Accessibility Notice

Letter to Minister

THOMAS R. BERGER, O.C., Q.C.

SUITE 440, MARINE BUILDING, 355 BURRARD STREET,
VANCOUVER, B.C., CANADA
V6C 2G5

March 1, 2006

The Honourable Jim Prentice
Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Parliament Buildings, Ottawa

Dear Mr. Prentice,

RE: CONCILIATION

It is now six years on since the creation of Nunavut.

Nunavut today faces a moment of change, a moment of crisis. It is a crisis in Inuit education and employment, a crisis magnified by the advent of global warming in the Arctic and the challenge of Arctic sovereignty.

The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement that led to the creation of Nunavut is by far the largest of the land claims settlements in the modern land claims era. The territory is vast, covering one-fifth of Canada, extending from the 60^th parallel to the waters off the northern coast of Ellesmere Island. If Nunavut were an independent country it would be the twelfth largest in area in the world.

Canada signed a land claims agreement with the Inuit of the Northwest Territories on May 25, 1993; it included a promise that a new territory, to be known as Nunavut, predominately Inuit, would be established in the Eastern Arctic.[1] Prime Minister Mulroney, speaking at the signing ceremony, said:

“We are forging a new partnership, a real partnership. Not only between the Government of Canada and the future Government of Nunavut but between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians.”

On April 1, 1999 the new territory came into existence. Canada was proud of this achievement, one distinctively Canadian and exemplifying our nation’s ideal of unity in diversity. We took several bows on the international stage. Prime Minister Chretien said:

“Canada is showing the world, once again, how we embrace many peoples and cultures. The new Government of Nunavut will reflect this diversity, incorporating the best of Inuit traditions and a modern system of open and accountable public government."

Nunavut was to be an expression of Inuit self-determination. For the Inuit of Nunavut, it would be their place on the map of our country. [2] They did not seek an Aboriginal government; instead, the Agreement provided for the establishment of a public government in Nunavut, with a franchise extending to all residents, together with complete eligibility for all residents to stand for any public office.

The Government of Nunavut is now up and running. There have been two general elections in the territory. The elected government represents all the people of Nunavut.

Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI) represents the Inuit of Nunavut, the beneficiaries with respect to the lands and resources they now hold under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. It is responsible for the management of the funds received under the settlement on behalf of the Inuit and, along with regional Inuit organizations, for safeguarding Inuit interests regarding implementation of the Agreement. Since 2002, the Government of Canada, the Government of Nunavut and NTI have been engaged in negotiations to renew the Implementation Contract signed in 1993 (at the same time as the Agreement) to cover the second implementation period, 2003 to 2013.

But Canada, Nunavut and the NTI had been unable to agree on the terms of continuing implementation.

On June 1, 2005, I was appointed as Conciliator by your predecessor. [3] My job has been to explore, with the Parties, new approaches to the implementation of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.

In Nunavut and in Ottawa, my counsel [4] and I have heard from government officials from the highest levels through to the rank and file in territorial and federal departments. We have spoken with educators, parents, and students from kindergarten to college and university. We have met with Inuit entrepreneurs and artists, with municipal officials and employees, trainee lawyers, nurses and teachers. We have talked with officers of the RCMP and the Canadian Armed Forces, with hunters and trappers, community elders, linguists and historians.

As Conciliator I dealt first with the arrangements for the ongoing funding of the boards and commissions responsible for the management of land and resources in Nunavut. The members of these boards and commissions (known as Institutions of Public Government) are nominated by Canada, NTI and Nunavut. They are mandated to manage the wildlife, wildlife habitat, water, mineral and marine resources of Nunavut. They engage in land use planning and environmental impact assessment. Theirs is an immense task.

I dealt with the question of funding these Institutions of Public Government in my Interim Report of August 31, 2005. On the basis of my recommendations the parties have found themselves able to agree to funding for the work of these boards in the sum of $15 million per year for the balance of the ten year implementation period 2003 – 2013.

In my Final Report, which accompanies this letter, [5] I have had to deal with a subject of even greater import, a subject with profound implications: Article 23 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. Article 23 lies at the heart of the promise of Nunavut.

Article 23 has, as its stated objective, “to increase Inuit participation in government employment in the Nunavut Settlement Area to a representative level.” Moreover, this objective applies to “all occupational groupings and grade levels” within government. It is an objective which is shared by the Government of Canada and the Government Nunavut.

On its face, Article 23 speaks only to employment in the public service. But I have found that it is impossible to consider Article 23 in isolation. Any examination of the objective – representative levels of Inuit employment – inevitably leads to a consideration of a range of issues implicated in the future of Nunavut, especially in the fields of employment and education.

The population of Nunavut is now approaching 30,000, of whom 85% are Inuit. Under Article 23 the Inuit ought to have 85% of the positions in the public service. The fact is, however, that only 45% of the employees of the Government of Nunavut are Inuit. This figure was more or less achieved early on, as Inuit took up mainly lower level (e.g. administrative support) positions in government, and has not been improved upon for the simple reason that only a few Inuit are qualified for the executive, management and professional positions that make up the middle and upper echelons of the public service. The result is that, although most of the elected members of the Government of Nunavut are Inuit, the great majority of the higher level positions in the public service are held by non-Inuit; in fact, these latter constitute a large part of the 15% of residents of Nunavut who are not Inuit.

The problem is not on the demand side of the equation. The Government of Nunavut has strived mightily to provide opportunities for virtually all qualified Inuit. The problem is that the supply of qualified Inuit is exhausted. Only 25% of Inuit children graduate from high school, and by no means all of these graduates go on to post-secondary education. The types of jobs where the need for increased Inuit participation is most acute – such as the executive, management and professional categories – have inescapable educational requirements.

The language spoken by the Inuit is Inuktitut. [6] Indeed, for 75 per cent of the Inuit, Inuktitut is still their first language spoken in the home, and fully 15% of Inuit (mostly living in the smaller communities) have no other language. Given the demographics of the new territory Inuktitut ought, generally speaking, to be the language of the governmental workplace in Nunavut and the language of the delivery of government services. But it is not. The principal language of government in Nunavut is English. So the people of the new territory speak a language which is an impediment to obtaining employment in their own public service.

The Government of Nunavut has 3200 employees. The Inuit say they are entitled to their fair share of employment in the public service. They rely on Article 23; it is an equity clause – an equity clause not for a minority but for a majority.

The Inuit live today in 27 isolated communities in a vast land until now accessible only for a month or two in summer, except by air.

Until the post-World War II period, they had made their living for centuries by hunting, trapping and fishing. Today the traditional way of life is still of fundamental importance to the Inuit. But the movement away from the land promoted by Canada - over the past 50 years - into the communities, into a world in which government, schools and bureaucracy are paramount, has been inexorable. As Premier Paul Okalik has said, “Inuit are currently in a transition stage from a land-based (traditional hunting) economy to a modern or wage-based economy.”

In Nunavut there is no developed wage economy, no industry. Unemployment is high, averaging 30 per cent but reaching 70 per cent in some communities. As well, many of the Inuit are dependent on income support in some form.

Thus the importance to the Inuit of the Government of Nunavut as employer.

In fact, the Government of Nunavut has decentralized its administration to ensure not only that the territorial government is closer to the people but also that the job opportunities it represents are spread around the territory. But such measures in themselves cannot fulfill the objective of Article 23: the Inuit must have the opportunity for an education that will enable them to take these jobs.

Article 23 therefore raises the question: What has to be done to qualify the Inuit for employment in all occupational groupings and grade levels in their own government? There must of course be near-term initiatives to increase the number of Inuit in the public service. I am recommending some of these measures: An expanded program of summer students and internships in the Government of Nunavut itself, career counselling, and scholarships for apprenticeships and for post-secondary studies. [7] But you can’t envisage any way of achieving the objective of Article 23 over the long term unless you start by increasing the number of high school graduates. So it all leads back to the schools, to education, for it is Inuit high school graduates and Inuit graduates of university and other post-secondary programs who will enter the public service. There will have to be major changes in the education system in order to vastly increase the number of Inuit high school graduates; in my view a new approach is required, a comprehensive program of bilingual education.

Canada, represented by Indian Affairs, has in the past adopted the position that it has no further obligations under Article 23, that by conducting a labour market survey and developing plans for Inuit employment and pre-employment training, it has done all that it specifically agreed to do under Article 23. It is true that Article 23 does not say anything about the schools, about education. It is quite apparent, however, that Article 23, which deals with employment, cannot be discussed intelligently without discussing education. The schools are supposed to equip students with the skills to obtain employment. But in Nunavut they have not produced an adequate pool of qualified Inuit. The schools are failing. They are not producing graduates truly competent in Inuktitut; moreover, the Inuit of Nunavut have the lowest rate of literacy in English in the country.

At the meetings we have had, it has become obvious that the status quo is unacceptable, that a strong program of bilingual education must be adopted. The Government of Nunavut, with the support of NTI, has argued the urgency of such a program. Indian Affairs has made an altogether positive contribution to the Conciliation process and has worked closely with the other parties and with me in developing my recommendations for consideration by you and your colleagues.

The Government of Nunavut in 1999 inherited from the old Northwest Territories a school curriculum which, while ostensibly bilingual, emphasized English at the expense of Inuktitut. The system is not working.

Today in Nunavut, Inuktitut is the language of instruction from kindergarten through Grades 3/4. In Grades 4/5 Inuktitut is abandoned as a language of instruction, and Inuit children are introduced to English as the sole language of instruction. Many of them can converse in English. But they can’t write in English, nor are their English skills sufficiently advanced to facilitate instruction in English. In Grade 4, they are starting over, and they find themselves behind. Their comprehension is imperfect; it slips and as it does they fall further behind. By the time they reach Grade 8, Grade 9 and Grade 10, they are failing (not all of them, to be sure, but most of them). This is damaging to their confidence, to their faith in themselves. For them, there has been not only an institutional rejection of their language and culture, but also a demonstration of their personal incapacity. The Inuit children have to catch up, but they are trying to hit a moving target since, as they advance into the higher grades, the curriculum becomes more dependent on reading and books, more dependent on a capacity in English that they simply do not have.

In Nunavut this reinforces the colonial message of inferiority. The Inuit student mentally withdraws, then leaves altogether.

In such a system Inuktitut is being eroded. Of course, language is only one element of identity, but it is a huge one.

The drop out rate is linked to Nunavut’s unhappy incidence of crime, drugs and family violence. Ejetsiak Peter chairman of the Cape Dorset District Education Authority, summed it up for me through an interpreter: “The children who drop out have not developed the skills to live off the land, neither do they have employment skills. So they are caught between two worlds.” It is clear that out of this situation has emerged the social pathology that bedevil Cape Dorset and other communities.

The schools reflect contemporary life in Nunavut. In 1995, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, in a report to the U.N. Committee on Human Rights, fairly summed up the condition of Nunavut today. He wrote:

“The overall health of Inuit continues to lag far behind that of other Canadians. Life expectancy is ten years lower than the rest of Canada. Many health indicators are getting worse. Arctic research shows that changes in traditional diets lead to increased health problems, particularly of mental health, characterized by increased rates of depression, seasonal affective disorder, anxiety and suicide. Inuit leaders are deeply concerned that the housing, education, health and suicide situation have reached crisis proportions and are not being addressed by the Federal Government.”

So it is not only a question of language. Inuit children live in the most overcrowded, overheated houses in Canada, where one-third to one-half of the children, uniquely susceptible as a race to Chronic Otitis Media, suffer from hearing impairment (the teachers in Nunavut have to use microphones in the classroom) and delayed speech development.

Imagine the odds faced by a student attempting to do homework with 12 or 13 other people in the house (on average, half of them children), perhaps sleeping two, three or four to a room. Nunavut's climate dictates that these tiny homes will be shut tight against the weather for possibly 8 months of the year; virtually every home has at least one resident smoker; oil heating may produce carbon monoxide and other pollutants. The fact that even one quarter of Inuit students graduate from high school is, under the circumstances, a testament to the tenacity of those students, their parents, and their communities.

In my judgement the failure of the school system has occurred most of all because the education system is not one that was set up for a people speaking Inuktitut. It is a bilingual system in name only, one that produces young adults who, by and large, cannot function properly in either English (because they never catch up with the English curriculum) or Inuktitut (because they learn only an immature version of their first language before switching to English).

There has been some improvement in Inuit achievement in school in recent years. There is, however, no steady arc of improvement. In fact, there is a danger of a falling back, a danger that Inuktitut will continue to lose ground, and the sense of loss in Nunavut will become pervasive.

You might ask: why not just teach in English, and let Inuktitut fend for itself as an Aboriginal language for only private use? I have considered this alternative but it is impractical and, moreover, unacceptable. First, because experts on language in schools say that the foundations of language during the crucial early years of education are best developed using the child’s native tongue as the language of instruction. In other words, if you want children speaking Inuktitut to develop real skills in English, it is better to focus on Inuktitut to provide a firm anchor of learning during those developmental years. The same is true of scholarship generally. Children who speak aboriginal languages will be better students, and will be more likely to stay in school, if they receive more instruction in their first language. Second, because those graduates who go on to positions of responsibility in government, though they will receive their post-secondary training in English, would nevertheless be required to deliver government services in the language of the community. Third, because Inuktitut is the vessel of Inuit culture. The Inuit are determined to retain their language; it is integral to their identity.

I would add one other reason why we cannot move to an English-only school system: we have tried it before, and we know it doesn’t work. In the Indian residential schools, it led to tragedy. In Nunavut today, the schools in Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay have an all-English program and graduation rates are no better than in the other regions of Nunavut, where an all-English system of instruction prevails after Grade 3.

The only solution is to provide a bilingual system that works.

The Government of Nunavut with the support of NTI proposes, and the experts agree, that we must undertake nothing less than a new program of bilingual education starting in the pre-school years, and from kindergarten through Grade 12. Inuktitut would still be the principal language of instruction from kindergarten to Grade 3, but it would not be effectively abandoned in Grade 4. Both Inuktitut and English would be languages of instruction right through Grade 12.

The exact distribution of subjects may vary. Perhaps Inuit history, traditions, and culture, the geography of Nunavut, the life of the Inuit in early times, contact with European explorers, the fur trade, the long struggle for their land claim the creation of Nunavut, and their present-day achievements in art, sculpture and film, should all be taught in Inuktitut. Crossover subjects such as social studies could be taught in Inuktitut. It may be that English will be the best choice for teaching science and mathematics.

Nunavut is made up of 27 communities and each community must tailor the system to its particular needs and resources. In Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay, for instance, where Inuktitut is endangered, the choice may well be immersion in Inuktitut.

There is a shortage of Inuit teachers in Nunavut. Only 35 per cent of teachers speak Inuktitut, and their numbers are slipping due to attrition from retirement, the stresses of the job (particularly for women with families) and the temptations of other careers in the territory, since Inuit teachers are the largest cohort of qualified Inuit in any field. The program I am recommending will require that many more teachers be trained. In the meantime other measures can be taken. There are, for instance, middle-aged and adult Inuit in every community who speak Inuktitut well. They would be given a year of teacher training in the community and would teach Inuktitut in the schools. At the same time, local tradespeople, carvers and sculptors would give classes in their specialties. Life on the land would not be forgotten. Survival skills in danger of being lost would be transmitted in the classroom by veteran hunters. All this while more Inuit teachers are formally trained and introduced, year-by-year, into an expanding bilingual curriculum.

Language “nests,” on the New Zealand model, to engage whole families in the use of Inuktitut, would be introduced. School would become the business of the whole community.

The objective would be, over time, to see high school graduation rates in Nunavut conforming to the rest of Canada.

We are not simply discussing the means by which the Inuit may acquire their fair share of government jobs. As the Inuit graduate from high school and go on to achieve the qualifications necessary to enter the middle and upper echelons of the public service, they will at the same time acquire the skills that will enable them to compete for good jobs in the private sector. Premier Paul Okalik has written that “I firmly believe that education is a key to individual development and future opportunities.” It is my firm belief too. The fulfillment of Article 23 is the means by which the Inuit can be enabled to participate not only in their own government but also in private sector employment.

This is not to say that all Inuit children would be destined for graduation. Many would not. Nor is it to say that Nunavut ought to adopt a wholly academic program. If Inuit youth are going to live off the land or go into a trade, there would be a place for them in school.

The aim would be not to preserve Inuktitut as a cultural artifact but to affirm Inuit identity, to improve Inuit educational achievement. The idea is to strengthen the language that is at risk, but at the same time to improve ability in English.

What we have to get into our heads is that the loss of language and educational underachievement are linked. The strengthening of Inuktitut in the school, the home and the community can bring improvement in achievement in both Inuktitut and English.

The Inuit have decided that this is their only choice, and I believe that it is Canada’s only choice. The Inuit have looked to the example of Greenland, where a program designed solely to develop competence in Greenlandic (the Inuit language of Greenland) has produced high school graduates who are not competent in Danish or English, foreclosing any post-secondary study except in Greenland.

Nunavut is the heartland of the Inuit of Canada; a majority of Canada’s Inuit live in Nunavut. In Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay, where English has to a great extent supplanted Innuinaqtun even in the home, parents insist it must be taught in the schools and eventually become a language of instruction. They firmly believe, however, like the Inuit throughout Nunavut, that their children must be competent in English also, since it is the language which enables them to speak to Canada and the world. And they understand it will continue to be used in the Government of Nunavut, especially in scientific and technical fields. But it will be replaced, over time as the principal language of government, by Inuktitut.

Why, it may be asked, hasn’t the Government of Nunavut gone ahead with such a program? Well, it is a government that was organized only a few years ago. But the main reason is that the Government of Nunavut is not in a position to undertake such a program because it cannot afford it.

Such a program and the specific near-term initiatives that I am recommending go well beyond Nunavut’s ordinary budget requirements for education and development of human resources. The Government of Nunavut must play its part, but the lion’s share of the costs must be borne by the Government of Canada.

Neither in 1993 nor in 1999 was the magnitude of the task apparent. We erected a new government for a people speaking Inuktitut, but who were to be integrated into the life of a predominantly English and French speaking country. It was believed that we could achieve 85 per cent Inuit employment by 2008. All have now agreed that the target date ought to be 2020, but it is a target that can only be reached if we act now.

To establish a program of true bilingual education and to enable the Inuit to gain their fair share of places in the public service will be a major undertaking. But what did we expect? When we agreed to the establishment of Nunavut, it cannot have escaped our notice that the overwhelming majority of the people of the new territory would be Inuit, speaking Inuktitut.

Nunavut is a unique jurisdiction in Canada, a territory whose population speaks a language which is not predominantly English or French. No other province or territory has a majority of Aboriginal people speaking a single language.

In the late 1960s, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (the B & B Commission) warned us that French-speaking Canadians had to be given an opportunity to occupy their fair share of places in the public service of Canada and that their language and their communities should be given an opportunity to flourish throughout Canada.

The B & B Commission found that Francophones did not occupy in the higher echelons of the federal government the places their numbers warranted; that educational opportunities for the francophone minorities in the English-speaking provinces were not commensurate with those provided for the English-speaking minority in Quebec, and that French-speaking Canadians could neither find employment in nor be adequately served in their own language by the federal government.

The resemblance to the situation in Nunavut today is striking.

After the report of the B & B Commission, a series of measures followed, including the Official Languages Act of 1969, promotion of bilingualism in the federal public service, and in 1982 the adoption of Section 23 of the Charter of Rights, which provides a constitutional guarantee for minority language schooling throughout the country “where numbers warrant.”

The Government of Canada has acknowledged that such expenditures are a federal responsibility.

So much was required for one of Canada’s two founding peoples. [8] No one now disputes the wisdom of the measures taken: Francophones should be, as Prime Minister Pearson argued at the time, “at home” in their own country. So should the Inuit.

Just as there had to be measures to enable Francophones to take their rightful place in the public service of Canada, and to promote and sustain the use of French, so also in Nunavut today there must be measures to enable the Inuit to take their rightful place in the public service of Nunavut and to promote and sustain the use of Inuktitut.

This is not to say that Inuktitut should be one of the official languages of Canada. It is to say, however, that the principle observed, the model adopted as a result of the of the work of B & B Commission, the type of programs undertaken to promote bilingualism in the federal government and to encourage and sustain French in schools in the English-speaking provinces, ought to be a useful guide to enable us to ensure that Inuktitut, the spoken language and the written language of the Inuit, [9] should be encouraged and sustained in the schools, and in the public service.

The program I am recommending will require funding over and above the subsidy provided to Nunavut under the present Territorial Formula Financing arrangements. The Government of Nunavut has costed the near-term initiatives that I am recommending. As far as costing the proposed comprehensive program of bilingual education is concerned, there will have to be further discussions between Nunavut and Canada.

PricewaterhouseCoopers reported in 2003 that if the Inuit occupied their proportionate share of the posts in the public service, they would enjoy a net gain annually of $72 million. That is how much would go into their pockets. The same report estimated that government would also save tens of millions of dollars per year in costs such as those associated with the recruitment, hiring, and training of non-Inuit (mostly imported at considerable further expense from the South) for the same positions. [10] These are substantial sums, amounting together to perhaps $97 million annually.

A much greater social cost will, however, await as if we do not act now.

The statistics relating to social pathology in Nunavut may seem bloodless on the page, but they represent a social catastrophe in the making, the loss of a whole generation.

All of this is occurring in a suddenly altered Arctic landscape and seascape.

The Arctic is the epicentre of global warming. The shrinking of the Arctic ice represents a threat to polar bears, seals, the whole range of Arctic marine mammals and wildlife - a threat to the traditional Inuit way of life. The evidence of climate change in the Arctic is accumulating day by day. In my travels in the Arctic in 2005 I have seen it. The permafrost is melting. The ice in the rivers goes out earlier, greater snowfall is impeding the migratory routes of the caribou, supply vessels are reaching Iqaluit and other communities measurably earlier. If present warming trends continue, the Arctic landscape could be greatly altered by 2020.

The Northwest Passage and the other passages through the Arctic archipelago may within ten or fifteen years be open to year-round navigation. Or it may be a more distant prospect. But it is coming. In any event with global warming the Arctic and the Arctic Islands are likely to be more accessible to oil and gas exploration and production, intensive development of mining and the establishment of navigation, ports and other infrastructure – all may occur in Nunavut sooner than anyone now reckons.

This makes even more urgent the kind of program I am recommending. Whatever the future climate and economic prospects of Nunavut may be, the Inuit have to be ready to play their part. In education lies that readiness.

From the earliest days the exploration of the Arctic by Europeans was carried on in partnership with the Inuit. They were partners in the whaling industry and the fur trade. The Inuit were then as they are today the permanent inhabitants of the Arctic – the people who were born there and will spend their lives there.

In 1993 the Inuit of Nunavut surrendered their Aboriginal title to Canada. This was of the first importance to Canada. Indeed, Canada acknowledged in 1993, when it signed the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, “the contributions of Inuit to Canada’s history, identity and sovereignty in the Arctic.” The presence of the Inuit, their occupation of the land since time immemorial, the surrender of their Aboriginal title to Canada, the establishment of Nunavut and today their participation in the Canadian Rangers, keeping watch on our northern fastnesses, have been instrumental in strengthening Canada’s identity and its sovereignty in the Arctic.

For the Inuit, the advance of the industrial frontier coupled with the possibility of the loss of traditional resources, reveals how compelling it is that the Inuit should be able to equip themselves with education and training for employment. Climate change shows no sign of abating; its impact on the Inuit, their homeland and therefore on Canada will continue; perhaps at an accelerated pace.

The program I have laid out here is an ambitious program, and a costly program. The specific initiatives that I am recommending for the near term have been costed at approximately $20 million per annum. I have no doubt that, once a program of bilingual education is up and running it too will be expensive. But if we treat these measures as an integral part of an Arctic strategy, the costs can at once be placed in perspective. And I cannot see an alternative. If we fail to achieve the objective of Article 23, such failure would represent a fundamental breach of faith.

It must be obvious that the program of bilingual education, conceived by the Government of Nunavut and extending well beyond the subject of land and resources, cannot be shoehorned neatly into Article 23. It cannot be administered under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. The funding will have to come from Ottawa. The program will have to be delivered by the Government of Nunavut. There will have to be a performance audit by an independent committee. It must be understood, however, that it will take time to achieve results.

The steps needed to assert Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic will have to be measured over decades as the ice recedes. The establishment of infrastructure and the utilization of resources will be a long-term proposition. A unified Arctic strategy for sovereignty and industrial development must be founded on the long-term interests of the Inuit, which I believe can best be served by the program I am recommending.

Our relationship with the Inuit of Nunavut is still unfolding. Settlement of land claims was the first major step in decolonization. I think the emphasis must now be on education and employment.

The public service of the Government of Nunavut must be representative of the people of the territory. The task of administering and developing the land and resources of this vast area is one in which the Inuit must be qualified to participate.

This is not to say that life on the land will be lost. Inuit children will still learn about their own history in school, survival skills will still be taught. The links to tradition are still there and must not be severed.

The program cannot only be top-down. It must be a project in which all of Nunavut takes part – the Nunavut Project if you will. The Nunavut Project must involve all the people of Nunavut, not just teachers and students. Inuktitut must continue to be spoken in the home and in the communities. It cannot be a language used only in school. The Inuit will be enlisted, many of them, to teach Inuktitut, to bring their own skills into the classroom. There will have to be more Inuit teachers with bachelors’ and masters’ degrees than ever before. Elders must pass on the language. Parents must make sure the whole family enters the language nests. Parents will have to do more to keep their children in school.

The non-Inuit in Nunavut will, I believe, wholeheartedly support the program. Many do not expect to remain in the territory throughout their lives. But they all believe in the future of the Inuit and of Nunavut. Inspector John Henderson of the RCMP spoke for all of them when he told me that we must not allow this “glorious experiment” to miscarry.

Can it be done? Can Nunavut turn out graduates fluent and literate in Inuktitut and English?

Every Canadian must be aware of Inuit achievements in art and sculpture, in film and performance arts, achievements for which the Inuit have won international renown. The Inuit are a bright tile in the Canadian mosaic. Why not Inuit bilingualism? Why not an Inuit literature?

I believe Canadians will support this project – the Nunavut Project. They realize that no affirmation of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty will be complete unless the people of the Arctic – the Inuit – are partners in the task.

Our ideas of human rights, of strength in diversity, of a northern destiny merge in the promise of Nunavut. It is a promise that we must keep.

Thomas R. Berger
Conciliator
Vancouver, March 1st, 2006

Footnotes:

• 1 The promise was contained in Article 4 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, 1993.(return to source paragraph)
• 2 Prime Minister Chrétien put it this way: “Fifty years from now schoolchildren will be reading about this day in their text books…when we redrew the map of Canada and helped achieve the long-promised destiny of the people of the Eastern Arctic.”(return to source paragraph)
• 3 The Minister of State (Northern Development), the Premier of Nunavut and the President of NTI jointly recommended my appointment.(return to source paragraph)
• 4 Craig Jones of Bull, Housser & Tupper LLP has acted as Counsel to the Conciliator. He has worked closely with me throughout, and has conducted meetings and interviews on my behalf, as well as making an invaluable contribution to the preparation of my report.(return to source paragraph)
• 5 In accordance with the arrangement made at the outset by the Parties, I am sending copies of this Final Report, including this letter, to Premier Paul Okalik and Paul Kaludjak, the President of NTI.(return to source paragraph)
• 6 By Inuktitut I mean as well Innuinaqtun, the dialect of the Kitikmeot region, which includes Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay.(return to source paragraph)
• 7 I also recommend expansion of Nunavut Sivinuksavut, a unique post-secondary program for Inuit students, based in Ottawa.(return to source paragraph)
• 8 There is a small but thriving Francophone community in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut. Numbering 400, they have received $5 million to build a new school in Iqaluit, and $4 million dollars per year in funding for the promotion of French.(return to source paragraph)
• 9 The written form of Inuktitut has existed for a century. It is a system of syllabics, a phonetic system. The Innuinaqtun dialect is written using a Roman orthography.(return to source paragraph)
• 10 Studies have shown that, on average, locally recruited Inuit employees stay at their jobs almost twice as long as non-Inuit workers recruited in the South.(return to source paragraph)