
Senator McPhedran: What is the timing for the posting?
Mr. Van Dine: Some of our what-we-heard documents are now posted. We have, I believe, our Churchill session, our Nain session, I believe our Iqaluit session and Happy Valley-Goose Bay. I think we’re just waiting on the Yukon and Northwest Territories sessions, but we should hope to have those out soon.
We’re also, as I indicated in my remarks, receiving submissions online from a number of different groups, so we’re trying to go through those as well. There’s been quite a bit of interest.
I think implicit in your comment, if you permit me, is timing and co-development. We are struggling with striking the right balance of ensuring we’ve got the full opportunity to engage widely, to collect widely, and then to work closely with our partners to make sure we’ve got it right. I’d say our approach to try and square the circle, so to speak, with timelines is transparency.
We’re hoping, through a more fully venting of what documents we’re referring to, what processes and points in time we’ve heard, ideas, through taking a transparent approach we can do that shared learning much more efficiently, as both our partners and our various stakeholders will hopefully be able to witness.
Senator Neufeld: Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. The first question I have — and I know the six themes. Each one of them contains the word “Arctic.” I don’t have a problem with that, but we’re including more than the Arctic. Churchill, and the list is there, Newfoundland and Labrador, Goose Bay.
How do you make sure those places are feeling part of it when it just says “Arctic”? How do you do that? Is there a way to do that? I know that would be what Mary Simon said, but somehow there has to be some inclusiveness.
Mr. Van Dine: You raise an important point. We are defining the Arctic slightly differently for this approach than what we’ve done in previous policy processes. That has been partly informed by Ms. Simon but also in recognition of our Inuit-Crown partnership process in which we are embarking on a bit of a reconciliation, understanding the regions of the Inuit Nunangat, which includes the Inuit regions with settled land claims in Nunatsiavut, Nunavik, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. They have identified a shared interest from a policy basis, and so that, by nature, has required our process to date to include the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Government of Quebec in the formulation of our approach.
That’s the same for Manitoba. Manitoba is not part of Inuit Nunangat, but certainly Churchill has been identified as having some historical relationships to certain parts of the eastern Arctic, so we are endeavouring to build it in.
We have taken a relatively what I would call gradual approach to this exercise. If you’ll permit me, just for a bit more time, once the Prime Minister made the commitment in December 2016, the minister wrote to each of those jurisdictions, asking to identify a representative for Wayne and I to work with and start discussing a process to help get us to an outcome of a shared Arctic leadership document.
That process began last April, and we’ve been growing the telephone tree, so to speak. We have fairly regular meetings with our FPT colleagues and with our various indigenous partners. We took a bit of a pause over the Christmas holidays and we’re right back at it. We hope through the approach of transparency, planning and involvement around the development of discussion guides we used in November that we’re building that awareness and ownership.
Senator Neufeld: And inclusiveness?
Mr. Van Dine: That’s right.
Senator Neufeld: You talked about ports and corridors and broadband. Can you give me a little bit more of a definite answer? It’s fine to say it but it’s a huge part of Canada. Where are some of these ideas coming from? What ports? What corridors? If you don’t have that information — I appreciate maybe you don’t have it with you — could you provide it to our clerk so everybody could have a read of it?
Mr. Van Dine: We’ll endeavour to do that. Our key partner department in that is Transport Canada, and they are close partners in developing this. We’d be more than happy to work with Transport Canada and work with the committee clerk to get you more information.
Senator Neufeld: If you would do that, that would be great.
The other question I have is on adaptation. I talked about this for a long time. Climate change is happening, and whether we like it or not, it’s not going to go away. It’s going to continue, regardless of what actions Canada takes on the whole world stage.
What are you folks doing on adaptation in the North?
Is there a section that you’re actually looking at stuff?
Mr. Van Dine: Our challenge is not for the lack of content as we’re developing this Arctic Policy Framework, I can assure you. Part of the Pan-Canadian Framework that was announced by Minister McKenna and Minister Carr, we are moving forward with the Northern Adaptation Strategy. That strategy is building on the work of partnerships that have existed between indigenous organizations, as well as territorial and provincial governments. So while we’re certainly engaging on a broad framework with respect to the Arctic Policy Framework, there is work moving feverishly along in support of the Pan-Canadian Framework and the resources that were identified in Budget 2017: things like emergency management planning with respect to climate change adaptation.
Research projects are under way with respect to migration of species. We have this interesting project I was just told about a little while ago in which an Inuit community in Nunatsiavut is going to do an exchange with a First Nations community in Yukon. The First Nations community in Yukon are now finding that seals are finding their way into parts of the Beaufort that didn’t exist before. In the case of Nunatsiavut, they are now finding moose that they never really had to deal with. So they’re doing an exchange. The First Nations will teach and work with their Inuit partners around harvesting a moose, and the Inuit communities will work with their First Nations partners on seal harvesting.
There’s a number of other different projects. I’d welcome the opportunity to come back to the committee and talk about what specifically we’re doing on northern adaptation.
Senator Neufeld: Could you provide us some of that information or direct us where to go to find out what is actually happening with adaptation for the Arctic?
Mr. Van Dine: Yes.
Senator Neufeld: That would be great.
The population funding issue — and I completely agree that it’s so unfair to the North. I live in the North. I experienced it a good part of my life. What’s being done to alleviate that issue now, as we speak? What’s happening to look at things differently? Is there a policy change? Has something taken place where the minister has said, “We’re not going to do this anymore; we’re going to look at the issues we face in the North in a holistic way”?
Mr. Van Dine: There are a few components in responding to that. The first is that certainly Mary Simon spoke to the issue of how territorial governments were financed for certain programming, so that’s been identified as an issue from her standpoint.
As I mentioned, the government, through Budget 2017, has put additional resources into the Arctic Energy Fund for Infrastructure Canada, as well as some incremental funds around Inuit housing. However, in terms of the larger questions about the population-based approach to funding allocations, there has not been any general policy change with respect to that approach.
Senator Neufeld: Do you anticipate that to change sometime in the future?
Mr. Van Dine: We’ll have to see in terms of what we find and hear from our partners and what comes out of the final process. We are finding there’s becoming a higher level of awareness around the limitations to that approach in remote and northern settings. Communities in high need don’t necessarily get the dollars to deal with their circumstances. We’ll have to see if attention will be brought to that. In terms of a complete fix, I don’t know if there’s one immediately on the horizon.
Senator Gold: I’m struck by the attempt, important attempt, to integrate different perspectives, and the point made in the documentation about all of the different themes being interrelated. We, too, in the Senate have a challenge with integrating because we, despite our best efforts, sometimes find ourselves in silos.
So you’ll understand my question, I’m the deputy chair of the Fisheries and Oceans Committee. We’re engaged now in a major study in search and rescue. One of our preoccupations is that, with climate change, there is an increase in tourism in the Arctic and the prospect of cruise ships going through, and ecotourism more generally. This strikes terror into our hearts because we don’t have the resources in place in the North to properly protect not only residents who may be going out hunting or fishing, but tourists who may find themselves in trouble in the North.
That said, what is your read on the impact, both positive and negative, on local communities in the North of an increased interest in ecotourism driven by whatever factors they are? What are you hearing in your engagements and consultations about the pros and the cons of this increased interest in the North?
Mr. Van Dine: I think you’ve described quite well that there are some positives and there are some risks associated. The Crystal Serenity’s trip through was a bit of a paradigm shift for many communities in dealing with both the economic potential of having ecotourism, or some level of tourism, higher tourism traffic — marine in particular — and how they get ready.
I believe, from what I understand, the artisans who were working hard to try to have their wares produced in some cases were kind of left wanting a little bit because some of the work they did was made with narwhal ivory and therefore was not able to be transported to some of the other countries of participants. So that was a bit of a lesson.
The other is that our colleagues at Coast Guard and Public Safety are very much seized with the safe navigation and dealing with the customs and border questions that could arise in security. Certainly the Oceans Protections Plan was a measure in which the government was looking north. I think it was a positive thing the government did when it was looking at its Oceans Protection Plan. It actually looked north to include the Arctic coast in what is a fairly substantial interest on marine issues.
However, it’s early days. In terms of the ice-free navigation we’re starting to witness more and more signs of, we’re still a way’s away from unbridled transportation. So we have not a lot of time, but we do need to work closely. Our colleagues at Transport Canada are looking at gateways and corridors, safe navigation, and other means necessary.
I believe quite strongly that if I were to identify a difference between previous northern strategies the federal government had to consider itself with and today’s context, I would say that the opening of the third coast is probably one of the most significant policy questions facing us.
Mary Simon spoke quite clearly in her first report to Minister Bennett about questions of conservation, and I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the one observation she made — and I’ll paraphrase — was that a community surrounded by a conservation area trapped in poverty is not the solution to sustainable Arctic communities.
So we are looking to find ways to support those sustainable economies. Minister Bennett refers to the idea that you can sell a canoe trip a thousand times or more, but if you’re going to organize your economic solutions, you need to be thinking about the communities benefiting from that and being involved in finding the solutions.
That’s a long way around to say more work needs to be done on some of the issues that you have raised, but there has been a start and we’re hoping that the Arctic Policy Framework will help give a bit of a boost in hopefully some thoughtful ways to bring about strong Arctic communities.
Senator Gold: Thank you very much.
The Acting Chair: To add to that, I’m well aware of the issues of the artists and artisans affected by that. It seemed a backlash because I gather in that first Arctic summer with the one boat going through, the 4,500 of your closest friends who were on that boat were told not to buy anything from the artists because they might contain something that couldn’t go across borders. So in fact it’s not just the artists and artisans who happened to use Narwhal, it was all of them who suffered. When you see that really, honestly, Inuit art is being collected more by German and French collections over the last many decades, it seemed to be a very significant slap on the face.
Which before we close, I just want to say you used the word cultural sensitivity. We have been talking about indigenous knowledge in one way or another. I’m sure through our studies this will come up in multiple forms, this being our first tranche at all of this. I am going to suggest we start using the words “cultural sensitivities,” because in my knowledge of the North and having worked with communities and artists from the North, I think there are different cultural sensitivities in different parts of the North. I think we’ll be too southern and imposing if we just assume there is one cultural sensitivity for those northern regions.
I look forward to reading all that you are able to post from the round tables and I will be looking at it through the lens of multiple sensitivities and how do we take these multiple topics and these multiple issues and these multiple concerns and look at them through the multiple cultural lenses. I think it’s an exciting challenge we have before us.
I would like to thank you both for your comments and your witnesses. I’m sure we will be back to you as we try to take the layers of this onion apart so we can add to the substance of a pathway forward that recognizes the import and the substance and the needs of that important part of our country.
Unless there are any other comments, I will ask for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Thank you very much.
(The committee adjourned.)