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TODD PHILLIPS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Nunavut's leaders moved closer last weekend to creating the world's first legislative assembly that guarantees an equal number of seats for men and women.
After two days of intense debate, 72 per cent of delegates at a Nunavut leaders' meeting in Iqaluit voted in principle for the Nunavut Implementation Commission's "gender parity" proposal.
Under that idea, each constituency in Nunavut would be represented by two members one elected by all voters from a list of males, and the other elected by all voters from a list of females.
Not a done deal
The results of last weekend's vote aren't binding on any government. And the proposal still has hurdles to clear including approval by the federal cabinet.
Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin said this week more discussion is needed, and he expects leaders will talk about it again at a February meeting.
The minister added that the leaders who met in Iqaluit made it clear they were a "discussion group" and hadn't reached any firm decision.
"We are watching and listening. It's a very difficult decision that has to be made," Irwin said in Iqaluit Wednesday before heading a 28-member trade delegation to Nuuk, Greenland.
A historic vote
But Nunavut leaders and officials at the meeting described the debate, and the outcome of the vote, as "a historic moment."
"If it goes through and we go ahead with this, I think other Canadians should appreciate that we are breaking new ground," John Amagoalik, the NIC's chief commissioner, said last Sunday after the vote.
"I sincerely believe that this is the direction where the world is heading."
Amagoalik changes minds
Amagoalik, a strong backer of the proposal, was urged by several leaders to step aside as chairman of the meeting to speak freely about the proposal.
The man who's often called "The Father of Nunavut" said it's important to restore balance to Inuit society by bringing about a reconciliation between men and women.
"We all know that our society is in a mess. It's in a mess because we have been out of kilter," Amagoalik said.
"In the old days when we were living in camps, the father and mother always had equal value. Their work was considered to have equal value."
That was disrupted when Inuit began to move from their outpost camps into communities about 40 years ago, he said.
After that, Amagoalik said, men and women found they didn't necessarily need one another.
But if the people of Nunavut are to fix their society, he said they have to restore the importance of the family, and of equal respect for men and women.
Not a merit system
Amagoalik dismissed criticisms that adopting the commission's gender parity model means people won't be elected on merit.
"People say that if we accept this system that it somehow will take away from the democratic rights of people. I don't see that. It doesn't prevent anyone from running," Amagoalik said.
"People will still vote for people they think is the best, and people who deserve it will continue to win."
The 25 leaders represent a cross-section of Inuit and non-Inuit from Nunavut's three regions.
In a secret ballot, 18 voted in favor, 3 against and four abstained. Seven of those votes, however, came from unelected members of the NIC.
Leaders had finished talking about gender parity on Saturday, but reopened debate the next day. That's when Amagoalik surprised everyone with his decision to conduct a straw poll, which, he assured them, isn't binding.
Anawak still opposed
Nunatsiaq MP Jack Anawak downplayed the significance of the vote, saying it only reflects the views of the 25 people who sat around the table last weekend and not the views of the majority of Nunavut's elected leaders.
"There is no decision made," Anawak said in an interview Sunday.
Anawak said several times during the meeting he doesn't much like the idea.
"I think it should not matter whether you are female or male. I think the people should be given the option to choose," Anawak said in Inuktitut on Saturday.
Anawak did say that he would respect the wishes of the majority of his constituents, and help make the necessary changes to the Nunavut Act
NIC officials say the vote gives them the mandate they need to recommend gender parity in a supplementary report they're expected to present next month to Ottawa, the GNWT, and Nunavut Tunngavik.
They also say that if the leaders had rejected the proposal at this meeting, it likely would have died.
Amagoalik sent Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin a letter on Sunday briefing him on the debate and the outcome of vote.
Pleased with outcome
"I feel very good about it. Until now, it was very difficult to gauge as to where this issue was in terms of public support," Amagoalik said. "After two days of intense negotiations, we're finding that the leaders are now beginning to get behind the proposal."
For Amagoalik, that means the more people understand the proposal, the more they are in favor of it. Amagoalik said the commission will now try to explain the issue to the public.
The Nunavut Implementation Commission makes recommendations to Ottawa, the Government of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut's Inuit land claim body on the make up and design of the Nunavut government.
Back to Nunatsiaq News
Some Indian leaders are calling for Ron Irwin's resignation and warning of violence if Ottawa doesn't act on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Reaction among Inuit leaders has been more subdued.
TODD PHILLIPS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin said this week it would be "craziness" for Ottawa to shelve the $58 million Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal Peoples.
Irwin was reacting to calls for his resignation by some native leaders who feel Ottawa won't act on any of the commission's 400 recommendations.
"It would be craziness to spend that much money and have two very eminent people surrounded by some very significant people spend so much time gathering all this information and writing it down to shelve it," Irwin said Wednesday in Iqaluit.
"No government is going to do that."
Irwin said he plans to filter out the views of those who think Ottawa does too much for aboriginal people and those who think the problems of Canada's aboriginal peoples can be solved overnight.
"Those groups are almost discarded. What we want to do is for the broad public aboriginal and non-aboriginal to read the report and study it and have an honest and good dialogue."
Irwin was in Iqaluit to lead a 28-member business and cultural delegation of business and political leaders to Nuuk, Greenland.
"It's nice to get away from Ottawa and the [Assembly of First Nations] for a couple of days," Irwin told the group of mostly Inuit leaders.
"No one's asking for my resignation here?" Irwin said jokingly, prompting laughter from the leaders.
Inuit reaction
Some Inuit leaders say they are disappointed the report didn't deal more with issues in northern Canada, and others say they hope Ottawa will act on the recommendations.
"I am not so reassured, but I am hoping that the federal government will take this report seriously, because it's the first very detailed examination of aboriginal life in this country," said Rosemarie Kuptana, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference.
"I was really happy to see that there was a special section devoted to the North, but I thought the report was missing the significant event of Nunavut," she said in an interview in Iqaluit.
She said the fact that Inuit are changing the map of Canada didn't get the kind of attention she feels it deserves.
Kuptana adds that she was happy the report did deal with the issue of the High Arctic exiles.
Inuit not consulted
NTI President Jose Kusugak says the report deals mostly with the concerns of Indians, but he will search through for the parts of the report, like housing and youth issues, that apply to Inuit.
"We always maintained that we didn't have much input into the actual submissions. It was more of an 'Indian thing' for us," Kusugak said this week in Iqaluit.
Makivik President Zebedee Nungak says he'll reserve judgment on whether the $58 million was well spent until he sees if Ottawa acts on some of the report's 400 recommendations.
"I have all five volumes thicker than the Bible and all 4,000 pages sitting here on my desk," Makivik President Zebedee Nungak said last week.
"It's a map that could be used, but it depends on whether the governments of the country genuinely commit themselves to using this map."
Nungak also echoed NTI President Jose Kusugak's complaint that there wasn't enough in the report that looked at the life of Inuit in the north.
"I share Jose [Kusugak's] point that mention of the Arctic, the North and the Inuit is very spare throughout the report," Nungak said. "That does not mean what is said is utterly useless."
Nungak said Makivik would have more to say at a conference sponsored by McGill University in Montreal in January.
Irwin won't resign
Although some native leaders say he should resign, Irwin says he has no plans to do that.
Irwin said he thinks Chief Ovide Mercredi is wasting the few months left he has in his term by calling for his resignation.
He said Treaty 6 elders he met with last week in Alberta urged him to stay on as minister.
"I learned one thing from the elders. If you have nothing good to say about someone you say nothing. So when it comes to Ovide I'd prefer to say nothing."
Kusugak says Inuit of Nunavut have always had a good relationship with Irwin.
"We have no beef with anybody, except the minister of justice," Kusugak said, referring to Inuit opposition to Allan Rock's unpopular gun control legislation.
Address by co-commissioners Rene Dussault and George Erasmus
DIAND press release on launching of RCAP report
John Amagoalik on the RCAP report
Back to Nunatsiaq News
Here's our summary of the massive report issued last week by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.
JIM BELL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT It was the biggest and costliest royal commission in Canadian history.
Since the fall of 1991, members of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples visited 96 communities, held 178 days of hearings, heard from 2,067 people, sponsored 350 research projects, and gathered more than 76,000 pages of testimony.
And they spent $58 million to produce a massive five-volume report that came thumping down upon desks all over Ottawa last Thursday.
Here's our best attempt to summarize the report's 440 recommendations:
The Royal Commission says first that "the community and the collective" play a large role in the aboriginal person's sense of identity. "He or she is unlikely to be comfortable with the individualism that many Euro-Canadians take pride in."
Secondly, the Royal Commission says aboriginal people have very different ways of governing and resolving conflicts than what non-aboriginal people are used to. "Involvement of the family and the clan are necessary for a sense of legitimacy," the commission says.
The inherent right to self-government is "firmly anchored in history and in law," the commissioners say. And they say that the inherent right to self-government was an "existing" aboriginal and treaty right under constitutional amendments adopted in 1982.
The also say that aboriginal governments should be considered a "third order of government."
The Royal Commission says self-government will not work if the primary unit of governance is the individual reserve or community of which there are more than 1,000 in Canada.
Instead, it should be carried out with larger political units based on the 60-80 aboriginal nations in Canada.
"The aboriginal nation is not and would not be a race-based concept. It is cultural and political... It comprises people of mixed heritage and background. Nationhood is a question of political and cultural bonds, not blood," the commission says.
Lastly, the commission says aboriginal governments must have an adequate land and resource base. They point out that many aboriginal lands have been illegally expropriated by governments without compensation. And they say that legally, aboriginal peoples have a legal right to an expanded land base, and a share in the management of Crown or public land.
The Royal Commission wants Canada's Prime Minister, along with all provincial and territorial premiers to hold a meeting with Canada's aboriginal leaders as soon as possible.
That meeting would negotiate the following:
The commission also says Canadian governments should ask Her Majesty the Queen to issue a new Royal Proclamation that would commit the government of Canada to introduce companion legislation changing the relationship between Canada and aboriginal peoples.
(The first Royal Proclamation, issued in 1763 by King George III, is now considered to be an unofficial "charter of aboriginal rights" and the foundation of aboriginal rights law in Canada.)
The commission says Ottawa should create a new three-fold treaty process to interpret historic treaties in light of their spirit and intent; to fulfill the terms of existing treaties; and to make new treaties with aboriginal nations that wish to enter them.
In addition, the Royal Commission says Parliament should pass the following new laws:
The commission says that over the next 15-20 years, Ottawa should spend $1.5 billion to $2 billion more a year to alleviate economic and social conditions in aboriginal communities. They say that "somewhere between year 15 and 20, government gains will be higher than the new investment we are calling for.
Other measures recommended by the Royal Commission include:
It's not easy to get copies of the report.
You have to buy them from a bookstore that carries government publications or from the Canada Communications Group in Hull, Quebec.
The CGC's address and phone numbers are:
Canada Communication Group Publishing Phone: 1-819-956-4802
45 Sacre-Coeur Boulevard
Hull, Quebec
KIA 0S9
Fax: 1-819-994-1498
There's also a CD-ROM version of the report available, at a cost of $350.
Address by co-commissioners Rene Dussault and George Erasmus
DIAND press release on launching of RCAP report
John Amagoalik on the RCAP report
Back to Nunatsiaq News
Ron Irwin says he's ready to sit down with Premier Don Morin and Jose Kusugak to pick Nunavut's interim commissioner.
TODD PHILLIPS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT You couldn't throw a snowball inside Iqaluit's Parish Hall last weekend without hitting a potential interim commissioner for Nunavut.
That's where many of Nunavut's political leaders had gathered for a two-day meeting on Nunavut's future legislative assembly.
At least five people there are being seriously considered for the prestigious and powerful job.
The interim commissioner is expected to play a vital role in the period leading up to the creation of the Nunavut territory on April 1, 1999.
When appointed, the commissioner will oversee a budget of about $10 million until 1999.
He or she will have the power to hire the senior staff of Nunavut's public service, negotiate funding and labor agreements on behalf of the Nunavut government, make decisions on the division of assets and liabilities between Nunavut and the NWT, and deal with other administrative issues.
Who's in the race?
Nunatsiaq MP Jack Anawak has already been interviewed for the job.
People working for Caldwell Partners, the executive search firm hired to conduct the search and to screen candidates, have also interviewed other people some in Iqaluit last weekend.
Other contenders who were at last weekend's meeting arePeter Ernerk, a member of the Nunavut Implementation Commission, Iqaluit MayorJoe Kunuk,Ken MacRury, the former regional director for the Baffin region, andMarius Tungilik, formerly the regional director for the Keewatin and now acting communications director for Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.
Helen Klengenberg, a wildlife coordinator with Nunavut Tunngavik in Cambridge Bay, has also been nominated as a candidate.
Sources have told Nunatsiaq News that the other candidates areformer high-level bureaucrats with the federal government,andanother from the Alberta government.
NIC commissionerKenn Harperdenied a persistent rumour that he too was being considered for the job.
"Absolutely not," Harper said on Saturday.
Irwin ready to pick
Indian Affairs and Northern Development Minister Ron Irwin is expected to make the appointment sometime next month.
In an interview this week in Iqaluit, Irwin said it's now up to him, NTI president Jose Kusugak, and GNWT Premier Don Morin to "sit down and agree" on one candidate.
"We can do that, I think, fairly quickly, now that we have a list of people who are qualified and interested," Irwin said.
The right stuff
Whoever does get the job will have been deemed to have been the best candidate to meet the following list of qualifications:
TODD PHILLIPS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Nasty weather scrubbed the meeting of the Keewatin resupply committee last week in Chesterfield Inlet.
The GNWT-led committee was to have decided upon the best method for supplying the region with fuel and dry goods, and then present their findings later this month to Jim Antoine, the GNWT's transportation minister.
"We can't complete it until we have this final meeting," Kevin O'Brien, the chairman of the committee, said this week from Yellowknife.
The committee spent more than $75,000 on a report which figured out which options were cheapest and which most expensive.
The committee will choose between having Rankin Inlet replace Churchill, Manitoba as a supply hub for the Keewatin region, or direct delivery to each Keewatin community.
The report concludes that the cheapest option is direct delivery of fuel direct by tanker and freight from Montreal, or another east coast port.
With that option, as much as $8.1 million will have to spent on pipeline extensions in Arviat, Coral Harbour, Rankin Inlet and Chesterfield Inlet, and the shipping season may be two to three weeks shorter.
Rankin option most costly
Until recently, the government was pushing the idea of building a $6 million tank farm in Rankin Inlet where the fuel would be delivered, stored and then shipped out to other Keewatin communities.
But the consultants found that option would cost more than any of the six options explored in their report. It would be good for Rankin but more expensive for other Keewatin communities.
The report estimates that $16.3 million would have to be spent on infrastructure to make Rankin Inlet the supply hub, and that overall transportation costs would rise by $1 million per year over current costs.
O'Brien estimates that the direct delivery system will save Keewatin residents thirty per cent per year on the cost of their fuel and dry goods.
"The facts speak for themselves," O'Brien says.
O'Brien says some high-profile politicians representing the Manitoba government were also expected to go to the meeting in Chesterfield Inlet to make sure the interests of their province were represented.
Back to Nunatsiaq NewsTODD PHILLIPS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT RCMP made the largest hashish seizure in Iqaluit's history last week when they netted eight kilograms from a man staying at the Toonoonik Hotel.
Marcel Menard, 26, from Sherbrooke, Quebec has been charged with possession of a narcotic for the purpose of trafficking.
Menard has been in custody since his arrest. He appeared in court Tuesday for a show cause hearing. It was adjourned until Friday Nov. 29.
Police estimate the hash haul to be worth at least $248,000 on the streets of Iqaluit, where a gram sells for between $30 and $40.
"To have this much narcotics come into our community signals that there is fairly large drug problem in the Baffin region," says Cpl. Glen Siegersma, the head of the Nunavut drug enforcement unit.
Police have been using an RCMP service dog to sniff out drugs entering Iqaluit.
But police credit the Crime Stoppers program where people can anonymously pass on tips to police for helping them with this bust.
"Gold seal" hashish
Each of the eight one-kilogram rectangular bricks of hashish was sprayed with a spot of gold paint. Siegersma said it's likely "gold seal" hashish that came from Afghanistan, Thailand or Pakistan.
The drug bust came in the middle of National Addictions Awareness Week.
People in Iqaluit also identified combating drug and alcohol abuse as the number one priority for their community during a four-day community wellness meeting last week.
Draining money from North
Siegersma said people who bring drugs to the North from southern Canada pay only a fraction of what they are able to sell it for resulting in huge profits.
"The economic impact on Iqaluit and the Baffin region is huge. To have a quarter of a million dollars go out of the pockets of people who are having problems putting food on the table is a huge economic loss," Siegersma said.
"All of it is shipped into the communities and the communities are the ones that suffer, not Montreal and Ottawa and all the other places the stuff comes from."
Nunavut drug use four times higher
Of those people in Nunavut who are 15 years of age and older, 28.7 per cent had used marijuana or hash in the past 12 months.
That rate is nearly four times the national average of 7.4 per cent.
These statistics were revealed in a survey released last week by the GNWT.
The survey results have already prompted some observers to muse that the new territory of Nunavut should be renamed, "Out-Of-It."
Educate the young
Big drug busts get lots of attention from the media, but the foundation for that is laid by police who visit schools to teach students about the adverse effects of drug use, and from other community policing initiatives, Siegersma says.
"It's actually where the root of what we are doing is based at. We are trying to educate people, to stop the demand for the narcotics."
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Many people in Nunavut say they want to vote directly for their premier. But some Nunavut leaders say that could disrupt consensus government and lead to party politics.
JASON van RASSEL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Kenn Harper says he wants a premier not a bureaucrat to pick up the phone when dignitaries call to celebrate Nunavut's birth.
"April 1, 1999 will be the greatest day in the history of Nunavut... unfortunately, there won't be a government to congratulate," Harper, an NIC commissioner, said Sunday during debate at a Nunavut leaders' meeting in Iqaluit.
Leaders were trying to figure out how and when Nunavut's first government will be elected. Harper and other leaders don't like the current plan to have Nunavut's government elected after April 1, 1999.
So it now looks like Nunavut's first election may be held in January or February 1999.
Directly elected premier?
It's now up to the Nunavut Implementation Commission to draft a recommendation for the federal government, the GNWT and Nunavut Tunngavik to approve.
If the three parties agree to make the election sooner, then the Nunavut Act has to be amended by Parliament to reflect the decision.
But the question of how Nunavut's first premier will be chosen by MLAs or by the people is still open to debate.
In the NWT's system of consensus government, the legislative assembly's 24 MLAs pick the premier from among themselves.
Some leaders at the table last weekend, however, were in no hurry to change the system, saying having a directly elected premier is fraught with potential problems.
"I think if you elected a premier directly, it would lead to party politics," Municipal Affairs Minister Manitok Thompson said, adding that candidates for the premiership will want to organize supporters among the crop of MLA candidates.
What about gender parity?
Thompson also questioned the cost of having a directly elected premier removed from office, because a new election would have to be held, rather than simply having MLAs pick another member to become premier.
Having a directly elected premier could also undermine the principle of a gender balanced legislature, Thompson said.
If Nunavut decides to guarantee an equal amount of seats to women and men, the old system of picking the premier from among the MLAs should remain in place, she said, so a woman candidate has an equal chance of becoming premier.
Directly electing the premier doesn't get rid of the traditional barriers that have kept women out of the highest levels of politics for so long, she added.
Consensus gov't doesn't work?
Iqaluit MLA Ed Picco says he thinks directly electing the premier is a good idea.
Consensus government isn't working anymore, he says, because the system only works when the government has enough money to satisfy everyone's needs.
In the GNWT's current cash-strapped state, MLAs squabble over shrinking dollars and there is no consensus, he added.
A directly elected premier with the power to hire and fire cabinet ministers would be a better system for Nunavut, considering the territory will inherit a large chunk of the GNWT's financial woes, Picco said.
By 1999, the NWT's accumulated debt which will have to be split between Nunavut and the west may reach $85 million.
"When you're looking at difficult decisions, you've got to be in a position where you can operate autonomously," Picco said.
In a news release Tuesday, the NIC said it will take more research and consultation before it can reach any sort of consensus on the issue among Nunavut's leaders.
Back to TopTODD PHILLIPS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT There will be at least 18, and possibly 24 faces gazing at one another from the floor of the first Nunavut assembly.
Nunavut's leaders didn't decide how many MLAs will be needed to run the government, but they did narrow it down at a meeting in Iqaluit last weekend.
The balance is between meeting the needs of communities that don't feel they are now getting adequate representation, and the cost of having more MLAs.
Deputy Premier Goo Arlooktoo told leaders that each MLA will cost the new Nunavut government about $150,000 per year. That includes salary, travel costs, and constituency costs.
"You need a balance between the number of ministers and the number of MLAs who can keep those ministers accountable," Arlooktoo said.
Other leaders called for a system where the number of MLAs in a region would be based more on population.
Iqaluit MLA Ed Picco, who represents about 4,000 people, said it's too much for one person.
He said the day before the meeting he had 52 phone calls and 15 meetings.
If Nunavut's leaders adopt the Nunavut Implementation Commission's two-member gender parity proposal, that would affect how many MLAs there are.
Under that plan, each riding would have two MLAs one male and one female. If existing electoral boundaries are kept, then Nunavut's assembly would have at least 20 MLAs.
If two more ridings are added, then that number could swell to 24 MLAs. That's how many MLAs there are now to govern the entire Northwest Territories.
The Nunavut Implementation Commission will include the leaders' comments in an upcoming report.
The territorial government will soon appoint members to an electoral boundaries commission that will tour the NWT and consult with people about what changes they might like to see.
Back to TopJASON van RASSEL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT Jack Anawak read out the names one by one, a tragic roll call of some of Nunavut's most recent suicide victims.
Suicide in Nunavut has reached "crisis proportions," Anawak said, and it's time for leaders to act.
"We have lost so many young people to suicide and we have to not just talk about it, but do something about it," he said at last weekend's Nunavut leaders' meeting in Iqaluit.
Many of the people sitting around the meeting table shared their own painful stories about how their lives had been touched by suicide.
Couldn't offer enough
Raurri Ellsworth, a youth delegate from Iqaluit, said attending suicide prevention workshops made him feel like he knew a lot about suicide until his sister killed herself.
"I only realized last summer when I kissed my little sister for the last time that I know very little," he said.
He said his sister was "living in fear, living in pain," and no one including himself was able to fix things or show her the love she needed.
"I never provided her with a reason to live, my family wasn't able to provide her with a reason to live, Iqaluit wasn't able to provide her with a reason to live, BRIA wasn't able to provide her with a place to live, NTI wasn't able to provide her with a place to live, Canada wasn't able to provide her with a place to live, our world wasn't able to provide her with a place to live."
"I guess there's no real solution," Ellsworth said, except to be good to people and hope people will treat each other with compassion.
"I love everybody," he said quietly in closing.
Take time to talk
Nunavut Tunngavik president Jose Kusugak told of having to console one of his daughters, who was crying and clutching a photo of a friend who had committed suicide.
"I didn't know whether to take the picture away or let her keep it," he said. "The only thing I could do is talk to her."
Setting aside some time every week to talk with your children and tell them you love them is probably one of the best suicide prevention tactics, Kusugak said.
"Too many people would rather water their flowers, to make sure they grow up properly, rather than watering their children, so to speak," he said.
It's "a little corny" at first, Kusugak said, but if people stick with it, it becomes a natural part of family life.
You haven't failed
Nunavut Implementation Commission chief commissioner John Amagoalik ended the discussion with a message of hope.
Although the problem of suicide is complex and often overwhelming, Nunavut's leaders shouldn't feel as if they're not doing enough to fight the problem.
"The reasons [for suicide] are many. The reasons are big enough to fill this room," Amagoalik said.
"Why are we trying to create Nunavut? It's to improve the lives of our people and their children. It's to give them back the control they have lost," he added. "Don't feel as if you have failed."
Back to Topby John Amagoalik
Georges Erasmus has issued a challenge to Canada and its political leaders.
He, and other members of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, are saying to Canada, "Do these things or there will be trouble."
They, of course, do not use such direct language but the message is clear.
Anyone who understands aboriginal history in Canada will agree that serious historical wrongs need to be corrected. We all know that the original citizens of Canada cannot continue down the road of despair that we must turn things around.
Here, in Nunavut, we have hopefully started down the road to recovery by settling our land claim and creating our own government. But in southern Canada, finding solutions will be harder. What will be possible in Nunavut will face serious opposition in southern Canada.
If Canada hopes to avoid a serious confrontation with the Indian nations, radical solutions will have to be found. And radical solutions are just what the Royal Commission has recommended.
Realizing that its report and recommendations would have no credibility if it was not supported by Indian leaders, Erasmus and the commission made sure that the report covered enough ground to get their backing. They have been successful. Most Indian leaders and their organizations are lining up behind the report.
Rumblings of rejection are already being heard across the country. Many say that the proposals are just too radical. Others say that they are too expensive or undemocratic. Many suggest that the report will gather dust on government shelves.
Will the frustrated Indian continue to tolerate a report gathering dust on a shelf while Canadian leaders hover nervously around Quebec? As someone who probably understands Indians better than most Euro-Canadians, I would say that they have just about had it with being ignored.
The main reason why this Royal Commission was created was the summer of Oka. If its report is ignored or not taken seriously enough, we can expect 1997 to have a hot Indian summer.
Erasmus has set the table. Indian leaders are waiting. Will the governments come to the table to break bread with the aboriginals? Or are they sharpening their bayonets for another attack on the barricades?
Back to TopMany lawyers wish that the judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada were as brief as Jim Bell's editorials("Its your turn now" Nov.22).
In two succinct, and characteristically articulate columns, he has declared the current generalsearches being conducted in this region by the RCMP and the German shepherd dog named Budto be reasonable limits on the Charter right of everyone to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.
The warrant the police have obtained from a Yellowknife judge, which is sealed and cannot be studied until a court orders it opened, appears to have been issued under a section of the Criminal Code (487.01) that was enacted subsequent to the decision of Judge Browne of Iqaluit in the Blue Rodeo case.
The constitutionality of this section has not yet been considered by the Supreme Court. Your readers should perhaps know that a provision of this quite complicated section says that it is not to be construed as to permit interference with the bodily integrity of any person.
So it may be that it is one thing to search freight or mail, but quite another thing to have Bud going about sniffing people in the region.
Perhaps the Supreme Court, when this section is inevitably scrutinized by them, will agree with Mr. Bell's comments. Or not.
In the meanwhile, I urge Mr. Bell and your readers not to be too sanguine about radical increases in the powers of peace officers to search.
Of course increased powers of this kind will lead to more busts. But Mr. Bell is not sufficiently considering the cost to the reasonable expectation of privacy that the law says we all have. His argument essentially is that the end justifies the means. Big busts mean that the law is right.
Into the 1970s certain peace officers were issued with powerful general warrants called Writs of Assistance. They are now considered unconstitutional. Two hundred years earlier they had been one of the causes of the American Revolution.
In his passionate, even evangelical, advocacy for community wellness, Mr. Bell should choose his allies carefully.
Let us hope that, in the course of time, what he suggests is the real solution to drug and alcohol abuse, community residents banding together to help each other walk away from alcohol and drugs, will come to pass.
Will Bud be gone then? Or will a new use be found for him and his canine colleagues? Iqaluit is a fine place, because of its limited transportation options, for the authorities to test these new search powers.
Will the same be done on the downtown portion of Yonge Street in Toronto or West Hastings in Vancouver? I hear these areas have some problems too.
Desmond Brice-Bennett
Pond Inlet, NT
It's much easier to describe what leadership isn't than to nail down exactly what it is.
But two dozen elected and unelected leaders gathered at Iqaluit's Parish Hall on Saturday and proved they have "the right stuff" to lead people into Nunavut and beyond.
The skilful way they handled a sensitive debate on the make-up of Nunavut's future legislative assembly was a masterful display of how consensus government can work.
People with differing views on an emotional topic were able to bounce their ideas around and respectfully learn from one another without unnecessary grandstanding or posturing.
Let's hope the five Nunavut MLAs at the meeting took some notes they can bring back to Yellowknife to show their colleagues.
The best performance came from the chairman of the meeting, NIC chief commissioner John Amagoalik. He showed he has no shortage of the "Royal Jelly" that elusive and magical substance that separates generals from foot soldiers and prime ministers from press secretaries.
At the urging of NTI president Jose Kusugak and Deputy Premier Goo Arlooktoo, Amagoalik put aside his chairmanship and spoke with passion about why he supports his commission's proposal to guarantee an equal number of seats for men and women in Nunavut's legislative assembly.
Amagoalik spoke frankly and clearly about the need for a reconciliation between men and women. He said Inuit society began to go astray when people stopped assigning equal value and respect to work done by men and women.
Amagoalik also said the gender parity plan isn't only about the role of men and women in politics, but it's about restoring the importance of the family unit.
In politics, timing is everything, and Amagoalik had only a few brief moments to help turn the tide in favor of the proposal. He did.
But the critics of the proposal did just as well expressing their views on why Nunavut's assembly shouldn't have a guaranteed equal number of seats for men or women.
To her credit, Aivilik MLA Manitok Thompson tackled the thorny issue of whether women will get elected because they are women or if they will get elected because they are the best people for the job.
She also used specific examples to show there are so many barriers keeping women from entering politics that many aren't yet ready to take up the challenge.
For his part, NTI president Jose Kusugak did an admirable job lobbying for gender parity and in summarizing the idea that there is nothing to be gained by delaying a decision on that issue.
In a more adversarial political setting, changing your opinion on a key issue can be a career-ending move.
Usually, if a leader of a federal or provincial political party changes his or her opinion on a key issue, critics call it waffling and indecisive.
But perhaps one of the true tests of leadership is being able to let go of an idea you no longer believe in, once you recognize that a better one has come along.
Goo Arlooktoo, the NWT's deputy premier, said on Saturday that he needed more time to consider the proposal. On Sunday, he said he had done some more thinking and had talked with some of his constituents, who had been listening to part of Saturday's debate on CBC radio. Overnight, Arlooktoo went from fence-sitter to solid supporter.
Iqaluit MLA Ed Picco spoke out against the proposal on Saturday, but says that on Sunday he voted for it.
Over the weekend Nunavut's leaders hashed out their differences, reasoned their arguments out publicly, invited others to react to their viewpoints, and sought the opinions of others.
There were only a few of the mean-spirited put-downs and pretentious rhetorical flourishes we're used to seeing in the NWT legislative assembly.
If this is how contentious issues will be dealt with in Nunavut's assembly, the people of Nunavut can look forward to an excellent government.
The biggest leadership test faced by Nunavut's leaders, however, is if they can do as good a job convincing the people of Nunavut as they did convincing each other. TP
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These materials are Copyright (C) 1996 Nortext Publishing Corporation (Iqaluit), and may be freely distributed throughout the Internet, or other electronic computer networks or bulletin boards, as long as this notice remains intact and the articles are reproduced in their entirety. These materials may not be reprinted for commercial publication in print or other media without the permission of the publisher.
Last updated November 29, 1996
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