GUEST COLUMN — Nunavut looks to the future

A positive new investment climate is evident in the Northwest Territories now that the Inuit land claim has been settled.

The negative attitude expressed by retired publisher emeritus M.R. Brown (“Carrying aboriginals costly,” T.N.M., Dec. 28/92), with all his experience with the mining industry, is curious. In general, major mining companies operating in the N.W.T. support the land-claim settlement and favor the new climate of cooperation among governments, the mining industry and aboriginal organizations.

A January issue of News/North positively glowed about the “consensus for major mine development north above 60” which emerged from a recent round of meetings on the future of northern mining attended by federal Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Tom Siddon, aboriginal leaders, and N.W.T. and Yukon government leaders Nellie Cournoyea and John Ostashek. The main reason for the support from aboriginal people in the North is that through land claims, they will for the first time have a say in development decisions and for the first time they will have a piece of the action. The Inuit have acquired a modest 5% share of royalties from resources on lands they have always considered their own. This provides a clear incentive to find ways to support mineral development where none has existed before. Enlightened, progressive mining industry representatives see the aboriginal people as partners whose cash compensation payments may well provide investment capital for infrastructure such as hydro and roads, to support opportunities for servicing the mining industry.

The Inuit welcome the acceptance by modern mining companies that a new era is upon us where a mining development will succeed when it achieves the full involvement of indigenous people, as employees, advisers and guardians of the environment. For example, Minnova Inc., which is working closely and co-operatively with the Inuit in planning a major project at Izok Lake, realized that mining companies can no longer operate in isolation. Another previous barrier to mining and other resource development that has been eliminated by the settlement of land claims is security of title. Also, the Inuit believe that their use and occupancy of their lands, in the harsh arctic environment, have established sovereignty for Canada and buttressed Canada’s claim to these lands.

Division of the N.W.T. represents only the last logical subdivision of the vast area of Rupert’s Land from which Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were created around the turn of the century. Although the population is still small and the tax base is fragile, the present N.W.T. covers a huge area: one third of the land mass of Canada and the largest coastline, stretching over three time zones and bordering directly on seven provinces.

The new government will be more efficient and responsive to local needs. Inuktitut will be the working language. The new government will take full advantage of existing regional infrastructure and maximize northern native employment through an extensive training program until 1999. Nunavut will be a public government. Any citizen of Nunavut — native or non-native — can run for legislative office or work in the Nunavut government. This will be a government building on an existing decentralized administration which, as it happens, will likely have an Inuit majority for the foreseeable future. The new government’s jurisdiction and boundaries will coincide with that of the Inuit land claim.

We foresee, with the new stable investment climate and the incentives for Inuit to support and participate in development, that there will be more development and a better private tax base in Nunavut.

The investment of the Canadian government in the settlement of the Inuit land claim and the new Nunavut government will not be an impediment. It will be an investment in future prosperity through cooperative development of Northern resources for the benefit of all Canadians.

— Jack Kupeuna is vice-president of the Tungavik Federation of Nunavut, Yellowknife, N.W.T.