EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Do they not want to do it or is it because they’re concerned about the polar bear population that they have delayed this process?
It’s not that they don’t want to. It’s because they want to do a thorough job. Right now, we’re currently working on the Baffin Bay population.
Once that’s completed, we will then turn our attention to that region. Another population study is ongoing in the Kane Basin zone. Once both of these studies have concluded, we’re planning the next area and we have started discussions with the communities in that management zone.
The process will start in 2014-15 to initiate the population study.
It will only be after the conclusion of this study that the quota issue will be considered and that will be the responsibility of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board. There would also be room to negotiate if the study concludes that the population is healthy enough to be part of the management zone agreements for harvesting polar bears.
It’s not because we’re reticent to conduct the population study, as it is currently being planned out for the future.
Another matter is (interpretation ends) the Government of Nunavut’s proposed action plan (interpretation) for the McClintock Channel.
With respect to the press release from the government, a particularly noticeable wording inclusion states, (interpretation ends) “Meat Sharing: Under its Community Organized Hunt program, the Department of Sustainable Development will make available funding during the moratorium period to transport polar bear meat to Gjoa Haven from other communities.” (interpretation) Was this instituted?
If so, how many times did the government transport polar bear meat to the community of Gjoa Haven?
Hon. James Arreak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This particular press release the member is referring dates back to May 30, 2002.
At this time, I don’t have any updated information on any shipments. We don’t have that information handy, but we will do some research to find that information and it will have to be answered after that is done. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for committing to providing that information.
I was referring to a GN 2001 press release. It states that Gjoa Haven residents would receive shipments of polar bear for their consumption. That was the plan back in 2001.
My second question relates to the Gulf of Boothia, immediately offshore of Taloyoak, where Gjoa Haven has been allocated five tags, but they have to first bypass Taloyoak in order to access the polar bear population where the tags are available. What type of assistance does the government provide Gjoa Haven prospective polar bear hunters to access those tags in the Gulf of Boothia?
Hon. James Arreak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll have Mr. Pinksen respond to that question.
We don’t have any direct funding program that funds that community specifically, but there are various ways that they can access funding. We do have a community hunt program that they can apply to, which I don’t think they already have. Regionally, there’s an allocation of the community harvesters assistance program.
They can use that. So there are a number of sources of funding that the HTO can use, but in terms of specifically using those five bear tags, we don’t have any program that relates to those tags.
Is there any possibility of a program to assist Gjoa Haven residents who may wish to travel to the Gulf of Boothia since gasoline is quite expensive these days? The hunters who are pursuing the polar bears for these tags must first pass through Taloyoak in order to continue onto the hunting grounds.
Let me ask this question first: how many of these tags are successfully harvested? Let’s use last year as an example for the tags used by the residents of Gjoa Haven for the Gulf of Boothia harvesting zone.
The community can get some assistance if they want to go to the Gulf Boothia and it is called the (interpretation ends) community organized hunt. (interpretation) It is about $45,000 annually.
We don’t have the information on how many polar bear tags that they can get to go to the Gulf of Boothia.
We can provide the member with that answer as soon as it is available.
Starting in 2015-16, how many years will they be doing a polar bear survey? That was about an estimate of four years.
Looking at the MOU, they have been delayed. Can you make it a little bit sooner than that?
They’re trying to finish both the Kane Basin and Baffin Bay polar bear population surveys currently and this is the final year to conclude these studies.
This study has been moved up a year, as it was originally set for 2015-16, but it has been moved to 2014-15.
It will take upwards of two years to conclude the polar bear population study in that area.
The questions I have relate to two matters, with my first question relating to an issue brought up earlier when you were reading about the Nuliajuk research ship and the associated research program. Within the budget line items, I imagine that it will be covered later on.
However, I wanted to find out about issue of our arctic sharks, Greenland sharks to be exact. Why do we need a survey for the sharks? They aren’t particularly useful and don’t constitute a food item for Nunavutmiut.
My question is: why a Greenland shark survey?
Indeed, the ship, Nuliajuk, has continued to conduct research in Nunavut waters. They are focusing on the three communities that were mentioned earlier. Once the surveys are completed in those offshore zones, then they will move onto other survey zones.
With respect to the Greenland sharks, they are, indeed, one of the listed species for surveying purposes. Perhaps Mr. Akeeagok can provide further details.
They are doing research on sharks because it has to do with turbot.
It seems like a meaningless undertaking as far as I am concerned when the federal government has already conducted similar surveys.
It seems to be a waste of taxpayer funds because it will not make any difference to do such research. (interpretation ends) It’s a waste of a lot of money as far I’m concerned.
(interpretation) I just want to learn how different the summer gear is from the winter gear for fishing. That research is done on the ocean bottom if they will be fishing in summer.
Does it really have to be conducted that way in order to fish for turbot during summer or do they just want to fish in summer close to the same area they do winter fishing and will that suffice?
I would appreciate being informed on that question.
The shark survey that is being conducted is considered valuable and to determine how to reduce their being taken as by-catch as the turbot fishermen don’t like catching sharks.
I believe Mr. Pinksen can address the rest of the member’s question.
I don’t know if I got the entire question, but I’ll do my best.
A lot of the shark research is for two reasons.
One is that sharks are a major predator on turbot and a part of it is to get a better understanding of the relationship between the sharks and the turbot and how that works.
Another reason is that sharks are a major impact on fishermen because they destroy a lot of fishing equipment and the sharks are getting caught on the turbot lines and destroying a lot of gear.
So there are two particular reasons that are important to gain a lot more information about the sharks. That’s a lot of the reasoning behind that.
There was a question, and I think I got it, on winter versus summer fisheries. As the members may be aware, almost the entire inshore turbot fishery in Nunavut, in Cumberland Sound, has been a winter fishery and they developed the skills and technology for that. But they have not developed the summer fishery, an open water fishery, by boat and the Greenlanders have done so.
They have begun a very successful open water fishery by boat. The summer versus winter work was to start the transfer of that knowledge and equipment technology from Greenland to Nunavut to help develop more of a year-round operation for us instead of only in the winter.
I hope that answers some of the questions.
Iksivautaaq, I was primarily looking for answers to how to prevent the predator from picking on captive prey. As far as the summer versus winter techniques, most of all the fish in the world is harvested in summer.
What more techniques do you need to ensure there is an economic potential for our resource when, in fact, the techniques are applied throughout the world?
The member is correct in his observation, but summer fishing has never been done in the Pangnirtung area for turbot.
We will be able to use the technique from Greenland. The people of Pangnirtung will be using that technique and they had some kind of a workshop in the summer.
I appreciate that. Mr. Chairman, what I’m trying to get at is Canada has a turbot industry, I believe, south of 60, and so on. What is wrong with the techniques that they use?
Are they completely foreign to Nunavut, the possibility of using a summer fishery?
Because the people of Greenland live in a northern climate, we share some of the water. I will get Mr. Pinksen to elaborate on that response.
A major part of the reason is that much of the east coast turbot fishery in southern Canada is pursued by large vessels using otter trawls, bottom gear, and gillnets.
Many times over the years, the community of Pangnirtung has expressed concerns about those methods being used near shore. In fact, sometimes they have passed community resolutions against those sorts of things in near-shore areas.
The technology that the Greenland fishermen are using and that we have been trying to do research on for use in Nunavut is small boat fishing using hook and line. It is very similar to the winter fishing techniques, but using small vessels and not big offshore vessels. That’s a large part of the reason.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) Yes, these are very important, useful comments from the minister. (interpretation) I would also like to thank his officials.
Mr. Chairman, we had a meeting in regard to CITES, along with NTI. NTI has been working on it for quite some time.
It seems like there is going to be another meeting with the European Union. They said that scientific studies have to be done. I understood it to be that the scientific studies that are done by Canada are not adequate.
What they wanted to do is to give that job to the committee for them to do a survey on the polar bears.
Is the minister going to have a strategy in place as to how they can do better surveys?
They don’t seem to believe the government management of polar bears. Does the minister have plans in place to do better work?
I thank the member for his question. This is a concern of ours as well. During the time of the vote at Bangkok, 38 voted for this initiative, but they required a two-thirds majority vote out of the eligible countries in order to win.
They had 38 votes, but they required 84 votes for this initiative to be implemented.
We will continue with our strategic planning on this issue.
We know the next upcoming CITES meeting is in three years. Our previous plans were adequate, particularly the plans completed by our employees that really assisted our efforts, as Mr. Curley knows due to his attendance. As well, what we found out at that meeting will be used to plan out our next strategy which will be the focus over three years leading up to the next CITES meeting.
We will not stop our strategic planning.
Our management of all our wildlife, including polar bears, will continue. We will continue the quota system, which has been in place for many years. That ensures the sustainable use of our wildlife species.
I appreciate the minister. We don’t want to underestimate the challenge that is there right in front of us right now because the opposition is a well-funded group and they’re, no doubt, right now probably, engaging strategies and plans to win in the event that this issue is brought up again.
What I’m worried about is that we’re going to have to find a way best to ensure that so-called scientific studies, whether they be surveys of polar bear populations, are credible.
I can say in honesty that I think the one that was conducted in 2010 around South Kivalliq was not scientific, was not credible, but it was done on one recommendation that the polar bears in the Kivalliq are in such a state of compelling kind of case that they’re going to disappear.
That was completely false. I don’t think that was a scientific statement at all.
So I would like to ask the minister: what is considered scientific if it’s going to be accepted by the international community?
Yes, indeed, we are well aware of the strengths and power of the opponents we faced. We won’t underestimate them in the slightest. I would ask that Mr. Pinksen be allowed to respond to the question on the scientific validity issue, that is if you concur, Mr. Chairman.
It’s easy to define what science and what the scientific method is. It’s much more difficult defend it and create it so that it’s not attackable. So we can go out and do our research and whether or not it’s open to attack is a question we can’t answer now.
You do your best and you design your survey, but all surveys can be attacked.
Certainly, with our research program, we’re very proud of it. We think it has been very successful in Nunavut and we continuously work to improve it.
We believe that in recent years, we have made improvements both in the quality of our work and in its acceptability to communities, including using at least two new methods that are reducing the handling of bears.
It is gaining credibility in some respects.
We know we have an uphill battle to defend ourselves against external targets and influences who would like to see all hunting stopped. There is that group of people. There are people who want to see polar bear hunting stopped because of climate change.
We’ve got an uphill battle, but we have also learned a lot these last two uplifting attempts by the US. Hopefully, we can continue to all win.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Pinksen. Mr. Curley.
Mr. Chairman, I think it’s important that any scientific study with respect to polar bears should have credibility.
They should be accredited, that they are actually credible, if we have to improve our licensing or permitting process, to ensure that scientists are actually proving something, not just hyping the pride of polar bears, which is normally considered science when they are assumptions. Assumptions, to me, are not science.
We need to define a protocol that can stand any challenge. If we’re going to do that, what is it going to take? Is it going to take legislation, regulations, or techniques?
The European Union believes, at one instance, with their proposal that appears to say to me that we should tag all existing polar bears and to prevent, for instance, illegal trade.
I don’t know what new methods we can take, but I think one is definitely to prevent fraudulent kinds of assessment of polar bears, even by accredited, so-called scientists from other provinces.
Minister Arreak, if you want to make a comment on that.
Hon. James Arreak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we’re going to have to work again in regard to polar bear surveys because we’re going to keep on hunting polar bears.
In regard to trading of polar bear products, they must have a tag in place to trade them. They also must have a tag to find out where they are trading them to. We need to have a tracking system for them.
We have to find out what other kinds of methods we can use to conduct polar bear surveys for people to believe that they are credible. We would like to have a better system in place to do polar bear surveys. The Nunavut government has been asked as to how they use the survey system.
I will have Mr. Akeeagok elaborate on my response. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Yes, it’s good to hear what the member is saying.
We will work to make the survey better. We will continue to work with the five countries conducting surveys that aren’t currently working in conjunction with one another. We will explore ways to come to an agreement about this type of surveying method.
Some countries are close to agreement on these issues, as we continue to convey our message, and they have the exact same survey results, but they come up with other types of messages that they grasp from the numbers.
We ought to first come to an agreement on which species or populations are possibly in threatened states. If there is data stating that polar bears are declining in a certain population, people quickly classify the whole species as being threatened.
However, based on our knowledge, certain populations are growing and others are in decline. The populations are all different.
We have to work with these different organizations on a common message and in partnership and try to be on the same page with everything. The survey results can be manipulated for a whole variety of messages. We have to ensure that we try to correct this aspect of our approach.
I am also thankful to the member for outlining this particular issue.
I also thank him because we were over there, whatever the name of the place was, during the initiative by the United States to up-list the polar bears to the top level of threatened status, to the third level. If that had passed, all international trade in polar bear skins would be banned. They would only be sold in Canada.
This would have resulted in the fall in polar bear prices.
Also, Canada is often accused, especially by Russia, of over-harvesting the polar bears, that it is causing the prices to rise, and that this system is being abused due to these high prices.
At least here in Canada, most Inuit don’t commit criminal acts, especially as it relates to polar bears, as it is culturally important.
Now, with the assistance of the minister, perhaps we can work with the federal government to inform the Russians that their polar bear population probably constitutes the second largest population in the world besides Canada and that they ought to first fix their own management system, as many polar bears are poached in Russia and then sold.
I doubt any poached skins are from Canada. Perhaps the minister can convey this message, maybe through the Arctic Council, as an urgent matter. Canada was being accused while Russia was being ignored about poaching polar bears.
Although this was the accusation from the Russians, we can check further to see if there is any substantiation to this accusation. We want to also find out if Canada’s polar bears are being poached for criminal activities.
We can definitely do some investigation along with our federal counterparts, especially when dealing with foreign issues, as we can only work through them. We can try to do that.
Mr. Enook (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was so grateful that you had to step out for a bit and I now have another 10 minutes.
I want to return to whether there can be any type of assistance provided to hunters.
I just want an explanation of some details and how our people can be given assistance in cases of equipment loss due to factors beyond their control.
I want to return to the foundation laid out earlier. On a personal note, I totally disagree with the bureaucratic approach because everyone on a hunting trip is always on the verge of potential danger.
Any hunting activity is dangerous to begin with.
First of all, the Nunavut government has talked about poverty reduction and putting food on the table.
It is something I am very pleased to see because it helps the people of Nunavut out there.
We keep talking about poverty reduction and the Department of Environment philosophy, and the two seem to clash.
Our government is talking about poverty reduction and not providing subsidies for hunters who provide for their families, their relatives, and the community as a whole.
Hunters are the hardest-working people, carrying out the toughest tasks, and earning the least income.
We all know that they don’t make much money, yet hunting gear is very expensive, what with boats, motors, snowmobiles, four-wheelers, and so on. In the case of accidents, they seem to experience the hardest time being approved for financial help.
The two government departments seem to be at odds with one another. One is focused on food security in Nunavut. The other department, meanwhile, seems to make support for food providers virtually impossible.
Its regulations put meaningful efforts out of reach in the context of what has been pointed out earlier.
What can be done for these food producers? It seems government is in conflict within itself.
The question I wish to ask is the way things are established. Someone said that if a hunter loses equipment by accident, he has to fill out forms and submit them to conservation officers in the communities.
My first question is: how much influence does the conservation officer in the community have on this issue?
Minister Arreak
Mr. Pinksen can respond to that question with your permission, Mr. Chairman.
We have at least one conservation officer in each community. There is occasionally a vacancy, but when there is a vacancy in any community, the regional manager has the responsibility to make sure that the community is provided with service.
That can mean hiring a casual or flying in staff from another community or whatever other means they can find to make it work in that situation.
With very rare exceptions, our communities have someone to contact and our staff are available to those communities.
I don’t know how I ask my question sometimes. I apologize if I didn’t make myself clear.
The conservation officer is the one who takes in the application. If there had been an accident, the individual would have to apply and give the filled application form to the conservation officer.
Once the conservation officer takes that form, would he have the authority to decline or accept it?
What can the conservation officer at the community do or what kind of authority does he have?
I thank the member very much for his question. I will have Mr. Pinksen answer the question.
I got the question this time.
The role of the officer is to review the application to make sure it’s complete. They do not make a decision. They don’t have a decision-making authority, but they would make a recommendation on whether it should be approved or denied.
They don’t have approval or denial authority.
Do I understand that in my community and in other communities of Nunavut, once the conservation officer takes in the application, he can’t accept or reject it, but he can make recommendations?
My question is: has your department ever thought to give the conservation officer the authority to accept or reject the applications?
They are the ones who know the people best in the communities.
Yes, you understood it correctly. They don’t have the authority to accept or reject, but they can make recommendations on the application. Mr. Pinksen can go into further details on that.
Mr. Enook was shaking his head. I think Mr. Enook would like to clarify his question.
The reason why I signalled my head to you, Mr. Chairman, is I completely comprehended his answer and I don’t even require any further answer on that subject, as he clarified it.
Chairman: Mr. Enook.
Sometimes, it gets confusing. Our government says that they have to hand out more responsibility to the communities and to be decision-makers of their own communities.
Here we have staff at the community level who are given no authority at all, even though they know the community personally, they know the people, the environment, and the activities going on around their community. They are not given any authority to do anything from there.
Where does the application go once it has gone through the conservation officer’s office?
Hon. James Arreak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You probably heard the response, but if you would have Mr. Pinksen respond, Mr. Chairman.
The application goes from the applicant to the conservation officer to the regional manager. That’s the three steps.
The reason for this question may be due to this very long day or whether my hearing or comprehension abilities are diminished because earlier, I seemed to understand that the process goes from the conservation officer to the HTO. Did I misunderstand?
I thought that was the exact statement.