Canadia Foreign Minister Peter McKay's decision last month to let go of two Ambassadors to the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) is part of a growing trend of the government reducing Northern participation, say critics. A lack of Northern consultation on environmental issues is a key part of that trend, they say.
"If we don't keep up that [Ambassadorial] level of representation, it gives a signal to other Arctic nations that we are giving less priority to the North and Arctic issues," said President of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) and past ICC Ambassador Mary Simon. The ITK is the national Canadian Inuit organisation, representing over 45,000 Inuit in four major Canadian regions. The ICC is their international organization, representing Inuit living across Canada, Alaska, Greenland, and Russia.
"It is unfortunate that the Conservative government is getting rid of Northerners and putting bureaucrats in positions where Northerners could be interacting with other Northerners around the world," said Dennis Bevington, NDP Member of Parliament for the Western Arctic.
Bevington believes that polar conditions are politically sensitive, whether they are issues of sovereignty, economic development, exploitation of natural resources, or climate change.
With respect to the latter, the government's introduction of the Clean Air Act is a case in point. The ITK was not consulted on the Act, Simon told The Epoch Times.
"Our position is, we should be consulted on those types of issues because they affect us daily up in the communities," she said.
Spokesperson for Environment Minister Rona Ambrose Shannon Haggarty, however, says that aboriginal and Inuit groups, including the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, were part of the consultation process.
But the specifics of the Act have left Beavington doubting that the Northern voice was indeed heard.
"The Clean Air Act is a very narrow prescriptive device to reduce some air pollution in Canadian cities but really doesn't answer the larger question of air borne pollution in the North," he lamented.
"It certainly doesn't answer the question of climate change issues which are global in nature."
It is unclear if the alleged reduction in Northern participation is a result of the Tory government specifically, or a trend in government in general.
"Many fine words have been spoken during election campaigns about the importance of the North and the need for action there…but these words are rarely followed by action," said a 2005-06 report by the Canadian Polar Commission, a government agency dedicated to leading Polar research and education.
"Despite steadily rising costs the Commission has not had an increase in its annual budget in eight years. The operating budget is in fact less than at the Commission's establishment in 1991," reported Commission Board of Directors Chair Tom Hutchinson.
The Northern Perspective
Earlier this month, Arctic scientists, hunters, writers and politicians held a press conference on Parliament Hill to drive home a message: Inuit lives are changing rapidly with climate change.
Even the traditional Inuit greeting, "It's a nice, beautiful day," has fallen into disuse.
Canada's Inuit aren't greeting each other in the time-honoured way because Arctic residents are less and less hunting, fishing and sharing food the way they used to, said Polar bear hunter Jerry Arquiq.
"We survive on animals, that's why we came to sound the alarm in Ottawa."
Toxins in the North have given red polar bear meat a yellowish tinge, affecting the health of the bears and people who eat their meat, he asserted.
Arquiq, and others warned politicians about rapidly melting ice, rising sea levels and the impending extinction of polar bears. Their message: No ice means no food for the bears.
Starving, skinny polar bears have been moving south into communities for approximately the last ten years in search of food, and stories of bears mauling people to death are becoming common, said Arquiq.
Yellowknife author Darren Keith asserted that local understanding is crucial to the polar bear issue.
"No one has a deeper knowledge and [a more] respectful understanding of relations with polar bears than the Inuit," he said. Keith's and Arquiq's book, "Inuit knowledge of polar bears" was launched at the Ottawa Writer's Festival on the day of the press conference.
Former Nunavut Commissioner Peter Irniq said that melting permafrost also means many accidents, including hunters falling through ice and homes and communities being washed away.
With the spring coming earlier and the fall later, non-native species such as robins are moving north in Rankin inlet, he said. Conversely, many local species such as Caribou are on the decline.
"They don't have the adaptability to climate change conditions," said Bevington, noting that there has been a sixty to seventy percent decline in herd size.
The press conference topics echoed the findings of the 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessement (ACIA) report, which concluded that the Arctic was warming at a faster rate than any other place on earth, significantly due to the release of green house gases from human activities. It further asserted that this in turn was creating a "green house effect" in the Arctic, melting the ice, impacting species and people whose traditional way of life is dependent on the water staying frozen.
"We as Canadians have to look in the mirror and take the hard decision necessary to change our green house gas producing way of life," said Arquiq.
Simon, also attending the press conference, admitted that development in the region is inevitable and can be a positive force. However, it has to be closely monitored and not allowed to get out of control.
"A lot of development in the North is unsustainable because proper environmental assessments and impact on the local people are not taken into account," she said.
The 45,000 Canadian Inuit live in fifty three scattered Arctic communities in Nunatsiavut (Labrador); Nunavik (Quebec); Nunavut; and the Inuvialuit settlement region of the North West Territories.
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