THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON THE ARCTIC
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, November 19, 2018
The Special Committee on the Arctic met this day at 6:30 p.m. to consider the significant and rapid changes to the Arctic, and impacts on original inhabitants.
Senator Dennis Glen Patterson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to this meeting of the Special Senate Committee on the Arctic. I’m Dennis Patterson representing Nunavut in the Senate. I am privileged to be chair of this committee. I would like to ask senators around the table to introduce themselves.
Senator Bovey: Patricia Bovey, Manitoba and deputy chair of this committee.
Senator Dasko: Donna Dasko, Ontario.
Senator Neufeld: Richard Neufeld, British Columbia.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Tonight, as part of the significant and rapid changes to the Arctic and impacts on original inhabitants, we continue our study of Arctic culture, language and the arts as a pathway to strong peoples and communities.
Tonight for our first panel we welcome, from the Nunatsiavut Government, Belinda Webb, Deputy Minister, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism. And from Parks Canada, Gary Baikie, Superintendent of Torngat Mountains National Park. Thanks for joining us.
I have to say we tried hard to get into Nain in the fall. That’s the second time I’ve been on a Senate committee that has tried to get into Nain and been forced out by weather. We understand that’s what northern people live with. Thank you for coming here to be with us tonight.
Please proceed with your opening statements, after which we will go to a question and answer session.
Gary Baikie, Superintendent, Torngat Mountains National Park, Nunatsiavut Government: Thank you, senators. We did hear you flying over while we were down at the airstrip waiting for you to land.
I’ll open with some facts about the Torngat Mountains National Park and start with geographical context.
The park is located on the northern tip of the Labrador-Ungava Peninsula. It is 9,700 square kilometres and Canada’s 42nd national park. The closest community is called Kangiqsualujjuaq in Nunavik, which is approximately 70 kilometres west of the Quebec-Newfoundland and Labrador border. Then there is Nain, which is approximately 200 kilometres south of the southern boundary of the park.
There are no roads leading into the park. Actually, there are no roads in and around the lands of Nunatsiavut. Nain, as you saw, is a little hard to get into and so is the park. There is a paved runway in Saglek, which we and the base camp operator use to have people access the park. It is part of the old DEW Line site. It is an airstrip the Americans built. Strategically, it’s good for us as one way for visitors to see the park.
The other way in to is going to be by sea. We have boat charters that bring in visitors. We also have a tour boat at base camp that takes visitors in, and we have a couple of cruise ships that operate in the area.
Our administrative headquarters are in Nain. We also have an office in Kangiqsualujjuaq with two employees. Our park, even though it’s administered out of Nain, deals with the two provincial governments, Newfoundland and Labrador and the Quebec Government. We also have one Indigenous government, the Nunatsiavut Government. We have a partnership with and are a stakeholder in Makivik Corporation, which represents the interests of the Inuit in Nunavik.
For us to visit our office in Kangiqsualujjuaq takes six days of travel if we wanted to hold an overnight meeting. It’s roughly $9,000 per person to attend. When we have to do consultations or when we want to do some community relations or show our office in Kangiqsualujjuaq some support, we have a charter. It’s a lot cheaper to charter an aircraft, either fixed wing or by helicopter. It saves us a few thousand dollars and a lot of time.
The park was established through consent of Labrador Inuit. It was in the 1970s that Parks Canada came to Labrador Inuit asking if they could look at establishing a park in northern Labrador. At that time, Labrador Inuit said, “This is not a priority of ours. Our priority right now is land claims. Once we’re well into land claims, then let’s sit down and talk,” which they did. With the establishment of the park in 2005, it became a national park reserve. It transitioned to a full-fledged national park in 2008, when the Nunavik Inuit signed off on the Nunavik offshore claim. In July 2008, it became a full-fledged park.
The Inuit has two land claim agreements, one with the Nunavik Inuit and one with the Nunatsiavut Inuit. Out of these land claim agreements, we also have two park impact and benefit agreements, again with Nunavik and Labrador Inuit. The land claims will deal with the bigger-picture items. The park impact and benefit agreements will get into the details of our working and operational relationship with Nunavik Inuit and Nunatsiavut Inuit.
Also out of the park impact and benefit agreement and the land claim agreement came the Cooperative Management Board. The park is cooperatively managed by Inuit in Nunavik and Nunatsiavut. It’s the only all-Inuit co-management board in Canada. That’s a first. It’s still like that.
The Cooperative Management Board is appointed by Makivik or by Nunavik and then by Nunatsiavut and Parks Canada. Parks Canada has two appointees, Makivik has two appointees and the Nunatsiavut Government has two appointees, with an independent chair nominated by all three parties and approved by the CEO of Parks Canada.
The Cooperative Management Board members are non-representative. They look after the interests of the public. Even though the Nunatsiavut Government and Makivik Corporation appoints two people each, they are non-representative of the organizations and the governments.
The Cooperative Management Board involves Indigenous peoples in the planning and management of national parks without limiting the authority of the minister in charge of Parks Canada. The objective is to respect the rights and knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples by incorporating the Indigenous history and cultures into management practices. It’s done by the creation of its own incorporated body, the Cooperative Management Board. It establishes a structure and process for Parks Canada and Indigenous peoples to regularly and meaningfully engage with each other as partners. I think that is a key to having the park managed successfully, in that it is — we think anyway — a true partnership arrangement through the Cooperative Management Board.
The Cooperative Management Board will meet face to face twice a year, once in Nunavik or Nunatsiavut and the other in the park. Usually in late July, early August, the CMB will meet in the park. That allows the Cooperative Management Board to make informed decisions about management issues in the park. It also gives our Parks Canada staff an opportunity to be on the land and to get to know the park through the CMB’s eyes.
Even though the CMB has the authority to advise the minister on management issues, they have never had to write a letter to the minister asking for recommendations on how the park should be managed. We take the Cooperative Management Board very seriously at our park. The recommendations they make and the advice they provide is well thought out and well-advised. We are able to take it and go with it.
The other interesting thing about the park is we had to figure out how to get people or visitors to come to the park in a safe and efficient way, because it is so remote. In 2006, our first real operational season, we decided to pilot a Base Camp. We piloted a Base Camp in the park. The first week, we had beautiful weather and it was really nice. The second week, we got rained out and ended up sleeping in little lakes, little ponds. One of the Inuit elders we had with us said, why don’t we take a look at this option? We went to some land just south of the park, adjacent to the southern boundary, and decided we would move down there. It was through the elders’ knowledge that if it rained for days on end, water would not pool there. That’s what we did.
We hired Inuit bear guards, because there are a lot of polar bears in the area and a lot of black bears. It’s the only place in the world where we have barren-ground black bears that live in dens above the tree line. We hired and contracted Inuit bear guards that would not only look after the safety of the visitors but also look after the safety of the polar and black bears.
We also hired and contracted out Inuit cooking staff and Inuit maintenance people. The park and the Base Camp did become a way for us to allow for Inuit participation, economic development opportunities and employment. This is one of the ways we see how the park can be beneficial economically. Not only economically, but in capacity building, and a way for Inuit to actually get back into our homeland.
The Base Camp right now is not situated in the park. It’s situated on Labrador Inuit lands owned by the Nunatsiavut Government and Labrador Inuit.
The Base Camp remained a pilot project for us for approximately four years, from 2006 to 2010. Each year we surveyed visitors and Inuit who came into Base Camp to see what things could be improved and how their experiences were. We always took the advice of both the visitors and Inuit, and made improvements to Base Camp each year. In 2010, the Nunatsiavut Government was able to secure some funds to take over Base Camp and transition it into an Inuit business. It was turned over to the Labrador Inuit Development Corporation, at that time, which turned more or less into the Nunatsiavut Group of Companies. The Nunatsiavut Group of Companies ran it for a few years. We became the anchor tenant along with researchers and a youth program at that time.
The Base Camp provides a safe way for visitors to come and see the park. It provides a safe way for visitors to understand Inuit culture, because the story we tell in the park is an Inuit story. The Inuit story is the main priority for us. Mind you, it is set in a pretty spectacular backdrop. That is the story that we want to tell. That’s the story for the Base Camp employees to tell also.
The Base Camp is surrounded by an electric fence to keep visitors safe. It also has usually around 10 polar bear guards or bear guards who also look after visitors while they are in Base Camp.
There are also flush toilets and hot showers. We have a helicopter on site that is cost-shared between Parks Canada, researchers, visitors, and the operator of Base Camp.
The Chair: Mr. Baikie, this is all fascinating but we have to hear from Ms. Webb.
Mr. Baikie: Yes, sorry.
The Chair: Can you —
Mr. Baikie: Wrap it up?
The Chair: Please.
Mr. Baikie: I’ll get into accomplishments and future direction.
The accomplishments: It became an emerging destination because tourism was new in northern Labrador at the time. It is reconciliation in action. Parks Canada has been working with Inuit to develop visitor experiences that will connect people to the park as an Inuit homeland. All of these experiences involve the participation of Inuit and help tell the story to the rest of the world in a culturally appropriate way.
It is a diverse experience, with scientists, tourism and youth. It’s about building business opportunities and capacity. That’s what we accomplished since we looked at Base Camp and economic development.
The Cooperative Management Board strongly supports the operation of the Base Camp as we wait for Inuit to return to the land. The Torngat Mountains National Park has committed its 2018 management plan to seek ways to ensure the financial sustainability of the operation of the Base Camp. Parks Canada is now an anchor tenant at Base Camp, but parks funding allocations are fixed, while rising Base Camp costs, due to its remote location, and particularly the cost of fuel, have created fiscal challenges for Base Camp.
In light of acute financial challenges facing the Base Camp operation, in 2017 and 2018 Parks Canada provided an additional financial support to the Nunatsiavut Government to run Base Camp. Parks Canada wishes to work with the Nunatsiavut Government to identify potential longer-term solutions, including adjustments to Base Camp operations to improve efficiency. The Nunatsiavut Government is currently working through a process to identify a new operator for Base Camp for the next five years. Parks Canada will be working with the Nunatsiavut Government to work toward a sustainable operating model. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Belinda Webb, Deputy Minister, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, Nunatsiavut Government: Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today.
My name is Belinda Webb. I’m the Deputy Minister for the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism with the Nunatsiavut Government. I’m originally from Nain and just moved back in the fall of 2015. I’m very excited to be here today to talk to you about one of my most favourite places in the world, the Torngat Mountains National Park and Base Camp.
For us, the Torngat Mountains National Park is our Inuit homeland. It was a gift back to Canada by Inuit when we signed our land claims agreement. The Torngat Mountains National Park and Base Camp are very much a relationship-based area. We have an opportunity to cultivate relationships between visitors and youth, youth and our elders, researchers, and also our traditional knowledge bearers. There is also an opportunity for us to build our relationship with the land and water, which is part of our culture and history.
Having the ability to have a place where you can connect to the land and water is truly like no other when that is what your ancestors did and that’s what your history and culture is. It’s very important to us. It grounds us in who we are as a people. It’s very difficult to explain in words the feeling and the sense when you go to Base Camp and into the park itself. Being an Inuit person, it’s very spiritual.
It is also important to get our youth into the base camp to ensure that knowledge and traditions are passed on to them, and the history of our ancestors using those homelands is passed down from generation to generation. It empowers our youth. We had a youth program there; however, the last two years, because of sustainability and funding issues, we weren’t able to host a youth program.
In the past, the youth program was strong. It enabled youth to go up in a structured environment where they learned various skills in regard to leadership as well as traditional knowledge and also with language. There were youth from Nunavik as well. They were able to listen to different dialects as well as see the strength in their language, which empowered them to learn their language as well.
We have obtained funding through the guardians program to continue work on a youth program not only for Base Camp but also within the whole Nunatsiavut land claim area.
At the national park and Base Camp, it’s an opportunity to connect traditional knowledge with scientific experts. Scientists are able to learn from our traditional elders various flora, fauna and animals. There is an exchange from traditional to scientific knowledge, which is really important to us. It’s an opportunity for researchers to learn about our history and culture on the land.
Our people have used this area way before my time and continue to use it to this day. It’s important for us as a culture to pass on the information from generation to generation. Having that opportunity and very closed environment for youth and elders — and our bear guards are always from the area and very knowledgeable in passing on this information.
Regarding research, researchers can connect with individuals who have contemporary and traditional knowledge. They are gaining from us as well as us from them. The information they research is always provided back to the Nunatsiavut Government. We are able to use that within our own files as a government. It’s also provided back to communities. It’s a well-rounded communication.
I know this seems quite simple, but it happens in very fresh air, clean water, and it’s very pristine. The environment is important to us as a people because we continuously use it to this day for fishing, hunting and travelling. Environmental issues within the Torngat Mountains National Park and Base Camp are very important to us.
It brings such pride in our land and history, to showcase such a beautiful place to visitors and researchers as well as our own people, and the opportunity for them to see where their ancestors came from.
As Mr. Baikie mentioned, it is quite expensive to run Base Camp. As an example, this year we ran a four-week season. The costs were approximately $700,000. Normally they run about a million dollars. Because of additional costs in getting fuel up into that area, it normally has to be barged up. It’s normally around a million dollars for a very short season.
There are three groups in the Torngat Mountains National Park, the visitors, the researchers and our beneficiaries, through our youth program or employment. It’s not an experience you tend to get in many places around the world. You have youth who are learning from our elders on how to clean a fish. The tourist gets to see first hand how that is passed on. They also get to experience and bring that back. It provides an educational piece for visitors as well as our youth who often don’t have the opportunity to get out on the land — perhaps due to fiscal restraints of their families. It’s such a great opportunity to provide our story from our youth and people back to visitors first hand, that experience.
The Chair: Are you just wrapping up Ms. Webb?
Ms. Webb: Yes.
Overall, through the partnership with Parks Canada we are able to have elders and youth and cultural performers pass down our traditional knowledge, stories and culture. It’s a great opportunity for youth to be in a supportive environment where they can learn their traditional culture and knowledge and stories.
By having this area as a national park, it provides the need of protection for an area that is held so dearly in all of our hearts. It provides us with the ability to carry on with our traditional lifestyle and pass its history through generations. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Bovey: Could you tell us more about your visitors? The sharing of scientific and Indigenous traditions is amazing. What you’re doing with youth is amazing; but tell me about your visitors. Where do they come from and how many are there a year?
Mr. Baikie: The visitors are generally from the eastern seaboard through Canada and the U.S. We get them from as far away as Australia and Japan. Roughly, we get anywhere from 500 to 650 visitors a year. That includes cruise ship visitors.
Senator Bovey: How long is the season?
Mr. Baikie: The season varies. It’s generally six weeks in the summer.
Senator Bovey: What kind of interpretive programs do you have for visitors?
Mr. Baikie: There is a menu of items people can experience through Base Camp. If you’re going in on your own, it’s usually backpack hiking. If you’re going through Base Camp, it’s based on Inuit culture. There are different cultural tours, hikes on traditional Inuit routes. It’s usually based on Inuit culture.
Senator Eaton: I was intrigued when you said it was $700,000 the park cost last year, the overrun. The 650 visitors, don’t they pay you anything?
Mr. Baikie: Yes. If you look at the 650 visitors, roughly 200 to 300 are cruise ship visitors.
Senator Eaton: They don’t spend the night there? They drop in for the day?
Mr. Baikie: That’s right. On the cruise ships, they are spending anywhere from $5,000 to $8,000 for their trip into the park. A regular person going through Base Camp would pay roughly $9,000 for a week. That’s all-inclusive from Goose Bay, from central Labrador.
Senator Eaton: Are the costs for bringing in the food and the fuel?
Mr. Baikie: Yes. We’re trying to mitigate those costs. We’re working with the Nunatsiavut Government to come up with a sustainability plan. Fuel had to be barged in. The Nunatsiavut Government brought in fuel tanks. We’re now looking at getting the fuel tanks filled. That would cut the $400,000 down to, roughly, $200,000.
Senator Eaton: That’s a big saving. Going back to the land and traditional knowledge. Are you providing country food for visitors?
Mr. Baikie: Yes. Country food and plants. Vegetation is grown traditionally.
Senator Eaton: There is more I could ask. I think other people want to talk.
Senator Oh: Most of my questions have been asked. How do you promote international tourism?
Mr. Baikie: International tourism is promoted through our head office in Ottawa, through the marketing team out of the Parks Canada office. I will let Belinda answer for the Nunatsiavut Government.
Ms. Webb: We have a Facebook page and website we advertise through. However, that’s one of the areas we’re looking to partner with Parks Canada on in terms of a better marketing plan moving forward.
Senator Oh: When we were in the Northwest Territories and Whitehorse, Asian tourists are coming in a big way to see the aurora and northern lights via a special arrangement. Do you have ways to attract international tourists coming from Asia?
Mr. Baikie: That is a new area. We’re just starting to talk about it. We’re working on a marketing strategy with the Nunatsiavut Government. Once the new operator is awarded the contract, we’ll have a three-way marketing strategy that we’ll all buy into and work on together. The Asian market is one we want to target.
The Chair: Thank you. Who is that new operator?
Mr. Baikie: We don’t know yet. It’s in the process of being determined.
Senator Galvez: I am replacing Senator Bovey. It looks beautiful. Tell me, when we talk about tourism and about cruises coming, we also talk about waste coming with the people — solid waste and waste water. You talked about pristine conditions of the water and the soil. What do you do? How do you manage your liquid and solid waste up there?
Mr. Baikie: Salt water is not in the park. I know the cruise ships are not allowed to empty any waste into the waters around the park. Also, in the park, on the land, we do have a no-trace camping policy and no-trace activity. What you take in, you must take out. That includes human waste. The human waste is brought back to Base Camp and incinerated.
Senator Coyle: Thank you for your presentation. I have a couple of questions. The first is specifically about the park and Base Camp. I’d like to know a bit more about what the trends are in terms of your numbers. How have they been since you’ve opened? Are things trending up or down financially, or in terms of numbers of visitors? If you could provide a sense of that and what some of your targets are going forward.
I was interested in this talk about the youth, particularly the Inuit youth and the importance of culture and language. I understand it’s very expensive at the Base Camp. Within Nunatsiavut, are there other locations that aren’t as expensive for doing these sorts of youth programs?
Mr. Baikie: To the first part of your question, the trends are going up. They’re going up because we’re starting to better understand our market. By understanding our market better, we can target certain clientele. That’s the reason it’s starting to go up, as well as the knowledge base of the Torngat Mountains National Park is starting to expand. Marketing through the Nunatsiavut Government, through Destination Canada, the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada and Parks Canada. The trend is also rising by getting the word out through these organizations.
Ms. Webb: With regard to the youth question, that is exactly what we’re looking at. We have locations outside three of our communities, buildings we can start using for on-the-land programming for youth. We already have various programs in the communities for youth; however, we are looking at broadening — because Base Camp is so expensive — to various locations where we can ensure that they’re still having the opportunity to get out on the land and be more entrenched in a language program as well. We are looking into that right now.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much.
Mr. Baikie: If I can add to that. It is our mandate to engage youth in parks activities. We’re also exploring ways on how we can better enlighten Inuit youth to get into the park and how we can sponsor Inuit youth in the park.
Senator Coyle: On this point of youth, I think you mentioned the guardian program. Could you speak briefly about that?
Ms. Webb: The funding for that is quite new for my department, but we’ve been able to get $300,000 for an on-the-land base program for youth, with Base Camp being one of those pieces. Now we’re having internal discussions with regard to how we do that. We were able to apply through that program to get those funds for the youth program.
Also, through the years we have been able to get donations from various foundations, like the Smiling Land Foundation and the The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, specifically for the youth program.
The Chair: That funding is from Environment and Climate Change Canada, correct, the guardian program?
Ms. Webb: Yes.
The Chair: And it’s a national program?
Ms. Webb: Yes.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Dasko: I’m interested in the decision to create the park here. How was that made? Is it because of the unique social arrangements? Is there a particular aspect of the topography that needed to be preserved? Was there a unique potential environment for research? How do you decide you’re going to set up a park here, there or some other place? How did that happen?
Mr. Baikie: The park was created because of the ecoregion. It’s a unique region within Canada. That is why Parks Canada wanted to set up a park in that area. It’s a representation of a unique area within Canada, within the geographical area and the ecosystem. They wanted to establish a park in the Torngat Mountains.
Senator Dasko: Thank you.
Senator Eaton: Are you getting much co-operation? You talk about the Inuit communities and how well they’re doing and how they’re cooperating with you. Do you have to engage them or are they fully part of what you want to do? In other words, how much of the traditional knowledge have you been able to incorporate in the running of the park?
Mr. Baikie: All of our staff are Indigenous. We’re all Inuit.
Senator Eaton: That’s a good beginning.
Mr. Baikie: That’s to begin with. It’s the only park in Canada that has an all-Indigenous staff. We take seriously and under advisement all the information we get from Inuit Elders, even youth.
Senator Eaton: What I don’t understand is why do you have to set up programs to teach youth how to fish? I would have thought that’s something that would have been done automatically in families, or going hunting or caribou shooting. I would have thought that would happen naturally.
Mr. Baikie: It used to. Not anymore, because of the expense. People don’t use dogs anymore. You have to buy a snowmobile, and you’re looking at $15,000.
Senator Eaton: Dog teams worked for centuries.
Mr. Baikie: Yes, they did.
Senator Eaton: Why wouldn’t people go back to dog teams? I don’t mean that as a stupid question. With fuel having to be shipped up in tankers, and snowmobiles having a lifetime — they break down — I would have thought that, culturally, going back to a dog team would be something you might have wanted to teach young people.
Mr. Baikie: That knowledge is not passed on anymore, how to hunt and use dog teams.
Senator Eaton: The link has been broken?
Mr. Baikie: The link has been broken. We’re working with the Nunatsiavut Government in some of their cultural programming, especially in the park. They just built a new cultural centre, which will have some cultural programming. I don’t want to speak for the deputy minister here. I’m pretty sure they want to see how more culture can be reintroduced, I guess, or reclaimed.
Senator Eaton: Do you have links to other Inuit communities to see what they know?
Ms. Webb: Yes. So our national organization is Inuit Tapariit Kanatami. We have links with the other Inuit regions to see what they do in regard to cultural revitalization or language.
Senator Eaton: The dog link has been broken. Has the fishing link been broken? You are talking about getting back on the water. Did you stop going out on the water?
Ms. Webb: There are still some families who go back on the water. It comes back to finances for families. Not as many people have boats as in the past. There are now a lot of families who don’t get out on the water. In turn, trying to pass that tradition down to some youth, they’re not getting that because they don’t have the opportunity to get out on a boat.
The Chair: Did you have a supplementary?
Senator Eaton: Didn’t we all hear, in terms of the Northwest Passage, because the Northwest Passage, as you know, is not charted, but we should be using traditional knowledge because of their knowledge on the water? Thank you.
The Chair: Do you have a supplementary, Senator Neufeld?
Senator Neufeld: My supplementary would be the teaching; it’s good stuff. What’s the future? What keeps the people there if hunting and fishing are gone? I shouldn’t say they’re gone, but reduced tremendously. What is the future for these young people? Where do they get employed? What’s the plan?
Ms. Webb: That’s a really good question. A lot of our youth are going into trade areas because of Voisey’s Bay. There’s also a lot of available positions within the Nunatsiavut government. There’s also the health services in our communities. There are still various areas for youth if they’re looking at employment. We do have a lot who go away for university and college and stay away.
I can’t necessarily answer if there’s a long-term plan. Education is not under my portfolio. I can follow up with our DM on education and get back to you on any plans moving forward for youth.
Senator Neufeld: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Webb.
Senator Bovey: You mentioned education. You spoke earlier about Indigenous history. I’d like to know how the programs you have, particularly those for the youth, tie in with the curriculum. The programs you have exploring Indigenous history, do they go beyond the park and into the curriculum of the region to take that information and the research further than the almost thousand people who come each year?
Mr. Baikie: That is a good question. The research in the park is supported by Inuit. It’s not just any research. It’s research directed by Inuit because Inuit need that research done. You asked about the education?
Senator Bovey: Yes. You had mentioned Indigenous history.
Mr. Baikie: Yes.
Senator Bovey: I wondered how you took that beyond — and I don’t mean just the visitors in the park.
Mr. Baikie: Yes.
Senator Bovey: With all the effort you’re putting in and the good work you’re doing, how do you take that outside the park to other parts of Labrador and Newfoundland, Nunatsiavut and Canada, to share that knowledge and culture?
Mr. Baikie: For Parks Canada, in the Torngat Mountains National Park, we’re just starting to get into social media and using that as a platform to get some of the research objectives out and some of the findings and research out into the general public within Canada.
We’re trying to explore ways to bring the park south because not everyone, of course, is going to visit it. It’s only going to be a few people who will be able to explore the Torngat Mountains. Getting the word out is going to be using technology and how to bring the park south. There’s also the new Illusuak Centre in Nain. It’s the new cultural centre for Labrador Inuit that will also be a platform to get information out about research and how youth and elders become involved within the research itself.
Senator Bovey: Mr. Chair, you’ve made me feel doubly upset we couldn’t land in Nain. It was a beautiful park to fly over. We went both ways over it. We missed a lot.
The Chair: We have to get there.
Mr. Baikie: A Senate committee in the Torngats at Base Camp would be appreciated.
Senator Coyle: I’m interested in future strategy. As you are identifying the next group that will manage Base Camp, I’m imagining they’re going to manage, market and have the big vision. Are you looking at a more exclusive, higher-end model, or are you looking at a model which brings larger numbers of people in or some blend of those two?
Mr. Baikie: It’s going to be a blend. It’s understanding your market. We’ve become better able to understand who the market is and where the market is coming from; so we can target the elite and the general public.
If you can only imagine at Base Camp, it becomes a family. Whether you’re a celebrity or you’re a person who has saved for three years to get to the park, you’re treated the same. You become a part of the family. Whatever hat you’re wearing just comes off.
We want to market to the general public, to Inuits and to the elite. We’re also looking at ways to bring Inuit back into a homeland through the operator, companies and Parks Canada.
Senator Coyle: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your testimony. It was much appreciated.
I’m very pleased to welcome you all back to the second portion of this meeting of the Special Committee on the Arctic. For this segment, I’m pleased to welcome, from the Inuit Art Foundation, Alysa Procida, Executive Director and Publisher. From the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative, we have with us William Huffman, Marketing Director.
Thanks very much for joining us. There will be questions, I’m sure. I’ll invite you each time to proceed with your opening statements.
Alysa Procida, Executive Director and Publisher, Inuit Art Foundation: Thank you so much for having me. It’s a real privilege to be here with all of you today.
As the chair mentioned, I am the Executive Director of the Inuit Art Foundation. You may be familiar with us primarily through our magazine, which is right there — thank you, Senator Bovey — the Inuit Art Quarterly. We are a much broader organization than that. I am excited during my brief opening remarks to give you some context about what we do and talk about some of the issues we face.
We are the only national organization representing all artists working in all disciplines in any region or community throughout Inuit Nunangat and southern Canada. Increasingly, our mandate is pushing even broader to look at links between circumpolar Indigenous artists. We were incorporated in June 1987. That was really out of the dissolution of the Canadian Eskimo Arts Council, which was run out of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada. Very briefly, it was mandated to help promote and market Inuit art and assure quality was maintained. The Inuit felt that was no longer appropriate. They dissolved and we were incorporated around that same time, not to be a replacement but to address new issues that had come up in Inuit art, primarily for Inuit artists.
We’re an Inuit-led organization. Since 1994, we’ve had an either entirely Inuit board or at least an Inuit majority board. Our executive members must always be Inuit. We try for broad representation across geographic regions but also discipline and skill sets.
In addition to the Inuit Art Quarterly, we offer a host of support programs because it’s the only national organization. We are not best suited to do things that regional organizations do. We could never do, for example, what DFA or WBEC does or what the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association or Avataq Cultural Institute does. We are there as a national support system to fill in systemic gaps that exist for Inuit artists across the 51 communities of Inuit Nunangat and those who move south, which is increasingly an important part of the Inuit art market and economy.
To put that in perspective, art is not just about economics — it’s about culture, revitalization and resiliency — but the 2017 impact of the Inuit arts economy study recently published by Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada estimates there are approximately 13,650 Inuit artists working in Canada today. That’s about 26 per cent of the Inuit population aged 15 and older. It’s a very significant number. The art market generates about $87.2 million annually for Canada’s GDP. It’s large and critical to be supported.
I will just briefly give you a sense of the programs we run.
The Chair: I missed that number.
Ms. Procida: $87.2 million a year.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Ms. Procida: 13,650 artists.
The Chair: Thank you.
Ms. Procida: That’s approximately 26 per cent of the Inuit population aged over 15, which is substantial.
We’re best known for Inuit Art Quarterly. We are the only magazine in the world dedicated to circumpolar Indigenous artists. We are the only publication of record for Inuit art within Canada and abroad. Unusually for print magazines, I’m happy to report we have higher paid circulation now than we had in 31 years, which is a very encouraging sign for the health of Inuit art, and also I would say, wearing a different hat briefly, the power of print publications.
We are dedicated to promoting awareness of Inuit artists, to creating a critical discourse about their work and supporting emerging voices in arts writing. We’ve made a demonstrated commitment to supporting Indigenous writers in particular. That number has increased over 40 per cent in the last three years of Indigenous writers per issue of the publication, which is a really remarkable achievement. As you know, many artists in the North are not given the skills to write about their work often because educational attainment rates are low and there is no university located in the North. More to the point, there is no specific arts school located in the North. Nunavut Arctic College runs some programs, but it’s not quite the same. We’ve made a commitment. I’m very proud to say we’re now an award-winning publication for the first time in our history as of last year. It’s been really rewarding to see that happen.
We also run the IAQ Profiles, which are extended biographical looks at Inuit artists. This came out of an older program run out of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada’s Indigenous Art Centre, where they would make biographies for Inuit artists as a service. Unfortunately that program stopped in the mid-1990s.
Portfolio development and CV writing is an important skill for any artist. We fill that gap by assisting artists in writing their biographies and maintaining control of those works. Crucially, this is the first biography database of its kind where artists have to give expressed written consent to be included and maintain full control over what is written about them.
What is also really important about the database and the profiles is that artists in the North are often not aware of where their work is collected or exhibited or written about in the South. We close that loop because we invested quite a bit of resources into making sure the profiles work in low bandwidth environments. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you the broadband infrastructure in the North is not what it is in southern Canada. That’s been a real priority of access for us.
We also last year took over the management of the iconic Igloo Tag Trademark, which you are likely familiar with.
This was created in 1958 by the federal government as a way to protect Inuit artists and the burgeoning Inuit market for sculptures from overseas cast-moulded fraudulent works. It was remarkably forward-thinking and is the only trademark of its kind in the country protecting Indigenous artists.
The impact of the Inuit arts economy study is responsible for adding $3.5 million annually to Canada’s GDP. Of that $87.2 million, $3.5 million is attributable to the Igloo Tag Trademark. Collectors trust it. It helps protect artists.
We are undergoing a broad stakeholder consultation of artists throughout Inuit Nunangat and the South as well as other stakeholders about how that trademark might be adapted and expanded to look at the work that is being created today, including things like jewellery, clothing, performance potentially or film. That’s been a very interesting and ongoing discussion. We’re very proud to be maintaining the legacy of this very important trademark.
We also offer scholarship and award programs. We have offered the Virginia J. Watt Award for many years, which helps fund Inuit post-secondary education. The most recent winner is Nancy Saunders or Niap from Kuujjuaq, who was a student at Concordia and produced a beautiful installation piece as part of her coursework. That was just acquired by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
We also run the Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award, which is given out every other year. It gives up to $10,000 for an artist to pursue a residency of their choice. Performance artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory from Iqaluit was our inaugural winner this past year.
These are important supports often unavailable to Inuit or not available enough. They are also examples of how important targeted investments can make a real difference in an artist’s career and future. We are very proud to offer those services. We face a lot of challenges in execution — infrastructure being one, awareness another. I’m very much looking forward to discussing that with you today.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr. Huffman.
William Huffman, Marketing Director, West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative: Thank you. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you very much.
As mentioned, I’m William Huffman. Today I’m representing both the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative, of which I am a staff person, and the Kenojuak Cultural Centre, for which I serve as a member of its advisory committee.
The former, a venerable Arctic institution, the cooperative will celebrate a milestone sixtieth anniversary in 2019. The latter, a brand new addition to the northern cultural landscape, the Kenojuak Cultural Centre, was inaugurated in September of this year.
I’m going to provide an overview of both organizations and give you a sense of how the two are working together and what we anticipate as next steps.
What is the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative? The organization is the oldest and most successful of the Arctic cooperatives. There is a network across the North. The organization was created in 1959 to provide resources for Inuit artists working in the community. This is the critical and entirely unique detail about the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative. Its founding principle was to seed creation and maintain a distribution platform for Inuit visual art.
Since its inception, the cooperative has been responsible for making possible the iconic Inuit art of Cape Dorset. Originally a program of the federal government, designed to provide economy in the region, the cooperative has flourished at the hands of the Cape Dorset community and has generated international acclaim for its artists. The creation and sale of Inuit art is the largest and most profitable local industry in the region, which is a remarkable thing, given that Cape Dorset is in the territory of Nunavut, approximately 2,091 kilometres directly north of this room. It’s deep in the North. It’s remote. It’s arguably the most active artist community in the country.
Of course, it’s a challenge to operate the way we do. We all know the litany of challenges that exist in Canada’s Arctic region. However, I’m going to focus on our considerable success story.
Structurally, our head office is in Cape Dorset. Since 1976, a satellite office operates in downtown Toronto where I’m based. One of my functions is to bridge the North and South operations, which means collectively I spend about three months out of each year in Cape Dorset. This level of presence in Cape Dorsett is important. It allows me to understand the unique needs and challenges related to the artist community. We’re a community-owned organization. Roughly 90 per cent of 1,400 residents in Cape Dorset are shareholders. Profits are distributed back to the community in the form of annual dividends.
What does the cooperative do? Our raison d’etre is the production and distribution of drawing, prints and sculptures produced by the artists of Cape Dorset. Through our studio operation in Cape Dorset, we provide supplies, space, mentorship and professional development for artists. The facilities, recently relocated to the Kenojuak Cultural Centre, are state-of-the-art studios, particularly those dedicated to printmaking, rival the quality of any anywhere. It’s worth noting the cooperative’s printmaking program is the longest running of its kind in Canada.
In addition to art-making, we have an active role in the management of our artists’ careers, including the supervision of copyright and reproduction on behalf of Cape Dorset’s living artists and artists’ estates. That means any individual or entity wishing to reproduce, in whole or in part, the likeness of a work of art produced by a Cape Dorset artist must seek authorization from the cooperative.
This itself is a huge job, given how frequently we see the work of Cape Dorset artists depicted in publications, advertising initiatives and global merchandizing.
When I’m not spending those collective three months in Cape Dorset, I spend an additional collective three months travelling nationally and internationally, in an effort to build a broader profile and bigger markets for the Inuit art of Cape Dorset. I travel primarily to the United States and western Europe. My strategic travel will soon turn to Asia as we see growth potential in the region.
Why I’m highlighting the national and international is that at any given moment you can experience the work of our artists somewhere in the world.
At the Brooklyn Museum in New York we have established a permanent presence for Cape Dorset art there. A current exhibition which celebrates three generations of female creators is at the Armory Centre for the Arts in Pasadena, California. It concludes in December. In January 2019, the prestigious The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto will host a career retrospective for Shuvanai Ashoona. Also in January, we’ll present a symposium on the history of Cape Dorset Inuit art at the Canadian embassy in Paris. This initiative will launch our new and robust relationship with apparel company Canada Goose.
It’s evident our office works with a range of stakeholders, from museums and art galleries to corporations and governments, from art world professionals to patrons and art enthusiasts.
Useful for today’s forum, we have ongoing federal relationships with the Bank of Canada, Royal Canadian Mint, Canada Post, National Gallery of Canada, Canada Council for the Arts, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and Global Affairs Canada, among others.
To say the least, all of this is complicated and expensive. We are a successful and profitable operation. The financial benefit to the community is substantive.
In our 2017-18 fiscal year, our artists earned collectively more than a million dollars for their art-making. When I say “artists,” that represents everyone from emerging to elder generations.
Also in 2017-18, the cooperative provided more than $400,000 in salaries related to the production and dissemination of visual art. I mentioned earlier our copyright program. That initiative remitted more than $109,000 to Cape Dorset artists or their estates last year.
I hope you’re thinking this is a lot to process. It is. We’re exceedingly proud of our level and quality of activities.
I would like to move on the Kenojuak Cultural Centre, which, as I mentioned, is the new home of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative and its fine-art studios. It’s also a public exhibition and community-gathering space that finally affords a venue to present and contemplate the art and our history that has nourished and propelled this community for some 60 years.
The construction and operation of the Kenojuak Cultural Centre is the result of a groundbreaking partnership between the hamlet of Cape Dorset and the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative. The capital campaign raised $3,290,000 from more than 100 corporations, foundations and philanthropists. The Government of Canada along with the Government of Nunavut are responsible for providing $8 million of the $11 million overall capital campaign.
This is momentous for Cape Dorset. It’s momentous for Canada and for the Canadian Arctic. There are so many firsts associated with the realization of the Kenojuak Cultural Centre. For instance, I had the distinct privilege of co-curating the first installation, which is the first time that an exhibition of work by Kenojuak Ashevak has been presented in Cape Dorset, her hometown. That show will travel to other venues in Canada as part of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative sixtieth anniversary program. This is the first time an exhibition of this scale has been curated in the Canadian Arctic and circulated to venues across the country.
These are exciting times. We should all feel exhilarated about developments in Cape Dorset and how this new infrastructure will unlock new possibilities and first-time opportunities for Inuit creative expression.
Where are we going from here? The short answer is we’re going lots of places. How does that relate to today’s discussion?
This activity, both historic and recent, is the result of co-operation, leadership and very big thinking. The West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative has always been a catalyst, and continues to succeed at fostering and promoting Inuit art while maintaining the health and well-being of its Dorset community stakeholders. The organization has robust and vital routes in Cape Dorset and at the same time is an important contributor to international visual art discourse. Our depth of understanding around effective operations in the North is complemented by sophisticated intelligence as related to the international community.
We have a great deal to offer on the subject of prosperity in the North and about situating the North on an international stage. I acknowledge we’re a regional organization, and although our activities are ostensibly local, we have the reconnaissance and strategy that engages well beyond municipal borders. I think our philosophy and structure can be transmuted to other circumstances and communities.
This is how I wish to relate to today’s discussion. We appreciate the opportunity to participate in forums like this, and ask that you include us more regularly in these conversations. We’ve demonstrated our abilities and effectiveness over six decades of operation and would welcome the opportunity to share our thinking and experience with you and all strata of the federal government.
The Arctic is a big place, with big opportunities. This is very good timing for us to assist, whether it’s shaping ideas or deploying resources. On behalf of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative and the Kenojuak Cultural Centre, we are at the ready and prepared to help.
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you.
The Chair: Thank you both very much for your presentations. We will now move to questions.
Senator Bovey: Thank you both so much for coming. It’s no secret to this committee, or anybody I get to yap at, how important I believe the visual arts have been in Canada’s North — and not just for the North but the country as a whole. I do believe for many decades — and I hate to admit in the six decades of the prince coming down annually, I guess I’ve been actively involved in five of those decades. We don’t age ourselves.
For many years, I believe it was Inuit art that made Canada’s name abroad. I have been concerned in recent years that perhaps that name hasn’t been quite as well known as restructuring has had to take place. I think the magazine is fantastic. Your profiles are amazing. I send them to anybody who wants to receive them from me.
I’m going to share a current concern. I hope you can dispel it. With the changes in Canada Council funding, I would like to know what your feeling is about the success rate of these highly acclaimed Canadian artists of Inuit background, living in communities where the Internet and fibre optics are not there to get the materials down for grant applications in the current guise.
My other question: For Inuit artists, do they also have to have three solo exhibitions in major galleries, public galleries, before they are eligible for some of these grants? If so, where do they go? Whitehorse? Yellowknife? I’m delighted with the new centre. I’m thrilled the new centre is there. Winnipeg Art Gallery, National Gallery. There may be five. How do they do it?
The Chair: I think those are addressed to you both.
Senator Bovey: Addressed to both. Play with them back and forth.
Ms. Procida: I’m sure we have similar experiences.
It’s not a secret that access to grant funding has been historically challenging for Inuit artists, for the reasons you mentioned. Infrastructure challenges are one. You mentioned the Canada Council for the Arts. The fact they are primarily and exclusively accepting applications online has been challenging. I tried to upload one in Iqaluit and it was just at the wire, but it worked.
I believe, though, things are changing. They have made a concerted effort to hire Inuit program officers, particularly for their new Creating, Knowing and Sharing division, which I believe has different requirements for people to access funding. It has been helpful for the Inuit Art Foundation to have their new model in place, and that we have been helping other artists apply for grants. However, there’s still quite a long way to go before there is equity of access for any grant stream, Canada Council or otherwise.
In speaking to people in the North, one of their firm recommendations is having grant officers in communities, which I know is challenging for any organization. That is important. Language is important. I also think building awareness and knowledge of what grants are, why they are helpful and important, and how they are different from subsidies. That’s a longer-term conversation but one we continue to have.
The Chair: Would you like to add to that, Mr. Huffman?
Mr. Huffman: I have had lengthy discussions with Canada Council. I am a former employee of the Canada Council and know some of the challenges. I was on the northern advisory committee.
It is nearly impossible to deliver programs in the North in the same way you deliver them anywhere else in the country. I can tell you from my local experience in Cape Dorset that almost none of our artists, in the history of this amazing epicentre of culture, have received Canada Council grants.
Senator Bovey: I rest my case.
Mr. Huffman: We’ve started to work with the Canada Council. We’ve started to work with our artists. I’m providing a buffer. I’m the one who assists in the application process. From Toronto, we have the luxury to be able to high-speed Internet these applications through the portal.
The key part of the discussion with Canada Council is much like you just mentioned: There needs to be a local delivery. There was a bilateral arrangement between the Canada Council and the Government of Nunavut which deteriorated considerably. I don’t know why. In my experience, it’s not about the territory delivering the programs; it’s about the regions delivering the programs.
We have offered the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative as a test case to see if we could deliver programs for the Cape Dorset community on behalf of the Canada Council, and what that might look like. These are still early days. This is the discussion we think is necessary in order to make the system work.
Senator Bovey: I am going to follow this with great interest. I want to jump to Paris because some of the most important early collections of Inuit art — Thule culture right forward to Cape Dorset, Baker Lake, Rankin Inlet — reside in Paris. Are you getting tremendous uptick on the program you’re going to be delivering in Paris in January?
Mr. Huffman: It’s interesting. I’m not sure if you’re aware — I just became aware of it — there is an Inuktitut study group that is part of the Canadian embassy in Paris. There is a group that gets together and has conversations — I’m not sure whether it’s via speakerphone or Skype, however it works — with certain artists in the North. This is a group that is very informed. I did an interview with one of the delegates from this committee who conducted some of her answers in Inuktitut.
You’re absolutely right; there is an incredible existing interest. The embassy has been critical in leveraging the connection between all those stakeholders in Paris. Of course, we’re coming at this at the perfect time because we have just opened the new Canadian Cultural Centre. I think we being the second biggest Indigenous initiative next to Kent Monkman, who opened the space, this has the potential to be huge. Of course, underwriting this is the influence that Canada Goose provides to this initiative in Europe. Canada Goose is a big player in the Parisian market and the European market in general. We have aligned, I think, the right elements to make this a huge success, and to almost reintroduce Inuit art to that community.
Ms. Procida: If I may add: I don’t have anything specific about that initiative, although we’re very excited about it. Our engagement internationally does also bear out what you’re saying in terms of international awareness. Thirty-three per cent of our magazine subscribers are outside of Canada. A significant number of those are in the United States but also in Western Europe and France, even though we don’t publish in French. I do think there is an existing audience, and initiatives such as you’re discussing are critical to maintaining that interest and awareness. We’re also very excited, as you can imagine, about Isuma representing Canada at the Venice Biennale next year. Very exciting.
Senator Bovey: One quick follow-up on the international side. What about Japan? Maybe I don’t want to count years, but it was quite a while ago, in a former guise, we did an exhibition of Inuit prints alongside one of the Japanese printmakers. I would be really interested if you could talk about going forward to extend — I mean this impact — we printed it out today, the report on the Inuit arts economy, and I haven’t read it all yet, but what I have is impressive. What steps do you have with the connections to Asia? Because there is a symbiotic sensibility.
Mr. Huffman: In fact, as you know, the studio was developed around a Japanese model. Of course, it makes complete sense. You can imagine the aesthetic and techniques are well known to the Japanese creative community — the Asian community in general.
Two parts to the answer to the question. One is I would love to give you more information. It is early days with us. This is a rebuilding process. We had many deep connections in Asia, particularly Japan. Those don’t exist. We’re talking 60 years later. This is a generational shift. A lot of the players we were familiar with are no longer active. Having said that, my board of directors, at the last meeting I attended, gave me the directive to come up with a campaign, you know, that would somehow reintroduce Inuit art to Asia — Japan being one of the target regions.
I’m very excited about the exploration process. The fact we can identify something like Asia as a region, knowing we had existing connections, and to take Inuit art back, is an amazing process.
Senator Bovey: Chair, I think this connects with our sixth theme.
The Chair: International theme.
Senator Bovey: The Arctic in the international global scene. I’m afraid I have had you transit from the Arctic community into the international scene. I believe they are interrelated.
Senator Oh: Thank you, panel. You mentioned in the fiscal year 2017-18, the artists earned, collectively, more than $$1 million for art-making. What is the breakdown per person?
Mr. Huffman: We work generally with about 100 active artists; so dividing a million by a hundred is —
Senator Oh: $100,000 each.
Mr. Huffman: There you are. That doesn’t mean that each is receiving $100,000; some receive considerably more than others.
Senator Oh: More well-known, bigger-name artists would get more?
Mr. Huffman: Yes. In the contemporary art world, artists with a bigger profile, more active artists, are worth more money. This is the same case in the way we work with our artists. Some of our artists are far more active than others because they teach or they are parents. There are all kinds of reasons why artists would make a certain amount of money and others would make a different amount of money.
Senator Oh: Is most art sold in Canada or internationally?
Mr. Huffman: There is a very healthy Canadian market for the work. That is where most of our galleries are located, if you were to look at the spread, geographically, of who we work with. The United States and Western Europe are hugely growing for us.
Senator Oh: Do you do individual art gallery promotion in order to bring the artists down from the North?
Mr. Huffman: Absolutely. I mentioned earlier we are responsible for navigating artists’ careers in addition to managing the studios in Cape Dorset and our operations in Toronto. I travel extensively with artists, often for professional development purposes. Residency programs, for instance, also with the Brooklyn Museum. We bring artists to Brooklyn once a year for a two-week residency program with the museum. Artists come to exhibitions of their work to illuminate, talk about and interact with the public. Yes, we do that.
Senator Oh: Any comments?
Ms. Procida: Yes. What is happening in Kinngait or Cape Dorset is an example of a wonderfully long-standing and sustainable program. We have a very different role as a sort of national organization but also as a charity. We are not promoting individual artist’s careers in the same sense they are at Dorset Fine Arts.
It’s important to recognize, when we think about an Inuit art economy and market, there are so many different experiences. The infrastructure that has existed for the last 60 years and has been remarkably maintained and so strong in Kinngait or Cape Dorset does not exist in the other 50 communities in Inuit Nunangat. Each region of Inuit Nunangat has different arts policies, support structures, access to materials and to education. It’s our role to try and fill in those gaps as best we can.
One of the best examples recently has been the rise of the public awareness of work from Nunatsiavut, where Gary and Belinda are from, recently, which was almost completely excluded from Inuit art history for decades because they were not considered Inuit.
Our igloo tag program was not allowed to be used on work by Nunatsiavut artists up until the mid-1990s. Even now it’s very inaccessible there, which is one of our priority areas, because these supports are not equitably distributed.
Beyond that, artists are increasingly moving south. They are even further at arm’s length from supports that might be available in the North, which is a counterintuitive way of thinking about it sometimes. We think about the North as being so far removed.
We are also quite interested in these questions about how to make sure artists have the same financial opportunities as they do through WBEC and DFA. How can we promote work and artists internationally? It’s the point of the Inuit Art Quarterly and a number of our other programs, the IAQ Profiles, the trademark. It is internationally recognized as the symbol of authenticity for Inuit artwork.
There is a lot of potential to expand that further, particularly in the circumpolar world. We often think of north to south, and “south” can mean lots of things. Increasingly, there are interesting exchanges that people are interested in seeing happen between Inuit not only in Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Russia, but also from Sámi artists. There is real ground there to explore. Some of that work has been done over the years. There are a lot more opportunities to explore.
Senator Oh: Good artwork and good artists need promotion and good marketing. Thanks for doing a great job.
Ms. Procida: Thank you.
Senator Galvez: Thank you very much for the work you are doing.
I want to follow on the question of Senator Oh about the money the artists receive because that only makes $10,000. What type of life do artists have in the North, in Dorset Fine Arts? What do they own? A house? What are the commodities? Do they have a workshop? What does the selling of their art bring them as far as increasing the quality of their lives?
Mr. Huffman: In Dorset, to parse out the question, in terms of owning property, almost no one owns their house in Cape Dorset. It’s territorial land; it’s rented from the territory. There are a handful of exceptions.
There are a lot of subsidies. You can imagine how expensive it is. You visited the North, I’m sure. It is unbelievable when I do grocery shopping in Cape Dorset to get a bill that is several hundred dollars for something that would be a fraction of that in the south. It’s exceedingly expensive. Without some of the support from the territory, the subsidies from the territory, I don’t think it would be possible for artists or residents to live.
Again, looking at that number $1 million over approximately 100 artists, it would mean there are a number of artists who make a considerable amount of money and function almost entirely to make art, and others who have other vocations such as teaching and working for the government, both at the federal and territorial level.
In terms of the resources to make work, we supply all of the materials to our artists. In a manner of speaking, there is no cost to the artists to produce their work in terms of material expenditures. As Senator Patterson knows, we have a terrific space in Cape Dorset at the cultural centre which is studio space. In fact, many artists do work in the studio. Others choose to work at home. We try to accommodate and make sure there is ample space for artists to produce work.
Without getting into those challenges I didn’t want to talk about, it’s quite arduous in many ways to live in the Arctic. I’ve become accustomed to being there. Having spent enough time there, I realize how difficult it is not just to be an artist — that’s one thing — but just to be a resident of the North.
For us, many of the programs we’ve implemented, the cultural centre is now a hub for what we call the community services round table, where we’re sitting around and discussing what the broader issues are and how can we as a successful cooperative help to infiltrate into health care, nutrition and family services. All of these things touch our artists. With a community of 1,400, many people are involved in either art making or the distribution and presentation of artwork.
We’ve started to look at how to create wellness in our community and for our artists. That’s a big question with a lot of moving parts.
Senator Galvez: Did you want to add something?
Ms. Procida: Yes, I don’t think it’s unusual in the broader art world for artists to often have to take other employment to supplement their art making. That hasn’t always been the case in the North because of the economic incentives provided to encourage the development of the art market there.
One of the opportunities often available or taken advantage of by artists who are not living in the North that is not as available to artists living in the North is to work in other capacities in the arts. There is a well-documented dearth of Inuit arts administrators, writers and curators. That number is increasing, but it’s a priority of ours as well because there are important ways for artists to support themselves through their art making but also to support artistic practice in other ways.
For example, we recently partnered on the Pilimmaksarniq project out of Concordia University, run by Dr. Heather Igloliorte and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It is a seven-year project with many partners in the North and South, to take a concerted effort to build a new generation of Inuit writers, curators and arts administrators. Those people are increasingly working in the North. I know the Kenojuak Cultural Centre is run by Louisa Parr, which is an exciting development there. There is so much room for growth.
Making a living as an artist is challenging in any circumstance. In the North it’s particularly so. We are also looking holistically at how we can support people pursuing careers that are about art practice but in a variety of ways. I think that’s an important piece of the puzzle we often don’t talk about when we talk about the art market. It’s quite different even for me to describe what it’s like to visit the North or live in the North for a period of time or what I see when I look at a work of Inuit art. How different is that when it’s described by an Inuktitut speaker? How different is the curation when someone has that different experience? I think that is an important thing a number of people are working to advance.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Coyle: Thank you both for the work you do. This has been a very important conversation this evening. I have questions for both of you. I’ll try to be brief. My first ones are for you, Mr. Huffman.
With the establishment of the Kenojuak Cultural Centre, I see you were successful in raising private funds along with matching funds from government for the establishment of the centre. I’m curious about the operating costs for the centre and how those are being sustained. Then I’ll ask you a couple of other questions related to your cooperative.
Mr. Huffman: That’s a very good question with a complicated answer. We are looking to all levels of government for operational funding. Currently, we are working with CanNor in order to see what a two-year plan looks like in order to stabilize the organization and to roll out two years of programming and operations and more training for the manager, as Alysa mentioned. We have a locally engaged manager for the facility, which is an amazing development. I’ve spent a lot of time with her in creating many of the structures and building content for the venue.
I think I can answer your question a little more lucidly by the end of the government fiscal year when I’ll know what is happening. At this point it looks like our first assault will be public sector and then from there we’re re-engaging with all of our private sector funders in a robust way in order to reactivate their support as it relates to operations. As you can imagine, once you’ve approached a capital campaign, there’s a bit of a cooling-off period before we go back to our private sector folks.
Senator Coyle: Don’t wait too long.
The Chair: CanNor, the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, has a mandate that appears to fit your objectives and support the artistic economy.
Mr. Huffman: CanNor is an incredibly generous partner, with financing, advice and direction.
Senator Coyle: You’ve both mentioned the economic impact of your work and of arts in the Arctic, even if in many cases — as you mentioned, I believe, Ms. Procida — that artists, no matter where they live in Canada, very often are involved in what I call income patching. That’s just common. You have your income source from a variety of places. The whole idea, as both of you are involved, is to try to help people expand the share of that patching that comes from their art.
I am interested, you started, Mr. Huffman, speaking about the cooperative, looking more generally within the community about issues related to wellness. I’m curious on the individual artists’ perspective, whether you have seen some social impacts of those economic impacts we’ve been discussing on them, their well-being, family life and other aspects.
Mr. Huffman: The short answer is yes. In fact, I work very closely with that. It has a little more to do with the breadth of what the cooperative is responsible for and, in fact, how we engage with our artists. Yes, they make art and they’re given an opportunity and a wage.
Our print makers are a very good example. Print makers work 9 to 5 in the studios and it is a living wage. They do not have another job. They don’t have a side gig. It is print making they profit from.
The other side is some of those print makers have encountered life challenges. The cooperative — it’s mostly my responsibility to work through a lot of those things with our artists. Often my job is about 25 per cent arts-related and 75 per cent social welfare. For me, it’s patching those areas that are deficient in other structures. It’s perhaps because of the relationship we have with our artists. We’re not a government entity. We’re not based in Ottawa or in Iqaluit. We are in Cape Dorset. When someone has a challenge, we’re able to respond very quickly.
The long answer to that question is I think the cooperative is responsible for a lot more than just providing an economic benefit. The fact we can exist and do what we do because we’re able to make a profit off of selling artwork means we can also engage in other ways. The expertise we have in being able to navigate a system of social welfare or of community services or be able to engage in passport clinics or to replace identification or just to counsel artists. I think that’s a really important added benefit to what we do.
Senator Coyle: I do have a supplementary, if there is time later. I know there have been ups and downs. You’ve alluded to that. I’m aware of some ups and downs with the cooperative. You are, however, probably the most successful entity of this type in the Arctic. Am I right?
Mr. Huffman: Arguably.
Senator Coyle: I’ve visited Baker Lake on a number of occasions where things were up, then they were down, and now they look like they might be trying to climb back up. There’s such potential, as we heard earlier, so many people engaged in the arts —
Mr. Huffman: Indeed.
Senator Coyle: — for cultural reasons and economic reasons. It’s all good.
Is your cooperative in any way involved in helping other entities across the Arctic to either emulate what you’re doing or create something that suits their environment to support the arts?
Mr. Huffman: It’s a very good question. I was in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago for a house committee on Canadian Heritage. That was also the question I received. It’s a very good one. It’s one we have been addressing. A couple of years ago we created the Cape Dorset Legacy Project, which is a de facto strategic plan. If you can imagine some of the complexity of what I’ve talked about, you can imagine how difficult it is to build a strategic plan that also includes something like artists’ wellness.
What I think will happen, once we’re able to kind of massage this to a point that it suits our purposes, we can then take the matrix and provide that to other communities who may want to emulate what it is we’re doing.
You’re absolutely right; we’re a very special organization. This is something that isn’t happening anywhere else in the North. I get the question all the time: Why do you think this is the way it is here and not the way it is somewhere else? There’s a variety of ways to look at it. I think it has a lot to do with the very deep community investment in the WBEC. We have always had 100 per cent Inuit board of directors. They have been accountable to the community and the community owns the organization. There are many layers of investment.
You alluded to the fact there is no education structure around fine arts in the North. Mentorship is what keeps this place alive. It’s what keeps Cape Dorset art alive. I think there is something so profound about how these artists have learned from their previous generation and so on. This is a remarkable mechanism.
Senator Coyle: Do you see potential for some degree of proliferation of the model?
Mr. Huffman: I would hope so. It gets very political. I’m from Toronto, and Dorset has a bit of a Toronto complex. Everybody says, “Dorset always gets this and people always support Dorset,” and Dorset is well known. There is a bit of having to navigate that relationship with the rest of the North. But, as I mentioned, I think we have a great deal to offer. I think a lot of the philosophy we are responsible for is important.
Senator Coyle: Thank you.
Senator Dasko: I found your presentations to be really interesting. I’ve learned an awful lot. I like the Toronto connection, of course; I think that’s just great. I’m happy to hear about that.
I am fascinated by the fact that 26 per cent of the Inuit population are artists. I can’t think of any other society in the world where that would be the case. That’s unique.
The Chair: Are you going to ask why?
Senator Dasko: Well, I’m going to ask a few probing questions. Sorry for the preamble.
The Chair: I’m wondering why, if you have any explanation.
Go ahead, senator.
Senator Dasko: Why is so much of the population artists? Do they learn to be artists from traditional sources? Do they go to art school at all? Is it all traditional sources? Does it run in families? Are there family traditions of being an artist? Is that how it evolves? Is there some other process?
You mentioned some artists move South. How many have moved South? Is it a high proportion or is it almost none?
Are there a lot of women artists or does it follow along male lines? Often it is the case if it’s coming from traditional sources, there may be traditional groups within the population who are artists and others who are not artists.
I’m interested in the artist population, and if you can answer any of those questions, either of you.
Ms. Procida: I can try to break those numbers down a bit and provide some historical context. I think part of the reason there’s such a high population of artists in the North — first of all, I should clarify the 13,000 number for you. Of that number, approximately 4,120 people are full-time artists who are pursuing a career as a profession, which is still an unbelievable number for the size of the population. The remainder are working primarily for either supplementary income or consumption. That’s either for personal use, for family use, for sale, for swapping, or some portion of their income, as we’ve been discussing.
Historically — I don’t want to sort of become like an ethnographer — Inuit have a long tradition of art-making. Tattooing practices is a graphic tradition. Making things is a sculptural tradition that would be used on the land. Quite a bit of this has to do with cultural practices but also with historical realities. In the 1940s the government was interested in moving the Inuit on to a wage economy as Inuit were being moved into settlements. The arts were one of the ways that was explored.
Cooperatives and other organizations were established to encourage Inuit to start making work for sale in the South. It’s an interesting situation because what was a move towards colonialism also became a site of cultural resiliency for people. Art-making is, has been and continues to be a site where artists are able to enact their culture in real time over and over again. That has maintained an important through line in the quick development and changes over the past five or six decades in the North.
To your question about gender, I joke that if you were to put on a retrospective of Canadian sculptors over the last several hundred years, you’d have a higher population of Inuit female artists than female artists of any other ethnicity or group.
The arts don’t necessarily cut in that way. Textile work does tend to be dominated by women, as does jewellery making. But even then, some of the most well-known jewellers are men. Disciplines are as broad as we can imagine them to be. People are moving south to go to school — not in huge numbers, but increasingly that is an option that people are going to — often to Concordia, the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, OCAD, University of Winnipeg, Carleton University as well. These are big places where there are relatively large populations of urban Inuit. There’s already an established community. Those artists are doing interesting conceptual work, film, all sorts of things.
One of the things we try to highlight with our work is there are so many different kinds of experiences when it comes to Inuit artists. They often learn through family traditions but also sometimes by experimentation or having to cut your own path or going to school. It is very individual and situation-specific.
An incredible amount of art is being made. I think it’s only getting bigger. The study that Senator Bovey and I referenced is the first one to comprehensively look at all of Inuit Nunangat in the South, as well as the secondary market, and work being produced by Inuit, for Inuit. That segment of the market and art production that primarily stays in the North is not something we often think or talk about, but it is a huge, growing part of art production in the North. That’s not just within Canada but also in the circumpolar north. A number of jewellers, for example, that I speak to who sell online are increasingly selling to Alaskan artists or people in Greenland. That also creates other barriers, because sealskin jewellery cannot be exported. Those legal barriers become additional structural impediments to artists expanding those markets. It is still growing very rapidly. I’m not sure if that answers your question.
Senator Dasko: Yes, it does. Thank you.
The Chair: Thanks very much.
Senator Bovey: I want to take it forward. I’m very grateful for all you’ve said. When you talk about Inuit artists in the South, we have to take a look at Abraham Anghik Ruben who set up his carving school on Salt Spring Island and does amazing work. Our chair and I had the privilege of being in Finland recently for the Arctic Circle meetings. We represent part of the Canadian representation. While arts and culture weren’t the focus of that series of meetings, what came out loudly and clearly were the importance of language and culture. We did hear from a number of Sami. Yes, we talk about other Inuit communities across Holman Island. I remember taking an exhibition of their work to Norway many, many years ago.
Let’s put on that circumpolar hat. Let’s put on the Northern hat in whichever communities you want. What are the recommendations we should be making on what we’re really talking about tonight are strong Arctic people and communities? We’ve obviously gone over into the Arctic in a global context. What would you recommend we should be putting forward in our recommendations to the federal government as they take a look at this Arctic Framework?
Mr. Huffman: For me it’s a simple answer to the question. I think there need to be local solutions. I don’t think the territory is able — it’s, as you know, a vast, vast tract of land and it varies from edge to edge and top to bottom. I look at the way we function and how effectively we can function when we can focus on that community, the community that I service in Cape Dorset.
Again, these are discussions in early stages with all kinds of other agencies: How can we better be deployed? How can we better use our connections to the artists and the broader community in Cape Dorset to be able to deliver either resources or project programs? I think it has to be at the local level. I don’t know what structurally that would look like. Nonetheless the thinking needs to start there and move up from that point.
The Chair: Now, you mentioned — if I may, Senator Bovey — in your presentation the Canada Council in addition to changing maybe some of these barriers needs to try to find a way of having a local presence for grant officers. Can you elaborate a bit on that.
Mr. Huffman: It’s a discussion that — it’s not a unique idea. If you look at the Ontario Arts Council has regional representatives. It makes a very big difference when you have somebody from your community or your region who is able to interface in a way that — it’s about a comfort level. It’s about an understanding culturally of what — and I say that — regions across Ontario function differently from other regions across Ontario. Looking at the Arctic, that’s even more profound.
Again, those discussions with the Canada Council — they’re preliminary and in early stages — is how do you look at this system that clearly does not work and look at the things that do work in the Arctic or in the North and adapt?
Part of what I found irreconcilable in a way was that there is such a priority for the North, yet the programs don’t prioritize the North. For me, it’s — sure, we can have more discussions and delegations and we can do all kinds of thinking about it. There are already structures in place that work and why we can’t activate those, enhance those to allow for a bigger pipeline of things to materialize.
Senator Bovey: You talked about the exhibition you co-curated, that’s going to come South?
Mr. Huffman: That will come South.
Senator Bovey: Then we have the Winnipeg Art Gallery building, the Inuit Art Centre with Inuit curators working along with Darlene Coward Wight, going to be taking work North. We’re meeting with them next week.
Mr. Huffman: Nice.
Senator Bovey: That will box this compass. What are the needs to make those exchanges happen?
Ms. Procida: I think ultimately what it has to come down to is building capacity and empowering Inuit throughout Inuit Nunangat to have more self-determination in the pursuit of their artistic careers. That can look like a lot of things. It’s a very broad statement in what you’re examining.
I would first recommend and really second the recommendations that Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami is making about infrastructure investments. We work very closely with them. I don’t need to tell you, I’m sure, just how challenging it is to work with these — the dearth of infrastructure in the North compared to what we have in the South. It should not be almost impossible for us to publish an interview with an artist in Kugaaruk simply by virtue of the fact they live in Kugaaruk and we can’t get them on the phone and we cannot access them by Internet. That’s not necessarily easily solved, but that is a solution that would be very helpful.
Telecommunications infrastructure. I think a broad range of infrastructure investments in housing, in wellness, as Will was mentioning, I think is critical to overall wellness, which is represented in the arts. Arts are a component of that. I don’t know if you’re speaking to Qaggiavuut, which is the society for Performing Arts Centre in Iqaluit, which is really the performing arts organization in the North. They’ve developed amazing multifaceted programs that are about strengthening performing arts throughout Inuit Nunangat but also wellness and health and cultural resilience. Much like Dorset Fine Arts and WBEC has a very effective visual arts model, other models are being developed for other disciplines in other communities.
The grant officer question is an important one, and figuring out how to effectively develop and deliver those services. I think this requires different solutions for different regions and different communities, which each have very different histories with art production and development.
There’s many additional pieces to this. I think the Kenojuak Cultural Centre is an important site as a place to exhibit work. There is not a dedicated museum in the North, which I think needs to be a priority to think through. There is the Nunatta Museum in Iqaluit. But the Government of Nunavut’s collection is housed at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, where it is being digitized and well cared for and exhibited and displayed in some ways throughout the territory. A comprehensive large museum — it’s a bit odd I can see more Inuit art in Toronto than necessarily when I go to a community in Inuit Nunangat depending on the day because so much of it leaves. I think there’s a number of things that could be done in terms of export supports, of assisting people with navigating that process, learning more about the arts as a business and a discipline. I think that requires investing in the University of the Arctic, which is being moved forward.
These aren’t new solutions. I think pushing back around the seal ban and the Marine Mammal Protection Act as much as possible to help artists who are working with marine mammal products, which are incredible and important to Inuit wellness as well as art-making and economic development activities. These are all important pieces of this puzzle.
Senator Bovey: Am I right or wrong in layering some of the social issues — I think one of the saddest stories of Canada’s last few years was Annie Pootoogook and her death here in Ottawa. I’m glad you did her Revisiting Annie Pootoogook: The Spirit, the Self and Other Stories. I’m going to ask an education question in terms of general education and curriculum: Does anywhere take a look at the work of Inuit artists as source material the way we look at southern writers as source material, because really the histories are visual as opposed to written.
Ms. Procida: Yes, I think arts education, particularly in the North, I think we both mentioned, has quite a long way to go, despite it being such an important part of people’s work, such an important part of the culture.
Senator Bovey: I think I’ll stop, sir.
The Chair: Thank you. You mentioned revenue from copyright, over $100,000. That’s a federal jurisdiction. There is a federal act.
Is that in need of improvement? Can you tell briefly, or later, if you have any advice about that with respect to artists?
Mr. Huffman: In fact, the house committee was about copyright and artist remuneration in the context of copyright.
My observation to that committee was we are really, in the North, the only organization doing what we’re doing. It’s a very sophisticated system. We have one expert dedicated to managing copyright. One of the remarks I made was we can police it only so much, like if someone is honest enough to come and say they want to use The Enchanted Owl on a postage stamp and remunerate the artist to whatever standard we are using.
Other times we catch people. Inuit art is seen as something you can put on a T-shirt or put in an annual report. You can use it as though it didn’t have ownership.
For me, it wasn’t the deficiency in the existing copyright legislation. It was about how we can provide other communities with the tools to manage their own copyright. We do often have phone calls from other communities, other community centres or local governments asking why we are just managing Cape Dorset copyrights. “Can you do ours too?” Of course, we are the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative. There is a need in the North for the service.
Ms. Procida: It is not strictly about copyright. In terms of protection for artists in general, because I manage a trademark, we think a lot about trademark law. One thing I hear from artists quite often is that while the Igloo Tag is effective in combating and pushing back against fraudulent work, it lacks the teeth that some other Indigenous artists enjoy in other countries, like in the United States with the Indian Arts and Craft Act. Legal protections for Inuit artists and other Indigenous artists’ work. There are models in different countries I think might be useful explore. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Thanks for your testimony.
Mr. Huffman, you gave great tribute to the Inuit ownership and involvement in the development of the Inuit art industry. They are very encouraging indicators. I think it’s appropriate to say there were people like James Houston and Terry Ryan and George Swinton. There is a long list, including people associated with the West Baffin Eskimo Coop, who encouraged that ownership and leadership from Inuit. I think we have had two splendid examples of that here tonight in our witnesses.
Thank you very much again.
(The committee adjourned.)