Honourable senators, I rise to speak to Senator Bovey’s inquiry that calls upon the Senate to renew and further our interest in Arctic issues and to support her suggestion that we consider establishing a committee of some complexion — probably a special Senate committee — to continue the important work that was initiated by the Special Senate Committee on the Arctic in the previous Parliament.

The committee’s report, Northern Lights: A wake-up call for the future of Canada, provided a good starting point to the Senate of Canada’s engagement on Arctic matters. However, as any of the committee’s members will attest, we were really just starting to scratch the surface on this critically important and very diverse region of our country. The committee, which was launched on the recommendation of former Senator Charlie Watt from Nunavik, ended up making 30 recommendations on matters ranging from healthy economies, culture, science, Indigenous knowledge and environmental conservation to the Arctic in a global context.

Our colleague Senator Patterson capably chaired the committee after Senator Watt retired from the Senate to return to Makivik Corporation. The idea was to relate to and influence Canada’s Arctic and Northern Policy Framework, which came out last September, three months after the Senate committee report came out.

I rise today to contribute to this inquiry as a member of that Special Senate Committee on the Arctic, which looked at the significant and rapid changes in the Arctic and impacts on its original inhabitants. I also rise as a person with a keen interest in the Arctic, partially due to having family connections in Nunatsiavut, Nunavut and now in the Yukon. And I rise as a professional in rural community development, as a Canadian committed to reconciliation with our Indigenous neighbours and as someone who appreciates the strength and potential of Arctic peoples and their territories.

Earlier this session, when I introduced an inquiry on pathways to meet Canada’s net-zero emissions targets, you heard me refer to Canada as an Arctic nation and to the fact that much of the Arctic is Indigenous land. I also described the Arctic as the Earth’s air conditioner.

Nunavik’s Sheila Watt-Cloutier, former International Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council and author of The Right to be Cold, reinforces this. She said:

The ice is our life source. It is a giving nurturing mother energy. It is our university, it is our supermarket and the ice is about the health and wellbeing of an entire people who live at the top of the world.

She also writes:

For the Inuit, ice is much more than frozen water, it is our highways, our training ground and our life force. It’s something we thought of as permanent as mountains and rivers in the south. But, in my generation, the Arctic sea ice and snow, upon which we Inuit have depended for millennia, is now diminishing.

She goes on to say:

If you protect the Arctic, you save the planet. . . .

This is not Las Vegas.

. . . what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. Everything is connected through our common atmosphere, not to mention our common spirit and our common humanity.

Fellow Nunavik leader, former President of the ITK and more recently Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Special Representative on the Arctic, Mary Simon, published her report in 2017 on a new Shared Arctic Leadership Model. In the report, Mary Simon said:

I heard repeated accounts of the impact of a warming Arctic on food security, infrastructure, housing, and safety on the land and sea. The message was very clear: an adaptation strategy and implementation plan for the Arctic must become a national priority within Canada’s climate change commitments.

While visiting Iqaluit in September 2018 with the special Senate committee, we heard first-hand from members of the Chamber of Commerce about the complex and serious effects of climate change on safe drinking water supply for that community. With changes in precipitation patterns, the level of the lake that was the source of drinking water had gone down significantly. Water was scarce. To add insult to injury, the permafrost on which the above-ground utilidor, which carried and distributed the water throughout the community, was melting. This caused the utilidor to buckle and break in some places, resulting in the loss of the already preciously scarce water. That’s a double whammy for that community. In the Northwest Territories, we heard about people’s homes falling into the sea. In the Yukon, we heard about the growing dangers of wildfires.

I could go on for days about the calamitous climate change impacts across the Arctic, as the imperatives for mitigation, resilience and adaptation are urgent, but it’s important to mention other Arctic priorities as well.

Aluki Kotierk, President of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., Nunavut’s land claims organization, recently wrote to me in an email:

I am glad to hear that you are working to revive the special committee on the Arctic. The Arctic is part of Canada. It has the longest Canadian coastline and has an incredibly deep imprint on the Canadian identity. Inuit have contributed as human flagpoles to Canadian sovereignty and Canada takes pride in symbols of identity that come from Inuit culture, such as the inukshuk, kayak, etc.

She continues:

Inuit are Canadians, yet the social determinants of health indicate that Inuit fall far below other Canadians in terms of food security, high school graduation, health access, employment numbers, etc. and are much higher in terms of suicides completed, incarceration, violence, etc. This requires special attention to be able to address these issues face on and ensure that all Canadians are able to enjoy the same standards.

We know that seven out of ten Inuit children go to bed hungry every night and so we need to see the growth in economy translate into the pockets of Inuit.

Another Arctic woman leader, Caroline Cochrane, Premier of the Northwest Territories, said:

I came to the table looking at not only what we could do for the North, but also what the North can do for the rest of Canada.

Colleagues, as mentioned earlier, we have the new Canada’s Arctic and Northern Policy Framework. This framework was informed by Canada’s commitment to the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and has the same time frame — that is, 10 years from now.

The eight goals and related 67 objectives spelled out in the framework will guide the federal government’s investments and activities over the next 10 years. These include the following: nurture healthy families and communities; invest in the energy, transportation and communications infrastructure that Northern and Arctic governments, economies and communities need; create jobs, foster innovation, and grow Arctic and Northern economies; support science, knowledge and research that is meaningful for communities and for decision-making; face the effects of climate change and support healthy ecosystems; ensure that Canada and our Northern and Arctic residents are safe, secure and well defended; restore Canada’s place as an international Arctic leader; advance reconciliation; and improve relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.