Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 18 - Evidence - March 1, 2017
OTTAWA, Wednesday, March 1, 2017
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 6:45 p.m. to study the new relationship between Canada and First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
Senator Lillian Eva Dyck (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good evening. I would like to welcome all honourable senators and members of the public who are watching this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples either here in the room or listening via the Web.
I would like to acknowledge for the sake of reconciliation that we are meeting on the traditional lands of the Algonquin peoples.
My name is Lillian Dyck from Saskatchewan. I have the honour and privilege of chairing this committee. I would now invite my fellow senators to introduce themselves.
Senator Watt: Charlie Watt from Nunavik.
Senator Christmas: Dan Christmas, Nova Scotia.
Senator Pate: Kim Pate, Ontario.
Senator Mégie: Marie-Françoise Mégie from Quebec.
Senator Sinclair: Murray Sinclair, Manitoba.
Senator Boniface: Gwen Boniface from Ontario.
Senator McIntyre: Paul McIntyre, New Brunswick.
Senator Beyak: Lynn Beyak, Ontario.
Senator Tannas: Scott Tannas from Alberta.
The Chair: Thank you, senators. Today we continue our study on what a new relationship between the government and First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples of Canada could look like. We continue looking at the history of what has been studied and discussed on this topic so far, and today we have the privilege to welcome Frank Tester, Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia, who is an expert on the history of the relationship between Inuit and the Crown.
Professor, you have the floor. After your presentation, we will open up the floor for questions from the senators. Thank you.
Frank Tester, Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia, as an individual: Thank you. It is nice to see you are having a Vancouver winter out there. Maybe climate change will bring the country together. That is one benefit that I had not actually thought of until I arrived here.
Let me start by saying that the history of the relationship between Inuit and the Crown is quite different from the relationship between First Nations and the Crown. Although there are many similarities, there are some really important differences. I think that has to do with the fact that the relationship is most intense in the period after the Second World War.
The relationship prior to the Second World War is one, I would say, of neglect. The Crown has some presence in the Arctic, but it's primarily represented by the RCMP. The Hudson's Bay Company is a major factor in the history. Earlier on in the period before 1911, the history of whaling, of course, by Scottish and American whaling fleets is what dominates the history of Inuit relationships with non-Inuit populations. I will focus on the period following the Second World War.
Unlike the case for First Nations in Southern Canada, the period of colonization really takes place in a very interesting period characterized by the rise in Canada of something I call the semi-liberal, welfare state. You might expect things to be dramatically different in some ways. In some ways, they are, but in other ways, it's a continuation of the kind of relationship that you find with First Nations at more southerly latitudes.
The old guard kind of disappears immediately in terms of Arctic administration; it exits after the Second World War. Many of the senior administrators were people who in fact served in the First World War and had a parsimonious attitude towards dealing with Inuit in the eastern Arctic — in other words, "penny-wise pound foolish'' — resulting, of course, in some serious problems that get dealt with after the Second World War, the most notable example I think being tuberculosis.
There is a phenomenal focus on an outbreak of TB after the Second World War, which has a huge impact on Inuit living in the Canadian eastern Arctic and in Arctic Quebec. Inuit are evacuated to the South for the treatment of tuberculosis, which, if you know anything about tuberculosis, was particularly brutal up until the use of isoniazid, for example, starting in about 1952-53. It basically consisted of sunshine and bedrest.
As a young person, I worked at what had been the Mountain Sanatorium in Hamilton, Ontario, and got in touch with exactly how TB was dealt with at the time. The Mountain Sanatorium served Inuit largely from Arctic Quebec, but not entirely.
Following the Second World War, the Crown was really involved in dealing with a number of crises, one of which is the TB epidemic. By some estimates, about 33 to 35 per cent of all Inuit living in the Canadian Arctic were evacuated at some time or other to the South for treatment of tuberculosis, which was truly brutal. I don't know how many of you have seen The Necessities of Life, an absolutely fabulous film which focuses on this experience.
You have people who are living and surviving by hunting and trapping, and you take away the breadwinner, if you like. You put that person in a TB san in the South for a year, two years, three years, and they may never come home. The implications for the well-being of the extended family on which that person depended were severe, and the treatment was severe.
I have pictures, for example, of young people who like to bounce around and who needed to be, according to the logic of the day, isolated and placed in body casts in order to immobilize them so that they couldn't run around inside a TB sanitorium. They were literally placed in body casts to immobilize them so that they could enjoy the benefits of rest and sunshine as they were wheeled out onto the balconies of many of the TB sans of the day. It was brutal. This changed a bit after 1953 with the introduction of isoniazid and other combinations of drugs.
The relationship with the Crown is a complicated one. If I talk to survivors of TB, there are two things going on. It was an absolutely terrible experience. In many ways, elders that I have talked to are also grateful for the fact that their lives were saved. There are two things going on here and a lot of debate about why it had to be done this way. I could go into the details of why, because I have done some research on this, but Hugh Keenleyside was the appointed Deputy Minister of the former Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The department, as you know, has been renamed many times, but you know what I'm talking about. He didn't last too long. By 1952, he was gone. He was a reformer. He was interested in dealing with these kinds of problems and got things rolling.
Interestingly enough, with regard to residential schools, something very different happened as well. Believe it or not, by 1949 — and the archival records I have make this point — the northern administration was well aware of the fact that the residential school policies and practices were a failure. They actually decided they were not going to repeat this, in the case of the Canadian Arctic, with Inuit kids. They did not want the churches involved, and I have documents making that absolutely clear. They decided that they were going to go with something they called "federal day schools.''
Federal day schools were different than residential schools but ultimately remarkably similar in that they wanted to create schools in the fledgling communities of the Canadian Arctic for Inuit children, but they realized that because Inuit were still living out on the land in their traditional camps, these kids would have to live somewhere. The idea was to create some sort of boarding facility. When I was researching this and presented this material back in 2006 or 2007, I went out of my way to emphasize the difference and the similarity.
The Roman Catholic Church, unfortunately, had reached a kind of agreement with the government before the implementation of this 1949 policy. This explains the residential school at Chesterfield Inlet, the residential facility known as Turquetil Hall, which was finished in 1954.
The end result was that there were federal day schools operating in the eastern Arctic, but at the same time children had to board somewhere, so they often boarded in facilities where the matron was the wife of the Anglican priest or somebody else in the community. The experience of children living in those facilities, I will say, is not much better than what in many cases they experienced in residential schools. In some cases, they did board with local Inuit families, for example, as in Qamani'tuaq or Baker Lake.
The biggest problem — and Murray would know this quite well — was the history of the Chesterfield Inlet Turquetil Hall residential school, which gathered in children from all over the Kivalliq region and even further north. In that particular facility, children were mentally, physically and sexually abused. There is no doubt about it. This is history that is taking place later than what was experienced by First Nations in Southern Canada, but in many ways it was very much the same.
The intention was different but the outcome was remarkably similar. If I had to summarize what school policy looked like, that's what I would say was the outcome. This would be true in Arctic Quebec where the federal government still had a presence, which it loses in the 1960s with Quebec wanting more independence and the Quebec provincial government wanting to take over responsibility for Inuit. That's another complicated history.
Contrary to some of what I have read, the government in the 1940s and in the early 1950s right up until about 1956 — especially in 1957-58 for reasons that I will mention — did not want Inuit living in settlements. It wanted them living out on the land in their "traditional camps,'' their tents and igloos, for a simple reason. It was terrified — and the evidence I have for this in the archival records is overwhelming — that Inuit would become, as they understood the relationship between First Nations in the more southerly latitudes of Canada, dependent on the state for welfare, social assistance and so on. It did not want Inuit hanging around the posts and the settlements in the eastern Arctic. It wanted them the hell out of town and out on the land. It instructed the RCMP — and I have the instructions given to them — to chase Inuit out of town, to make sure they didn't wind up hanging around the posts and expecting to be supported by welfare payments and so on.
However, the interesting thing that collides with this is The Family Allowances Act of 1945. Inuit were entitled to family allowances in the same way that any other Canadian was — and this gets into the constitutional status of the Inuit, which is a larger and really interesting topic — in that the government regarded Inuit as "ordinary Canadian citizens.'' It did not want to treat them as Aboriginal peoples despite the fact that it did. Legally, it wanted to see and understand Inuit as "ordinary Canadians,'' thereby avoiding what it saw as all the problems that it had encountered with First Nations in more southerly parts of Canada. I'm sorry if I use the word "southerly'' because First Nations don't just live in what most people understand as southerly latitudes. Hopefully, you understand what I'm getting at.
A 1939 Supreme Court decision is really important in understanding the relationship of Inuit to the Crown. The Province of Quebec took the federal government to court to try and recover the costs of relief paid to Inuit in Arctic Quebec in the 1930s, arguing that Inuit were a federal responsibility. Of course, the Constitution doesn't mention Eskimos or Inuit anywhere. This case went to the Supreme Court in 1935, which handed down a ruling in 1939.
I could write a stage play about this; the script is really interesting. Diamond Jenness, the famous, well-known anthropologist — maybe notorious anthropologist, depending on where you're coming from — was the key witness for the Crown, and Franz Boas was the primary witness for the Province of Quebec.
The Supreme Court ruled that, for purposes of administration, Inuit were "another kind of Indian.'' In other words, the intent of the Constitution Act, even though it didn't mention Eskimos or Inuit, was to make the federal government responsible for Aboriginal peoples in the country, and Inuit were Aboriginal peoples, and therefore the federal government had to pay up. So the federal government lost the case, the Province of Quebec won, and Inuit were considered as Aboriginal peoples.
Then the government debated whether or not to bring Inuit under the Indian Act. The Second World War kind of put an end to all of this; it distracted the government. By 1949, they had given up on this. In order to avoid all of the "problems'' that they had encountered in the administration of Indian affairs, they wanted to treat Inuit as "ordinary Canadians.'' They did anything but, as far as I'm concerned, but the rhetoric was off in that direction.
Another event that is really relevant to what I call the colonial period was the construction of the DEW Line — the Distant Early Warning Line — which was built by the General Electric corporation on behalf of the U.S. government. It created a string of radar stations. In one year, one and a half years, roughly, they built a string of radar stations all the way across the Canadian Arctic.
Many Inuit were hired as labourers, and it also affected their lands. These large devices were obviously on a flat landscape, really obvious, had a huge impact on Inuit and Inuit culture anywhere that one of these things was built. Inuit, for the first time in many cases, had the experience of wage employment. They had the experience of living in wood frame dormitories, eating White people's food, et cetera. The DEW Line had a huge change on their lives. If you talk to elders who worked on the DEW Line, it had a very big impact on their lives and their understanding of what was going on at the time.
The other thing that I want to emphasize is that material circumstances changed dramatically after the Second World War. This had a huge impact on the relationship between the Crown and Inuit. In other words, the relationship was driven by economic realities. The economic reality was that after the end of whaling in 1911 in the Arctic, the Hudson's Bay Company moves in. Kimmirut on the southern tip of Baffin Island is the first Hudson's Bay Company post, opened in 1911. By 1925, 1926, 1928, the Hudson's Bay Company is opening posts all over the place.
The Inuit who made a bit of a living working for whalers now make a living trapping foxes for the Hudson's Bay Company. This era of trapping lasts through until roughly the late 1940s. In 1945, the price of a white fox pelt is about $25 across the Arctic. By 1949, the price of that fox pelt has dropped to $3.50, and what you could buy for $3.50 at your local Hudson's Bay Company post was truly pathetic. In other words, the Inuit economy is in serious trouble.
The reason the price for fox pelts drops is, I guess, threefold. Following the Second World War, in order to deal with its debts, Russia floods the market with furs in order to generate some foreign cash. The other thing is that wars always give rise to new technologies and products, and synthetics come along, and you can simulate or reproduce furs synthetically with rayon and nylon and so on. So women's fashions change and fox for trimming women's coats is no longer in style. That's another thing that kills the price for fox pelts.
The Inuit economy is in serious trouble. They are in very serious trouble. This has been well documented by the very well-known photographer Richard Harrington. Inuit die of starvation in Canada in the winter of 1949-50. In Padlei in the southern Kivalliq region — what used to be known as the Keewatin region — Inuit around Padlei die of starvation. He documents that. If you look at the book he published in 1952, you can see pictures of starving Inuit.
It doesn't end there. In the winter of 1957-58 in the Canadian Arctic, in Garry Lake, 19 Inuit die of starvation. The survivors are evacuated to Baker Lake and subsequently to Arviat, to a new community called Whale Cove, which was a rehabilitation centre on the west coast of Hudson Bay, and to a place called Itavia which is a small rehab centre built on the outskirts of what's now known as Rankin Inlet.
Then the government relocates Inuit, for very interesting and suspicious reasons, from Ennadai Lake in the southern interior of the Kivalliq region just north of the Manitoba border where the government had built a weather station. This is after the Second World War, and planes going to Europe are flying the Arctic or polar route, because obviously that's the shortest route. But weather conditions are really important, so the Department of Transport builds a weather station at Ennadai Lake.
The Inuit living at Ennadai Lake are one of the few groups of completely inland Inuit in the world. In other words, they do not depend on seals. They are not coastal people. They live primarily on fish and caribou. The reports from that weather station were that the Inuit were starving and having difficulty surviving because they were always hanging around looking for handouts from the weather station, and the government decides to relocate them. This is only one of — I have written a book about this — many relocations of Inuit in the Eastern Arctic. They decide to relocate them to someplace else where they can make a living their traditional way, in other words hunting caribou and fishing. They are moved halfway between Ennadai Lake and the current community of Arviat at a place called Henik Lake. In the winter of 1957-58, they die of starvation in that location and are ultimately evacuated to Arviat or what was known at the time as Eskimo Point.
Why did this happen? I suspect it was a lot more than just people hanging out and expecting handouts. I suspect that the manager of the weather station was increasingly concerned about the relationship between the young guys who were working at the weather station and Inuit women. He cooked up an alternative reason for suggesting that people ought to be relocated. The result was a disaster.
The trial of Kikkik has been documented by my colleague Ole Gjerstad in a really good documentary film. Hana Gartner tackled this as one of the first documentaries she did when she was first working for CBC's "The Fifth Estate.'' This was tragic, this relocation. It resulted in one of the most interesting trials, I would say, in Canadian history.
A young, diminutive Inuit mother is put on trial for murder as a result of her deranged brother-in-law, who was dying of starvation, attempting to stab her for whatever reason, and she killed him and then dragged her children on a caribou skin toboggan trying to get to the Hudson's Bay Company post at Padlei and abandoned her children because she didn't have the strength to carry them anymore. In a brilliant move, she put them in a snow cave she built and was finally spotted by the RCMP, flying an aircraft to check what was going on, because they knew there was some problem taking place at Henik Lake and so forth and so on.
Anyway, it's an interesting story about the mixed relationship between the Crown and Inuit people. The RCMP officer in this case was a wonderful guy and really went out of his way to deal with this particular problem that had been created by a government policy of relocation. That's only one example. I can regale you for the rest of the night on no end of stories about relocation that have this as a feature.
So starvation was a big problem, and as a result, the government changes its policy. It says, "We are no longer going to encourage Inuit to stay the hell out on the land so that they don't become dependent. We are going to modernize them and bring them into modern industrial society as quickly as possible.''
Ben Sivertz, who was the northern administrator within the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, wrote a paper in 1958 called Culture Change: Fast or Slow. It was published in the northern circular that went around to all the public servants working within the department, and his answer to the question was very clear: We are going to bring Inuit kicking and screaming into modern Canadian culture as fast as we possibly can. And that's government policy after about 1958-59.
So how do you do that? Well, you bring them into settlements. We can't have them living out on the land anymore; they might starve and that's going to be an embarrassment, and the government was thoroughly embarrassed. The starvation got international press coverage. I have copies of letters written by people living in the Caribbean saying, "What the heck are you people doing? You're a modern culture; people are dying of starvation in Canada? What's going on up there?'' So the government was thoroughly embarrassed, and it decided to bring people into settlements as fast as possible.
What happens is this. People had already started to move into settlements for various reasons, but after 1958-59, the slow trickle became a rush. By 1965, Inuit are living in settlements all over the eastern Arctic built up around the Hudson's Bay Company posts and RCMP stations. There's hardly anybody living out on the land.
There are a whole series of other tragic events that take place. I was part of a film that Ole Gjerstad made, and I was part of the Qikiqtani Truth Commission researching the fate of Inuit sled dogs, which is a mixed bag, I must admit. If the word "slaughter'' is to be used, it's not unwarranted. I found a case of an RCMP officer in Pangnirtung who killed 250 some odd dogs in one year. If that isn't a slaughter, I don't know what is.
You have terrible cultural conflict and confusion here. Inuit are moving into settlements with their dogs. Their dogs, of course, knew them. Sled dogs are not pets, but they also didn't tie them up. Why? Because they didn't have any means for doing so. I've looked at the records of the Hudson's Bay Company. Did they have chain to tie up the dogs? They didn't. Is chain going to be brought in the next week? No, because at the time, the only way you could get heavy goods like that to the Hudson's Bay Company was once a year on sealift, so you had to wait at least a year. What does chain cost? A small fortune. How many Inuit have money, in fact, given the circumstances at the time to purchase chain? Not many. The result is a disaster.
So you have RCMP, with legislation that was passed by the N.W.T. government at the time, authorized to shoot stray dogs, which is what they did. Were they doing the wrong thing? Yes and no, because if you're a young kid and you're walking down the street with any kind of meat in your hand with sled dogs roaming around free in the community, you're in big trouble. But on the other hand, when you have RCMP officers who don't speak Inuktitut and Inuit who don't understand what law is in the Euro Canadian sense of the word, you have a mess. All I'm saying is you have a complicated mess on your hands.
So the state, I would say, was negligent in terms of the respect it afforded Inuit, the way it communicated with people, the willingness to translate legislation, explain legislation and deal effectively with the realities of what is required to live in a community as opposed to living in a hunting and trapping camp out on the land. The state was incredibly negligent. On the other hand, things were developing so quickly that the grass was growing under everybody's feet before they realized that they needed to mow it, if I can use that as an analogy. It's a mess.
So what happens between 1955 and 1965 to Inuit in the Canadian Arctic is an amazing, complicated mess in terms of the relationship between the state, its duties and responsibilities and the way it dealt with these kinds of issues and problems.
Housing is something I've researched and written about a great deal. It's disgraceful. The housing policy that was introduced in 1959 gave Inuit no better than dog kennels. There was a house design called a 512, which means 512 square feet, which was first put into Frobisher Bay or Apex in 1954 when Doug Wilkinson, the famous filmmaker, was a northern service officer. These were 512 square feet, and they were pretty decent buildings. They cost about $10,000 on site, which needless to say in 1954-55 was one hell of a lot of money. So the administration looked at this and said, "Canadians have to pay for their houses. Inuit are Canadian citizens.'' — this is where the policy comes in — "We're going to treat them no different than any other Canadian citizen. We're going to give them houses they can afford.'' How much can an Inuk afford in 1959 for a house? If you made $400 a year, you were doing incredibly well.
What they ended up with is what became affectionately known as matchbox houses, which were between $1,200 and $1,500 on site, and by erecting it yourself, you could work off some of it in sweat equity. They were a disaster. They were poorly heated. You can imagine what the cost of heating them was. Nobody could possibly bear that kind of cost. They were killers.
Part of my background is in medicine, medical research and public health. I can tell you what happened. Of course, the humidity inside these things was terrible in a climate that is extremely dry. You have Toby down on the floor crawling around where the temperature is barely above freezing.
I lived in one of these matchboxes as a student, so I wore sheepskin boots all winter. I once made the mistake of trying to wash my floor in October; I created a skating rink. Every kid in town came to visit me the next day, and needless to say, I had a reputation in Arctic Bay that was humbling. I had created a skating rink inside the matchbox I was living in. The kids had a great time sliding around on my floor and laughing like crazy at me. That was my introduction to living in Arctic Bay for a couple of years.
But the result was, of course, the infant mortality rate as a result of kids being lifted by uncles and aunts off the floor, the temperature around the ceiling was five times what it was down on the floor, and kids died of pneumonia. There was no sanitation. I think Charlie will probably know what I mean when I talk about honey buckets. They were a green plastic garbage bag that you tied up and put outside. It froze to the ground. If it didn't get picked up in the spring, it broke open. The streets were open sewers.
The infant mortality rate in the early 1960s among the Inuit was about 400 per thousand. In other words, 4 out of 10 kids were dead before they were 1 year of age. I've looked at comparable figures for so-called third world countries. In India in 1958, 300 per thousand. In other words, I would say in the Canadian Arctic, the infant mortality rate was probably the worst in the world as a result of living conditions, as a result of cheapness and as a result of a government that said housing is a market commodity and they're going to make it available to Inuit at a price they can afford. And all they can afford is probably 1,200 to 1,500 bucks, so what they're going to get is basically a plywood shack, uninsulated, no facilities whatsoever.
People died in these things. I've looked at some research done by the medical officer of health for the eastern Arctic that compared the infant mortality rate in igloos with the infant mortality rate in the houses provided in the late 1950s and early 1960s. You were better off living in an igloo than a government plywood shack, no doubt about it.
This changes. Gordon Robertson, who is a celebrated Canadian civil servant, was the deputy minister of the department from 1953 to 1963. I could comment at length about Gordon Robertson's wonderful role as deputy minister responsible for the Arctic administration in this period.
Ben Sivertz, who I interviewed for days before he died — interesting man — was very much caught up in a liberal assimilationist way of making sense. He was responsible for the 1959 housing policy, the results of which I've just described to you.
Things change with the Liberal administration of the 1950s, to some extent. By 1965, this housing policy is recognized as a disaster. I would say based on my research, the most progressive housing policy I've ever seen for Inuit in the Arctic was implemented starting in 1965. It was a social housing policy that was designed to meet need instead of ability to pay.
I have a degree in environmental design, and I'm interested in architecture and design. So if I look at the designs, I see lots of problems, there's no doubt about it, but the policy was much better. It was a period, of course, with the National Housing Act and CMHC of considerable innovation and creativity in terms of social housing in Canada, and that applied and rubbed off on the experience of the Inuit in the eastern Arctic, as well as other ordinary Canadians, including people who benefited from a development right on my doorstep, the False Creek development in British Columbia, the social housing projects that were created in Toronto, et cetera.
So things changed for a short period of time. Housing conditions got better, although they were not great, as a result.
In terms of government policy, I'm still working on housing now and this is still a problem. And 47 to 53 per cent of all homes in Nunavut are overcrowded. With housing, I don't believe there's a direct cause-and-effect relationship between anything. My head doesn't work that way. But I can tell you that the housing situation faced by the Inuit in Nunavut right now is an underlying factor in a long list of social problems — from domestic abuse to suicide to the inability of kids to study and function properly in school, the inability of people to get up, keep a schedule, go to work, et cetera. The research I've done makes this very clear. The situation that Inuit face with respect to housing and the way in which government policy has developed to deal with housing in Nunavut is a systemic disaster with considerable implications.
That's the colonial history. That's what the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s looked like. That's a legacy, another topic, which carries on as Inuit finally start to fight back, creating ITK, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami in 1971, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference in 1976, the negotiation of what's not just a land claim but a political settlement, which I have some problems with. But nonetheless, the fight back starts after the white paper, which affects not just Inuit but First Nations. It's part of that same period in the early 1970s that included the Berger inquiry.
I chaired the Polar Gas pipeline inquiry for the federal government, the $12 billion proposal by Polar Gas to build a gas pipeline from the High Arctic all the way to Longlac, Ontario in 1978-79. A whole lot of things are going on where Inuit start to fight back or talk back, which results ultimately in the creation of Nunavut in 1999.
The Chair: Thank you, professor. You've given us a very detailed history. We will now open the floor to questions, but before we do, I should let you know that today this committee released our report on northern housing, and we're searching to see if we can find a printed copy of it that we will give to you, and hopefully you will give it a passing grade.
Mr. Tester: I'll work on it.
The Chair: We'll start our questioning with our deputy chair, Senator Patterson.
Senator Patterson: I'd like to thank and welcome Professor Tester, and I compliment him on his attire for tonight. This was a most eloquent and compelling presentation of the colonial era, as you've described it, and you've given us a hint about what lay ahead with the settlement of comprehensive land claims in all the Inuit regions of Canada and the creation of Nunavut.
Could I ask you to make some comments about where we are today? I was shocked to attend the budget address in the Nunavut Legislative Assembly just last week. As you know, Nunavut gets roughly 90 per cent of its funds from the federal treasury. The Finance Minister noted that the budget he was presenting to the legislature at just under $2 billion represents — he didn't do the calculations, but I did — about $53,000 for each one of Nunavut's some 36,000 inhabitants.
Some would say that there has been, especially in recent years, a lot of money spent on dealing with issues in Nunavut for the 85 to 90 per cent of the population of Nunavut that's Inuit. I have heard some people say that since the terrible story of the colonial era that you've described, governments have maybe gone in a different direction and flooded communities with money and made it easy to obtain income support. I'm not minimizing that situation, knowing that there are very few employment opportunities in communities, providing better housing — certainly not enough, but better housing — at little or no rent, especially for income support recipients or elders.
I'm wondering how you would characterize the current relationship between government and government policy and Inuit. I'm not necessarily ascribing to it, but I will say that there are some observers who feel that there has been created a culture of victimization and entitlement that has sapped the entrepreneurial, independent spirit of Inuit that allowed them to survive on the land for millennia in the harshest climate of the world. There are some people who feel that Inuit were better off when they were on the land, healthier mentally and physically, and current government policies have not done much to create self-reliance. Would you have any comments on that?
Mr. Tester: First of all, I would say that there's no doubt that what we are doing now is paying the cost of mistakes that were made historically. There's no doubt about it. I'm a social worker. I was trained as a psychotherapist. I've done work with Inuit elders in relationship to healing. I have many Inuit elders that I've worked with and who I consider personal friends.
I'm well aware of what intergenerational trauma looks like, and I can see lots of evidence for this in specific families and specific instances. So even though things happened in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, I have no trouble understanding why the social costs or impacts of that history and things that happened, whether we're talking about residential school or just the way in which the settlement manager treated people, live on in successive generations. This is a well- documented problem with respect to Aboriginal peoples all over the world.
So we are paying the social costs of this history. That's why I focused on the colonial period. The colonial period is not just history; it's alive and well today in many ways. We have to deal with that.
There is no doubt that there are serious problems with respect to demographics. This would be true in Arctic Quebec and Labrador as well. The demographics are quite comparable to another place I have worked in the world, Tanzania, in terms of the percentage of young people that are under 25 years of age. I compared one day, just because I had done some work in Tanzania, the figures for Nunavut with Tanzania, and they were exactly the same. About 48 per cent of the population is under 25 years of age.
In terms of employment opportunities and in terms of a future, this is a real problem that is not being dealt with adequately. I'll give you an example of why it's not being dealt with adequately. You know this as well as I do. What is the bandwidth for Internet? What does Internet connection look like in Nunavut? As far as I'm concerned, the future for Inuit young people and all young people generally is online, and Inuit youth cannot get online because of the bandwidth and the problems associated with that kind of electronic communication.
If you want to get a job as a designer — look at everything around you. Everything you wear, everything you buy and every label you come across was designed by somebody some place. I'm just using this as an example. This is a job. This is an economic opportunity that young people, especially Inuit young people with their considerable artistic talent and ability, could plug into and take advantage of. They can't do it, not with the kind of Internet connection they have. You cannot create online businesses. You cannot do design work online. Young people cannot take advantage of their considerable talent. I say that as somebody who has worked using new social media with Inuit youth for the last 20 years. It is frustrating. I can't communicate by Skype with my young Inuit students in Gjoa Haven thanks to the bandwidth. This is ridiculous.
If we are taking the demographic seriously, and recognizing what the economic future looks like for Aboriginal peoples with what they have to offer us by way of design, artistic ability, and in terms of photography and film and so forth and so on, something that elementary shouldn't be missing. We're willing to pour and subsidize all kinds of money for mining companies to train people to go to work in the mining industry, and we can't somehow find money to solve the problem of bandwidth and Internet communications? This is absolutely ridiculous.
I don't buy the argument that people have a welfare mentality and are no longer entrepreneurial and no longer aspire to doing creative and innovative things. The structural impediments for doing so in Nunavut are considerable. I'm just giving you one example, but there are many others. We haven't dealt with them. I don't think dealing with them is that complicated.
I work with Inuit youth all the time. It's not just what is being taught that is a problem. Structural realities are serious impediments to youth realizing their potential.
I don't know any young people that want to sit around on social assistance. One of my students, Curtis, is in the audience here. He could probably speak to this far better than I. What does he want to do? He has all kinds of dreams. But they are thwarted by structural realities that haven't been addressed. Nobody wants to sit around collecting social assistance. I just haven't met people that talk like that or think like that. They have hopes, they have dreams and they have aspirations, but they are depressed and frustrated because the structural realities that need to be put in place for them to live that kind of life just aren't there.
Senator Patterson: I thank you for that. I guess I was playing devil's advocate with that question, but your answer was very clear.
Mr. Tester: That's just an example, by the way. I can give lots of others, but time is of essence. That was only one. There are lots of other structural problems too. I'll give you one briefly.
Companies that are involved in resource extraction should be creating alternative futures, because mines close down. What is the commitment to and what is the effort that is put into using the wealth and the resources generated to create alternatives that will last beyond the closure of whatever it is we're talking about? I have looked at that. It's pathetic, what isn't being done to take care of alternatives once a bubble that may last limited years disappears. The amount of attention that is given to that is pathetic. People make a living working at a mine, the mine closes, and they are back on social assistance. This is happening in Arctic Quebec. What is going on here? Can we not do things better than this somehow?
Senator Patterson: This colonial legacy that you described so vividly that we're living with in Nunavut, the worst social and health indicators in the country and in the world, is with us today.
You mentioned misspending. It has just been announced that the federal government and the GN are building a $76 million jail facility in Iqaluit. I wonder if you would comment, as a social worker, how do we deal with this? It sounds like a generation or the generations are dealing with post-traumatic stress. Maybe that's a crude way of putting it, but there is a lot of mental health legacy from these horrendous stories that you have told us. Do we need to also look at treating this terrible social legacy?
The new jail will be called a healing centre. That's the title that has been announced. But I wonder to what extent there will be resources for truly healing. Would you comment on the mental health needs and the strategies that would be beneficial?
Mr. Tester: I just finished writing and editing a book with 12 Inuit elders, which will be published by Fernwood Press in October. [Editor's Note: The witness spoke in a Native language.] It's about Inuit traditional knowledge. One of the first things we need to do is stop talking and listen. Inuit had ways of dealing with these issues that worked for them.
I'm a big fan of restorative justice practice. The domestic violence rate in Nunavut is officially about 14 times the Canadian national average. In fact, it's probably at least 30 times given what I know about domestic violence and what gets reported. This is a terrible problem. It's only one.
The suicide rate for young Inuit males, 13 to 25, is the highest in the world. It competes with Norway, strangely enough sometimes. But it's about 10 to 12 times the Canadian national average. For those of you that are aware of what that looks likes among First Nations in more southerly latitudes, it's about seven to eight times. So Nunavut is that much worse.
I would say we want to listen. There is a lot that I'm really familiar with, having edited this book and worked with Inuit elders, some of whom are now deceased, in fact. They wrote their chapters and we did all this work. Mark Kalluak in Arviat would be a good example. I have a chapter in this book that was written by Mark Kalluak.
These are wonderful pieces where people are outlining how they used to go about the process of making an able human being. That's the wording they use. That's how the Inuktitut translates into English. It's not called "raising a child;'' it's called "the making of an able human being.'' The difference is significant.
Restorative justice practice that Inuit used to use to restore people who were having difficulty back to health and back to their communities is something that we are not supporting. We have imposed upon Inuit a Euro-Canadian judicial system, which is a competitive, aggressive, guilt-finding, penalizing form of social justice that does not deal adequately with the kinds of mental health and social problems that are being experienced in Nunavut.
If I could do it, I would implement a program of supported restorative justice practice in Inuit communities right across the board, with training people, educating people, using training to trainers approach, whatever, but introducing a different way based on Inuit traditional knowledge of dealing with the kinds of problems that Inuit are facing, because what we are doing right now is just not working.
Creating a jail that costs tens of millions of dollars, even though you want to pay some sort of lip service — I don't know what healing is going to look like in that kind of environment. I'm entirely suspicious of it. This is a ridiculous waste of money. I'd take that money and I would put it into restorative justice practice and really focus on and listen to what traditional Inuit knowledge looks like when it's applied to those kinds of problems. That's what I would do and that's what we are not doing.
We haven't yet as a culture learned to listen. I'm probably guilty of that too. I've been talking a mile a minute here in front of you. But I would like to think that when I'm with Inuit elders, I shut up and listen. And I've learned a lot as a result and we all need to do more of it, myself included.
Senator Pate: I asked the question of a witness on Tuesday about this plan to open up a new jail. No matter what you call it, it will be a jail. The fact is that the last time I was up North to a jail, it was where they had removed the women and children who had been experiencing abuse, and the alleged perpetrator was in the other part of the jail. Because it was the only resource available, it was the one being used, but it was a jail. It struck me, particularly given what the Qikiqtani Truth Commission found and the recommendations from the Creating Healthy Communities report found, that a better investment would be to have those resources in the community.
Certainly in the federal legislation, there are provisions right now to develop some of what it sounds like you're talking about in the community and have it funded instead of funding jails. It strikes me that setting up a jail will just at the very best remove people for a certain period of time but only have them go back into the community.
I guess that's more a comment, but is there anything that would make you think otherwise or that a jail would be a good plan up there?
Mr. Tester: No. I do think that this is not entirely easy to do. You need people who really are sensitive to a number of things. That's why colonial history is important because colonial history destroys people's self-esteem. When your self-esteem is destroyed, your belief in your ability to participate in something like, for example, a restorative justice program has been severely undermined, so in creating these things, it isn't just a matter of implementing a program. It's a matter of dealing with where people are at as a result of their lived experience, which means that you have to pay attention to the need to help people to believe in themselves again, to recover their self-esteem, to recover their pride. There is a lot of that going on, but we could use a lot more of it.
I've looked at the coroner's reports and I've done some research on Inuit suicide. I would say that self-esteem is overwhelmingly a factor that contributes to this high rate of suicide among Inuit young people. Self-esteem is really important.
My approach to dealing with it is this: You need to know your history, you need to know your culture, and you need to know your language. Those are absolutely essential to feeling good about yourself. And as difficult as the history might be, one still needs to know it. In fact, sometimes knowing the history makes you madder than hell. And that's not necessarily a bad emotion because when people get angry they start to take social action to do something about what has happened historically to make damn sure that it never happens again. That's not a bad thing when it comes to having meaning and purpose in one's life. I don't have any problem communicating around the nature of and the realities of this social history that I've been talking about.
It's not just a matter of "okay, we're going to implement a program.'' You have to do it in an informed way. I would say that for all Aboriginal peoples in the country, understanding that colonial and social history is really important to understanding some of the barriers that you have to overcome along the way of implementing programs and policies that might actually work, restorative justice being the one that I've just finished talking about.
Senator McIntyre: Thank you, Professor Tester, for such an enlightening presentation. First of all, I have to say that I agree entirely with you regarding the implementation of restorative justice practices, absolutely, and it's long overdue.
Now, I note that your publications include two books. One is Mistakes, which deals with the Inuit relocation in the Eastern Arctic, covering the years 1939 to 1963.
Your second book deals with talking back, and it looks at the history of the relationship between the Inuit and Canada, with specific focus on game management. It covers the years from 1900 to 1970. The book discusses an important issue, which is government intervention in Inuit ways of life. What I found interesting is that the Inuit challenge these interventions through court rulings and petitions. That said, I assume there were also legal challenges on the issue of Inuit relocation in the Eastern Arctic.
My question is this: During those years, did the Inuit have the legal resources to challenge these interventions compared to the legal expertise that they now have?
Mr. Tester: Absolutely none.
Senator McIntyre: And that's one of the big problems.
Mr. Tester: I would say Justice Sissons deserves some kind of medal. He invoked the royal proclamation in one particular case of illegal hunting in 1962. He was 10 years ahead of Tom Berger. We give a lot of credit, and it's due, to Tom Berger for invoking the royal proclamation in the Calder case in the early 1970s. In actual fact, Sissons did exactly the same thing and used the royal proclamation to the same effect 10 years earlier. Without Sissons — and he's an interesting and really important historical figure — what would have happened and transpired in terms of Inuit justice in the Eastern Arctic would look very different.
But no, the answer is they did not have the resources, and they did not understand, of course. They had to knowledge of Canadian law, legal processes and what they looked like and so on. Many of the laws were not translated into syllabics or Inuktitut, so they had no clue what was going on here. People were behaving in ways that were based on culture and tradition, and they had no idea that they were violating a law that somebody had imposed upon them with respect to hunting out of season, or the number of caribou you can take, or whether you can take male or female caribou, muskox, et cetera. They had no clue.
In fact, one of the first things that ITK did in the 1970s was to produce a little pamphlet, which I have, which was an attempt to explain Canadian law to Inuit. This is the 1970s, long after these prosecutions in cases that I documented in Kiumajut had taken place. We're talking injustice, big-time.
Senator McIntyre: So the failure to receive the proper legal and political backup or representation accounts for a lot of the problems that those people have had.
Mr. Tester: Yes. We are talking about a camp-based, extended-family hunting culture which, in terms of politics, in terms of the way in which it functioned, the way in which it "governed itself,'' is completely different than anything that was imposed upon them. This transformation in the case of the Inuit, in 10 years — I say this in the film I just made on the history of the Rankin Inlet mine called Beneath the Surface, which I was just showing a few hours ago at Library and Archives Canada. I say it in the film, and I quite mean it, that Inuit, in 10 years, between 1955 and 1965, underwent the most rapid change, that is, from a hunting culture to an industrial one, in 10 years. This is the most rapid rate of change for any group of indigenous people in all of recorded history, and it happened right here in Canada. Ten years to go from a hunting culture, and all the logic and all the ways in which that works, to an industrial culture, in the case of Rankin Inlet working underground in a nickel mine. In ten years. Unheard of.
These people deserve a lot of credit. They are still with us. They're functioning, competent, capable and talented, et cetera. What they experienced is absolutely — as far as I'm concerned, knowing what I know about this whole area — mind-blowing. I don't know how else to put it. What they experienced and what they underwent was unbelievable.
Senator Beyak: Thank you, sir, for an excellent presentation. Your knowledge of history prompts me to ask a question that I've never really thought about before. I heard a fabulous interview yesterday with Harold Johnson, a Harvard professor who is a Woodland Cree. His book is called Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (and Yours). I wondered, with your knowledge, what factor that has played in your research in different areas that you have looked at?
Mr. Tester: What exactly?
Senator Beyak: Alcoholism and the effect of alcohol on all the problems you addressed tonight.
Mr. Tester: It's a serious problem. This is again government policy. I said the government was intent on treating Inuit as ordinary Canadians. In 1962, it decided — and I have the documentation on this — that if Inuit are ordinary Canadians, then they should be allowed to drink beer, but not hard liquor. So they made beer available to Inuit in 1962. That was Bent Sivertz who did that.
I have a piece of film, which is delightful. It's an interview with Pierre Karlik, a well-known carver. I lived with him and his family off and on when I was doing the Polar Gas pipeline inquiry in the late 1970s. Pierre was somebody who tried and tried and tried to teach me Inuktitut. He worked to succeed, but I was probably the hardest customer he had ever run across. In this film clip I have, which was made in 1970, he explains what drinking meant and what it was all about for Inuit, who had no experience with alcohol whatsoever. He explains what alcohol did as a result.
Of course, when you are struggling — this is not just true for Inuit; it's true for all of us — alcohol is medicine. When you're drinking, you don't worry about things that you have been obsessed with and have been processing and which have been bothering you. You don't give a damn. It's delightful for a while. It's also deadly, as we all know.
Of course, when you have a population that has gone through everything that I have just described, alcohol introduced in 1962 — great timing — plays a significant role in relieving the pain, however temporary that may be, of Inuit who are really suffering, who are undergoing rates of change and social and cultural upheaval that we have a hard time putting words to.
So alcohol becomes a big problem, and it's still a problem. Alcohol and drugs are a problem. These are all devices. As a social worker, I don't think it's that controversial. These are all ways of relieving pain. This is medication, which is deadly. It's a huge problem, and that's why. A lot of pain was created in this period between roughly the mid-1950s and mid-1960s, and even beyond. It got dealt with by something that was then made available to Inuit, in this case, because they are "ordinary Canadians.''
Senator Enverga: Thank you for your great presentation. I could listen to you all day.
Mr. Tester: Oh, dear.
Senator Enverga: I have heard so much about the need for bandwidth and restorative justice. I have heard you, and you told us to listen; you want the government to listen. I'm pretty sure you listen well, and we listen too. But maybe there is something we are missing at this point in the listening part. That's why we're trying to create this new relationship with everyone.
If there is one thing we should be doing, what should the government do to make sure we get the right information here? What should the government do to make sure we can fix everything? If there is one thing that the government can legislate or do, can you tell us? Let us know, please.
Mr. Tester: Murray has had lots of experience with this, and it's called listening. I really think that Inuit youth need to be listened to. When people hold commissions of inquiry and so on, they pay a lot of attention to adults. We do that as a culture.
I just finished listening to a whole lot of young people from Nunavut Sivuniksavut located here in Ottawa — articulate, talented, well worth listening to. Given the population, given the demographics I just described, we better start listening to young people, because they are a huge portion of the Inuit population of Arctic Quebec, Labrador, Nunavut territory, the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, et cetera.
We need to listen to young people in particular. Somebody needs to listen. What are their hopes and dreams? What are the problems they encounter? What is their experience with the school system, et cetera? We need to listen to young people, because they are almost 50 per cent of the population. What is it that we can learn from them?
I don't think we have even started to listen to young people. Curtis could probably verify or not what I'm saying, but we need to listen to Inuit youth, as a start.
But we also need to get more in touch with what elders have to say. This is not interesting folklore that is irrelevant. That's an idea that I keep in my head, because I hear this a lot.
When I was editing this book on Inuit traditional knowledge, I kept thinking: "Is this going to be a book that a few anthropologists who have a romantic idea stuck somewhere in the back of their brain are going to pick up and enjoy reading but, in terms of what is going on out there today, it's largely irrelevant?'' After editing this thing for hundreds of hours and going back and forth around the Inuktitut and trying to figure out what words meant, some of which are not used because they are words that were used 50 years ago to talk about fishing in Pelly Bay or whatever, my conclusion is that there is an awful lot in there that is relevant to the here and now, an awful lot that we can learn from listening to and getting in touch with what elders have to say about Inuit culture and how it worked and their concern for Inuit young people. And it's not just concern; it's a real love of Inuit young people. It's the reason they contributed to this book, which was difficult for them to do, because it was an oral culture and the idea of putting something down in ink was really a barrier we had to overcome. There's a lot there that's extremely relevant to dealing with all of these issues and problems we've been talking about.
So I would say we need to listen, and we need to listen to young people and find out what their experiences are. We need to get intimately familiar with what their lived experiences, hopes, dreams, aspirations and problems are. We also need to take the wisdom of elders in relationship to their culture, how it works and what this might mean for how to solve problems. My ideas about restorative justice very much come from that. We need to listen. Those are demographics that are really important to charting a new course, as far as I'm concerned.
Senator Enverga: It looks like you're a person who has listened a lot, who has been there and done that. There's always a point when listening is not enough and you have to do some action. What do you think is the action we should be taking instead of listening?
Mr. Tester: There are specific actions that need to be taken. First, I would say the housing problem has to be addressed. It's structural, but the systemic implications of overcrowding in terms of sexual abuse; domestic violence; failure at school; failure in the workplace, given that you can't get a good night's sleep; you've got three generations of people living under one roof. In Kinngate, when I did my work on housing, you had a two-bedroom house with 13 people living in it. You can't even find a place to sleep. You have to deal with that.
That's one structural reality that really had to be addressed. Paul Martin tried to do it. The Harper government cut in half the amount of money allocated for Inuit housing to deal with this. The trust that was created, which was used to build tenplexes, was helpful but nowhere near what is required. Housing is one thing that has to be addressed.
The justice system and what I've already said about the importance of and the potential of restorative justice is something else that has to be addressed.
Something else that has to be dealt with, and that is really frustrating as far as I'm concerned, is the content of K to 12 education. You cannot ignore culture, history and language. You just can't. You may want to replace it with math, English, science and so forth in order to create some sort of equivalence between K to 12 students in Nunavut and those in the South, but if students do not have self-esteem, if they are not proud of who they are and if they don't feel good about themselves, they're not going to function well in school regardless of what you do. So this idea of trading off attention to language, culture and history for the sake of math, sciences, and English is a huge mistake.
I can go on. There are specific things that can be done. I'm just saying listening is the place to start, and then you translate what you hear into policy and practice. There's too much rhetoric and not enough practice. That's true for all of us, all over Canada, all the time, everywhere, as far as I'm concerned. But I'm not suggesting that listening is the be- all and the end-all. It's only the place to start.
I just think that most Canadians know nothing about it. When I go to the airport and a taxi driver asks me where I'm going — this has happened to me twice in the last two years — I say I'm going to Nunavut. I take it for granted; I'm not thinking. The next thing you know, I'm being let off in front of the international terminal. There's something wrong with this picture.
Senator Enverga: I hope you read our report, and I think we're on the right track, according to you, because we're looking at housing and how to relieve this stress.
Mr. Tester: Okay. Well, tackle restorative justice next.
Senator Sinclair: Frank, I sure wish there was a way we could get you a little bit more fired up about these things. We've spoken a few times, you and I, so I know how you feel about these things. I wanted to ask a question I don't know we've ever had a chance to discuss.
The experience I've had over the years, not only outside of the Senate but also with some of my colleagues in the Senate, is that there's a tendency on the part of elements of the population to see this as a set of social problems that can be fixed if we come up with the right social solutions, such as more money for housing, more money for child welfare, more money for education. That will be the end of it and everything will be okay. We'll get kids graduating, get them jobs and we're all good and ready to go.
Assuming we can do some of that, if not all of that, how is that going to reflect upon the nature of the relationship between Inuit people and Canada? And what more do you think needs to be done, if anything, in order to improve or put that relationship onto a better footing?
Mr. Tester: It isn't just about money. It is about money, but it's not just about money. Maybe I can give you an example to illustrate what I think needs to be done that involves a combination of money and common sense.
What is really needed is that Inuit, like Aboriginal peoples all over Canada, need to be empowered. They need to be in a position where they can make a difference, where they're in the driver's seat.
For example, I've been looking at and heavily involved with research and research funding. I sat on the Canada Research Chairs committee for quite a few years. I've sat on numerous panels for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, giving out grant money. A lot of what I'm called upon to do is to adjudicate proposals to do research in the Canadian Arctic.
I look at, for example, the amount of money being spent on Arctic research. There's the Amundsen, an icebreaker that costs $19 million just to keep it sitting at the dock, let alone actually operating. I ask serious questions about cost- benefit analysis: What is the Canadian government getting as a return given the amount of money we're spending on Arctic science? Then I look at what kind of research is being done that contributes to the making of policy and our knowledge, and I have a lot of questions.
Then I look at the role the Inuit play in the allocation of these resources, and I realize that it's zero — practically zero. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, CIHR and NSERC are doing good jobs. I'm not saying they're not, but if I look at the priorities that an organization like ITK or ICC might have in terms of dealing with the research needs that are required in Nunavut, they don't have any input except in the most indirect kind — sometimes inconsequential — way.
This is a proposal. Why in the blazes can't some of the money that is currently going to organizations that are overwhelmingly White or controlled by Euro-Canadians and well-intentioned researchers — why shouldn't an organization like ITK have control over a substantial amount of research money? It can receive proposals from Canadian researchers at universities across the country and look at and evaluates those based on priorities that it has identified — the real needs of an organization that is Inuit and in touch with Inuit people and Inuit needs. Why shouldn't it be in the driver's seat and have control over a substantial amount of the research money in this country? Why is it being adjudicated and why are decisions being made by people who are not Aboriginal — in this case not Inuit?
It's a matter of empowering people. It's a matter of putting Aboriginal people, in this case Inuit, in the driver's seat.
There are ways to do it. Capacity is definitely an issue. You can't just dump money on people. You're going to create a disaster. People have to come on board, and they have to come up to speed. You don't want to create failures. You want to encourage success.
So you create a committee of seven people. Four are chosen by ITK, and three of them are people who are seconded, one each from each of the three research councils. They adopt the model used for insight grants by SSHRC, and that seven-person committee, which has a majority of Inuit on it but also three people designated from the agencies who know what they're doing and can help to transfer the knowledge they have, ultimately establishes research priorities for anybody doing research in Nunavut. It has a pot of research money, and it adjudicates proposals that come in for research in the same way that SSHRC does.
Put people in the driver's seat. Empower people. That's just one example. In terms of all kinds of programs and things that are operating, there are ways in which we can empower people and do it in a way such that we increase their capacity so it succeeds instead of fails.
There's nothing worse than money that's dumped on something. You're setting people up for failure, and then you'll generate a political backlash, which doesn't do anybody any good, especially the people you intended to help. You have to think about how to do this in a way that's intelligent but at the same time is respectful and empowers people. That's my proposal.
I'm working with ITK and trying to get them to take this on board with the minister responsible for science in order to direct some of the tens of millions of dollars that are going to Arctic research through organizations like ArcticNet. I've received funding from ArcticNet; I'm not criticizing them. They've done a lot of good things. I'm just saying that in the interests of equity and fairness, I want to see Inuit who live in the Arctic have their research priorities better addressed and I want to see them in the driver's seat. What's so radical about that? This is called social justice. What are we doing here? Why hasn't this happened?
Senator Sinclair: That gets me to the question that I've asked others as well, and I'll ask you to respond.
Considering the issue of solutions for individuals based upon the current needs and legacies of the colonial pasts, including residential schools, and how to deal with those issues, the question, then, that I'd like to get you to respond to is: What are we talking about when we think about the Inuit collective?
In particular, I'm curious, and you mentioned the book that you are editing now and the work you have done with Inuit elders who talked about the traditional knowledge of Inuit people. I know this may be an area that you're not able to talk too much about, but I'm hopeful you can give the members of this committee some understanding of what the Inuit elders are saying about the role of traditional knowledge today and in the future.
Mr. Tester: They're saying that the big problem is education. The problem is that Inuit gave their children over to the education system without fully realizing the implications thereof. The education system consequently does not take Inuit traditional knowledge into consideration. Inuit children are being raised with attitudes and values and ways of making sense that are not grounded in Inuit culture and consequently are causing a lot of consternation, confusion and grief for young people.
That Inuit traditional knowledge is still relevant to the education system, and it needs to be given more prominence, importance and attention in terms of how it is that Inuit young people are raised. Simplistically, and I can go on about this for hours, the way in which Inuit young people learn is by experience and by watching the behaviour of their parents, their elders and those around them.
I use the example of jumping from one ice cake to another. In my culture, letting your kids go out in the Arctic and jump from an ice cake to an ice cake at 12 or 13 years of age would be unthinkable. You would probably lose custody of your kids if you did this. But Inuit did this. They allowed young people to learn from experience. They were there to catch them if they went into the water, and they do and they did, but they did not deny them the experience. Why? Because they realize that if you're going to hunt and live in the Arctic and if you're going to have to survive in this kind of environment, you had better know how to handle jumping from one cake of ice to another.
The last chapter in the book that I just finished editing was written by Joe Karetak, who talks about how this knowledge saved his life when he and his son got caught out in a boat drifting among the ice floes just a few years ago. In fact, they rescued the helicopter pilot sent out to save them when the helicopter went through the ice. He illustrates quite nicely that how he was taught as a young person actually saved his life.
All I'm saying is that education and the relevance of IQ to education is something that needs to be taken more seriously. There's this conflict and tension within the department of education and in the idea of education in general between modernizing Inuit young people versus grounding them in IQ and in Inuit traditional knowledge. My experience is that IQ is really important. It's not just a matter of knowledge; it's a matter of how you feel about yourself, of being Inuk and being proud, having self-esteem, knowing your history, your culture and your language so you can do whatever the heck you want to do.
That's one thing that elders are saying. They're saying that our young people are in trouble because they don't know who they are. They don't have self-esteem. They can't do well in a school system that doesn't pay attention to their socio-psychological needs as human beings. You can't do well if you're depressed, you don't believe in yourself and you don't know who you are. You are then vulnerable to every cockamamie message that comes along. You get sucked into pornography, drinking and the idea that the best thing to have in the community is the biggest SUV you've ever seen in your life, and if you only had the money to bring it up by sealift the next year, that's what you'd do. Maybe I can do that by becoming the local dealer for whatever substance we're talking about.
You've become the victim of so many destructive messages because you don't have the sense, for lack of a better way of putting it, to filter that crap out. You make really bad decisions in your life as a teenager and you get yourself into really serious trouble. That's what happens when you don't know who you are and you don't have good self- esteem. That's what elders are saying, and do you know what? They're absolutely right.
Senator Sinclair: Thank you.
Senator Christmas: Thank you, Professor Tester. It was, at least for me, very emotional listening to the stories.
First of all, do you have a title for your new book yet?
Mr. Tester: IQ, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. I could spell it for you if you want. I can probably spell it better than I can pronounce it. Inuit traditional knowledge: What elders have always known to be true.
Senator Christmas: I liked your answer about what Canada can do, and that we have to listen. I think, implied with that, you're also saying that Canadians not only have to listen, but they also have to understand.
I know this is probably not possible culturally, but if we had a panel of Inuit elders with you this evening, can you reflect some of their stories? What would they tell Canadians, just for illustrative purposes, so Canadians can understand how beautiful, unique and wise Inuit traditional knowledge is? You answered already one question. You mentioned they were asked about their children and what they need. I think you answered that one.
Mr. Tester: It's a darn good question. It's hard to answer.
My problem is that it's not just language we're talking about; it's a way of communicating. If I was listening to Inuit elders, they would be giving me some pretty important messages, but they would be in the form of stories, analogies, et cetera. I don't know how many Canadians are used to that way of acquiring knowledge, where you have to listen to the story and figure out what the message is.
If I get academic here, I'm profoundly existential. We all have choices to make. When I get a message, I choose how I respond to it.
Inuit elders are great at telling stories that are kind of open-ended. There are different ways of interpreting and understanding what they're saying. There are some basic principles that are pretty obvious, but there's some room for flexibility.
What I'm trying to say is there's a style of communicating here that has to be appreciated in and of itself before one can really listen properly. If you just sit down and listen to people, you'll say what the hell are they talking about? This has got nothing to do with the question I just asked. I've seen this many times.
I've got bad news for you. It has everything to do with the question that you asked. It's just a different way of communicating what they want you to know. If people aren't sensitive to that, then sitting and listening to elders is going to be a disaster. That's my concern. In other words, there's some prior learning and appreciation. It's difficult.
It's a darn good question. Senator Sinclair could probably talk about this better than I. This is not an easy thing to deal with.
I've seen this happen many times when White folks coming into community would do a presentation and then there would be a response. The reading of their response would be, "These people don't understand what I've just said,'' and they start to repeat themselves all over again. That's what happens. It's really interesting, but it's also really problematic. We need to think about this.
One of the reasons why I was really keen on this book — I co-wrote one of the chapters and wrote the chapter on colonial history and then edited the chapters going back and forth with the elders for years — is this book is an attempt to address some of the things that are implied by the question that you've asked. It's an attempt to communicate in a way that is a bit of a compromise. It's designed to help people who are really interested understand what elders are saying, but in editing it and in working back and forth with them, I was really cognizant of this problem that I've just outlined.
Senator Christmas: It's not just about listening, then. We have to understand how to listen.
Mr. Tester: Yes. You have to know how to listen.
Senator Christmas: If I may, just one last comment: I fully agree with your views about empowerment. I come through a community that's gone from poverty to some degree of prosperity, and I've seen that process of empowerment. To me, if you empower people, you're decolonizing. The moment you begin to take that away, then you begin the process of colonization all over again. That's has been my experience.
Professor Tester, thank you very much. Please continue that work of trying to help us. I'm a First Nations person, but I can appreciate how little I know about Inuit people because I don't have the tools to listen properly.
Mr. Tester: I appreciate you recognizing that. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Senator Sinclair, did you have a supplementary?
Senator Sinclair: I just wanted to pick up on that thought and commend you for talking about it. I think it's an important message, and I appreciate hearing it from you.
In many of the discussions I've had with people over the years, I've pointed out that very issue and said that it's very much like when you're teaching children, the reliance that we have upon Mother Goose stories: The Ugly Duckling, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Little Red Riding Hood. From an adult's perspective as well, the parables in the Bible are about teaching and understanding from a story perspective. It's not like this is unheard of in Euro-Canadian culture; it's just that people have forgotten how to use it in an educational environment.
Mr. Tester: You're absolutely right. We've lost the art of not only telling but listening to and appreciating stories. We're so caught up in what I call a positivistic scientific paradigm where the facts are all spelled out and the conclusion is reached one, two, three, four. We've lost the art of listening and storytelling, and that art is still alive and still very much a part of Aboriginal cultures, Inuit included.
Senator Watt: Thank you for your presentation.
Mr. Tester: By the way, I just saw a picture of you taken in 1948. You're sitting with a bunch of people around a very large accordion.
Senator Watt: That must be my mother, then, the one playing the accordion.
Mr. Tester: It was in the collection we were looking at in the Library and Archives Canada. I can't confess that I recognize you from the picture that I saw, but that's life, right?
Senator Watt: I'd like to first congratulate you for bringing the matter to our attention on your findings. It's always the case, from time to time, that there are some corrections that have to be made. I would like to say to you directly a correction that should be said.
When you say "traditional knowledge,'' it's Inuit living knowledge, not traditional knowledge. That still exists today.
Mr. Tester: I agree.
Senator Watt: I just want to make sure that this is not interpreted with the past; today is today. "Traditional knowledge'' is not the proper phrase describing what our knowledge is. Inuit knowledge is a living knowledge and still applied today.
Mr. Tester: I agree, entirely.
Senator Watt: Thank you. I also associate it with the number of issues you have highlighted about what happened back in the early years on the eastern side. I'm very well aware of those events that took place.
For example, one of our communities, which is called Inukjuak — in the old days it used to be called Port Harrison — those people were taken by the RCMP and literally dumped in the High Arctic with nothing to keep them alive, but they managed to survive just the same. I'd just like to point that out because that happened during the dates you have mentioned.
Mr. Tester: Yes. I wrote the book Tammarniit: (Mistakes: Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63. Half of that book deals with that relocation, as a matter of fact.
Senator Watt: Those people are still living with the consequences that they went through in the past. Quite a number of them are elderly now. Nevertheless, they have not forgotten what they went through. I have dealt with them on their behalf in trying to get some form of settlement for them. We did manage to partially succeed, but not close to what we thought they were entitled to.
An apology for it was very limited, highlighted by the Government of Canada. At times, the Government of Canada also denied that really happened, even though in those days the RCMP was the agent of the Government of Canada and speaking on behalf of the Government of Canada. Those were the people who were making the decisions with regard to what should be happening.
Coming back to the point of what you were highlighting, maybe there is only one answer to get away from the traditional routes that we've been following as Inuit. At the same time, I cited the same thing to the Government of Canada, that they have to realize that there is a time to make changes now. If it goes on, maybe there is not much future for the Inuit people in the Arctic, unless there is a genuine empowerment that takes place. How do you do that? That is the question that I felt that you didn't elaborate too much on. I would like you to emphasize a bit more in regard to how you deal with empowerment.
We have gone through the modern treaty negotiations. We have been in the court. We ride with a treaty that still exists. That's what we are living by. That's our Bible today. At the same time, we also have a constitutional protection. The constitutional rights never existed before 1982 when the Constitution was brought back to Canada. During the repatriation time, it was an opportunity for the Inuit, at least for the very first time, to entrench their rights into the Constitution. We were quite successful. The effort that was taken by the Inuit, and also by the First Nations and the Metis, worked.
The way we are living today, that's not acceptable, from what I'm hearing from you. I tend to agree with you. It's not acceptable. We have to find the solution. Innovative ideas need to be found, so I would like more in-depth discussions in those areas. We already have unlimited recognition in many sectors of law, but the willingness of the government to act on those is still missing. Even though there has been a tremendous amount of improvements in the life of the people, what really hangs on me is what you said earlier. That is, if you are not proud of who you are, what you are and what you can do, the whole life is missing.
In terms of interest moving forward within the Inuit, that formula is required to be found. We don't have that formula at the moment.
We have been dealing with the government, different levels of government, trying to find the solutions in the field of education. We do have, let's say in the north in Quebec, for example, control of our own education system. We have our school board. The minister has no disallowing power with regard to language of instruction. We also have an exemption from Bill 101. At least there, there is an opportunity for us to work from, trying to build that up and to provide something that is a bit more concrete for the Inuit so that they can be proud of what they have.
I, for one, like you, am looking for solutions. How do we empower our people? That is the key, because no one has ever come up to me yet to say, "This is how you do it.''
Mr. Tester: Well, the constitutional route, as far as I'm concerned, failed. As to section 35, the three conferences — and I was part this — that were held on section 35, as you know, the most that came out of it was Peter Lougheed getting the word "existing'' into the wording. Otherwise, the three conferences — and I was present here in Ottawa for all of the discussions and debates around that; I was working for Treaty 7 at the time as a policy adviser — were a failure.
I doubt that going back and revisiting that has any merit. That is something that needs to be made clear. The rights in section 35 remain undefined. They are there, but they are not defined. That's a problem.
Senator Watt: Yes, but at least we can say that the courts, from time to time, when they make rulings, make rulings in the favour of the First Nations and the Inuit.
Mr. Tester: That's true.
Senator Watt: I cannot agree with you that that was a total loss.
Mr. Tester: In terms of actually spelling it out in the Constitution, it was. But you're right, the courts have dealt with that in various ways since then, but section 35 rights have been an ongoing and difficult and never-ending struggle,.
Senator Watt: The problem is the unwillingness of the government to implement section 35. That's where the problem is.
Mr. Tester: Yes. The content is a problem as well.
Senator Watt: Could you spell out what that content is?
Mr. Tester: The content isn't there, other than the word "existing,'' the existing rights are acknowledged and respected. But what are the existing rights? All of the court decisions that have followed have had to deal with that. It's only in that way that we have got some idea about what that section actually contains.
But, to go back to your other question about empowerment, I have made some concrete suggestions. I made some suggestions in terms of ongoing research and how that is managed. That same principle can be applied to other policy areas. I suggested that the way in which Arctic research is done in this country doesn't adequately involve, respect or recognize that the North is an Inuit homeland and that therefore they should have a major role to play in making sure that research meets their needs, not the needs of other people.
I talked about restorative justice. There are some concrete things that can be done there in terms of recognizing — and I agree with you that the word "traditional'' is a real problem. I couldn't agree with you more. This is a culture that's alive and living, and the word "traditional'' does conjure up all of the wrong ideas, but that's the language that Euro-Canadians have unfortunately become accustomed to. I would rather use the Inuktitut word for it because it doesn't convey that, but then nobody knows what the heck I'm talking about.
There are specific things that can be done. I think that what would be really useful is if one can identify problem areas. Then one identifies prerequisites that need to be addressed before one can move on to specific policy solutions of relevance to those key areas of concern. Whether we're talking about housing, whether we're talking about justice, whether we're talking about child and family welfare, you name it, I think there are prerequisites, things that we need to think about. That's why I mentioned the importance of listening, with some caveats on it, which came out in the discussion between Murray and myself.
Then look at specific actions that can address some of these problems, like taking restorative justice practice seriously. Again, I don't want to get into all of this because I think that listening to young people and elders is an important prerequisite to coming up with things that make a lot of sense, but restorative justice is one. Empowering people with respect to control over Arctic research is another.
I have a doctoral student right now who is looking at child welfare issues in relationship to IQ and how the way in which child welfare issues are addressed and dealt with can be changed to respect Inuit culture and tradition in order to deal with some of the serious problems that are associated with child welfare issues in Nunavut at the present time, et cetera.
There are specific actions that can be taken that empower, as you have correctly said, Inuit. These are things that need to be identified and paid attention to. I can go on for a long time. I have tried to illustrate what some of those look like.
Senator Watt: I have one more question. It is a question, but, at the same time, I would like to put something on the record. You have also talked about the game, game management.
Mr. Tester: Yes, in the book I wrote, Kiumajut, we dealt with some of that.
Senator Watt: Let me cover that game management aspect because we do have a treaty that talks about co- management. When you listen to the concept of co-management without knowing the exact problem associated with it, you might come to the conclusion that that's the way to go.
Mr. Tester: No, I don't. There are a lot of problems with co-management.
Senator Watt: It creates a lot of problems.
Mr. Tester: You bet.
Senator Watt: As to the wildlife management, for example, we do have co-management with the government of Quebec wildlife management groups. It's called a coordinating committee. They only have a recommendatory function. When they do make recommendations to the minister, they never get to the minister. It goes only to the deputy minister. That's when deputy ministers stop the buck, when it gets to his level there. In that regard, not very long ago, we had approximately 3 million caribou surrounding that area. Today, how many do we have? The government doesn't listen. That is the perfect example that the co-management will never work.
How do you replace that? You're talking about finding a solution to pinpoint that issue. That could be a solution.
Mr. Tester: You have to empower people.
Senator Watt: Can I finish? Just to let you know where I'm coming from on that issue.
Mr. Tester: Yes, I know.
Senator Watt: As long as the Government of Quebec, for an example, tries to have responsibility for the wildlife aspects of it, and have a legislative authority, because they have been empowered, but the Inuit is not empowered, as long as there is no balance of the system, we are always going to have that problem.
Mr. Tester: I agree.
Senator Watt: I have a problem with the idea of focusing only on the program, but not really focusing on the principle, what makes us live today, side by side, with the other society and the Inuit society. To me that is a very important.
When it comes to the question of title, we are not even recognized as having a title to our land. Where do you start off empowerment, knowing the principle does not recognize it? That is the perfect example.
On top of that, all the land claims, modern treaties, they also have extinguishment provisions — surrender and release. Unless those are removed, I'm not going to feel good about being who I am. It is something I can't do anything about. How do you deal with the fundamental principle issues? How do you deal with that? That's the question that I have, and I have not received the answer.
Mr. Tester: Dealing with extinguishment is really difficult because you have treaties, and you are right, there are extinguishment clauses in them. I made myself unpopular with some Inuit leaders when the Nunavut agreement in the early 1990s was being negotiated. The extinguishment clause, which, of course, has been in every treaty, is something I personally have a lot of difficulty with; I thought it was a bad deal.
I thought section 25 was a bad deal too because it set Inuit up for conflict of interest, which is now causing them a lot of pain. On the one hand, you create an organization that is supposed to protect Inuit rights. At the same time, you give that organization access to royalty payments from any resource development that takes place on their land. What do you think happens? Inuit rights means the right to hunt, the right to pursue certain activities that are part of Inuit culture, but when that conflicts with getting royalty payments from resource development, which way do things go? You are dealing with a conflict of interest thanks to that clause, for example.
So there are lots of problems with treaties. They don't solve, as you have correctly said; they create new problems.
Senator Watt: What is the alternative solution?
Mr. Tester: Well, the alternative —
Senator Watt: Not accepting the compensation or royalties? What do you get in return?
Mr. Tester: The way in which things are set up, the way in which things are organized, can do something toward solving some of these problems. You are right about co-management. I gave the example, which could apply to co- management as well, of handling research money. There is nothing to stop the Canadian government from empowering Inuit, for example, by creating a research regime where Inuit are in the driver's seat and where their priorities for research dictate what it is that does and doesn't get funded. The same thing with co-management.
Senator Watt: I don't think we have any disagreement on that. You're talking about programs. Those are not the fundamental principle of rights that are supposed to be recognized and operate from there.
Mr. Tester: Well, if power in co-management boards doesn't lie with the people whose resources the co-management is dealing with, if they don't have ultimate authority, if the power is unequal, co-management is more of a charade than anything else.
I have studied co-management boards in the Yukon, for example, and that's what I see happening. They look good on paper, but the problem is the way in which power is invested and the way in which the co-management boards are structured, there is no doubt about who is really running the show.
Senator Watt: That's for sure.
Mr. Tester: That has to be addressed. It's not really co-management.
Senator Watt: Co-management is just playing with words. You know that as well as I do.
Mr. Tester: I agree.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you, Professor Tester, for the presentation, but also the way in which you're answering our questions and moving a lot of the thinking along.
I want to go back to what I think I heard as a reference to how jurisprudence has really been the only way we have been able to get some understanding of the constitutional rights or lack thereof.
My question is building on Senator Watt's point about land claims and extinguishment. I'll condense it. I had a tiered question. Has the jurisprudence brought us to a point where there is a sufficient platform to move with policy development and program funding? If not, what more do we need and from what decision-making source?
Mr. Tester: It depends on what we're talking about. But in general, I would say that with respect to Aboriginal rights in general, it's rather obvious the direction in which the courts are moving. I feel good about the direction in which the courts are moving. I regret the fact that the amount of money, time, energy and effort that is involved in going this route is disturbing.
As I have said, there are serious problems created by treaties, some of the wording, some of the clauses. I have already mentioned section 25 of the Nunavut agreement, but there are other examples to be found elsewhere. There are problems with treaties.
I do think that going back and dealing with these, these are big issues. This is the stuff that takes time. We have tried in some cases, and the results have been less satisfactory than the court decisions made around questions that arise out of these agreements.
In terms of programming, and policy, there is lots to be done. I have tried to illustrate that by using some examples. We can do an awful lot more in terms of programs and policies that make sense. I have to believe that what we need is not necessarily more government; what we need is intelligent government. We need to do things in a way that allows innovation, creativity, and what some people would call dissident knowledge to be heard and to play a role in the design of programs and the making of policy.
There are lots of people that are not heard and that are on the outside. They need to be brought into the inside. That includes young people. It includes elders. It includes other people who aren't commonly listened to because they are not the president of this or that. They are not the director of this or that. They are not a senior bureaucrat. They are not whatever. There are some pretty extraordinary ordinary people out there who need to be heard.
Senator McPhedran: I'm being allowed a supplementary here, if I may. I had asked previously about the decision- making source. Let me push that a little bit.
Are you seeing programs and policies consistent with what you have just outlined coming out of INAC? Are there other sources? Do we have hope here for the movement on the policy and program side as well as what we have seen with jurisprudence?
Mr. Tester: Well, in the case of the Nunavut government, of course, about 47 per cent of the employees of the Nunavut government are Inuit. The rest are non-Inuit. If you look at the senior levels of management and people who really, by virtue of their education and power, pull the strings and control decision-making, there is no doubt about it; it's still in the hands of people who have been hired from the South.
I have a lot of faith in, for example, something like Nunavut Sivuniksavut here in Ottawa. I have a lot of faith in a future generation of young Inuit. And if I wanted to change things, I would be putting a lot of resources into the post- secondary education of Inuit young people in organizations like that, because I think it's really important that a new generation of young people that have become sensitive to and have had the kind of educational opportunity that I have talked about end up pulling the strings when it comes to occupying key positions in the Nunavut government and having real power to make decisions, to formulate policy and design programs.
The future for Aboriginal people in this country is with Aboriginal young people. If you're going to put money, resources, time, effort, energy and creativity anywhere, put it into young people. They are almost 50 per cent of the Aboriginal population, and they are the future of Aboriginal peoples in this country. What they have in mind and the opportunities they have, the self-esteem they have or don't have, et cetera, is going to determine very much what the future for Aboriginal people in this country, including Inuit, looks like. That's where to put your time, energy and effort in terms of programming, policy and resources.
The Chair: Thank you. On behalf of all members of the committee, I would like to thank you, Professor Tester, for your testimony this evening. You have given us a very good overview of Inuit history. You have certainly emphasized the importance of Aboriginal youth and the changes they will bring. In my mind too, it's the number of youth; as you have pointed out, they represent 50 per cent of the population, so they will have the numbers, the talent and the education to put forward a changed agenda.
I would just like to brag about this committee in that probably three or four years ago, we already started inviting Aboriginal youth/elders to come present to us in addition to the leaders of the AFN, such as the National Chief. We actually invited the youth leaders here, and other youth representatives have also appeared before us one or two times, so we have tapped into that and we recognize that this is the wave of the future.
Having said that, I once again would like to thank you on behalf of the committee for your insights this evening. The meeting is now adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)