EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Although this is not supposed to scale back the clean up of contaminated sites, it will be important to closely monitor the federal department’s performance.
Members were pleased with the recent increase to Nunavut’s total allowable harvest of polar bears.
However, members are concerned that recent news reports indicate that population counts may have not been as accurate as initially thought.
Members urge the minister to consider very carefully any additional changes that may be brought forward as a result.
Members also urge the minister to continue including Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit when conducting studies on polar bear populations.
Members look forward to seeing the results of the two studies conducted by this department on the Peary Caribou and Polar Bear Deterrents.
Members wish to be kept fully informed on progress in this area, and to have the opportunity to review and comment on the draft regulations prior to their final approval by Cabinet.
Members understand that these regulations will be translated into Inuktitut for the benefit of unilingual Inuktitut speakers.
Members would wish to see the same provided to Inuinnaqtun speakers.
The committee is committed to the development of Nunavut’s fishing industry as this has potential to create much-needed employment for Nunavummiut.
Members were pleased to learn that the department is looking at developing a fishery and sealing training program in partnership with Nunavut Arctic College, Kakivak Association, HRDC, INAC, BFC and QC. Members expect to be kept informed on this development.
Mr. Chairman, members eagerly look forward to reviewing the department’s new Fisheries Strategy.
There is still a lack of clarity with respect to responsibility for harvesting-related economic development initiatives in the territory.
Members note with approval that the prices and sales of sealskins have stabilized somewhat, and commend the department’s continued efforts to revitalize sealing in Nunavut through its fur pricing program and support for marketing campaigns that highlight the sustainable harvesting practices used by Inuit.
Members were pleased to hear the Fur Price Program made a profit in 2004 and as a result, will be paying the seal harvesters with a one-time second payment of $10 for every sealskin that was delivered to their offices.
Members look forward to seeing the department’s Sealing Strategy.
Mr. Chairman, members will wish to see the new Department of Environment Strategy to check its plans once it has been developed.
Members noted that joint planning and management companies for all territorial parks in Nunavut has been established and implementation has been delayed due to the lack of federal funding for IIBA’s.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening remarks and I anticipate that the individual members will raise their own comments and concerns on the department’s 2005/06 main estimates.
We’re going to have a 15 minute break before we proceed.
>>Committee recessed at 14:56 and resumed at 15:20
Chairman (interpretation): Minister Akesuk you may proceed to the witness table with your officials. (interpretation ends) Do you need your officials at the witness table?
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): I don’t need them if you are going to have no questions.
If you just go along, well I guess that I need them.
Chairman (interpretation): I am sure that there will be questions.
You may proceed to the witness table with your officials.
I just want to say, Mr. Akesuk, when you get asked questions that are very difficult for you to answer, you are going to say, “That is a good question, so I am going to get my deputy minister to answer.
To my right is my deputy minister Simon Awa, and to my left, Corporate Services, Trevor Jarett.
Every member has 10-minutes to do their general comments.
I am sure that it’s going to take less than 10-minutes to approve the department.
I am going to be talking in Inuktitut, so please pay attention.
At times when you try to speak Inuktitut it’s to convey the Inuit concept and they just say that they will look into that and all of the ministers have stated the same response.
Although everyone knows the actual result, but when they are asked, they always respond by saying that they are going to look into that, especially when we are dealing with wildlife that we need to have a biologist here because that’s a great concern of the Nunavummiut and they state that once they do a survey they say that these wildlife are critical in population.
So that’s why I am making this statement.
When we talk about wildlife, we listen to scientists and they have no direction and nobody even talks to them.
At times, the wildlife biologists and animal rights activists seem to work together, don’t they work together?
And as a minister, I would tell my biologist not to state what they state because they are not approved yet.
We have seen in the international relations, it seems like the biologists are working on the responsibilities of federal ministers, especially when the Greenlanders are harvesting too many of some kind of species.
We don’t even have foreign affairs in this committee, although we have international agreements that we have to deal with.
Are we working effectively within our responsibilities?
So at times, I become concerned and I would urge the minister to tighten up his department, especially when we have to the scientific data, we have to include Inuktitut knowledge.
The polar bear biologists met in Edmonton. I will bet you that there was not even one Inuk person down there in that meeting.
The only way we can incorporate Inuit traditional knowledge is when they are incorporated with the scientific knowledge.
I would like to ask about the scientific knowledge so therefore I believe that we need a biologist.
I want to get understanding of what scientific data means.
So, when the biologists state that specific species are in danger, like for example, polar bears in the Baffin Bay, there’s only 200 something polar bears around the polar bear management zone to North Baffin.
They say there were only 2,700 polar bears being estimated now.
So therefore I would like to get an understanding why we have not included biologists at the witness table.
Mr. Kattuk, you have 10 minutes for general comments.
Although I will not take 10-minutes, but I am in support of my colleague’s general comments and I believe what he said because the animal rights activists get together, for example, the protest we talked recently in regards to the protest that was made by the humane society.
Even though these animal rights activists just work within their homes, it seems like they have no place to go and watch the animals in hinterland.
The knowledge of Inuit, I’m sure we need an opportunity to voice our concerns, too, because the Inuit are very knowledgeable about the environment and that’s part of their daily lives and they know their wildlife.
When it comes to animals rights activists, we have no place to turn to and they believe the scientific knowledge and I believe that the Nunavut Government should know to approach and validate the knowledge of Inuit and make sure that there’s opportunity to hear the users of wildlife on a daily basis.
I just wanted to make that statement first.
The concern that’s being raised around our environment; we now have all sorts of pollution.
We are starting to be concerned and worried about pollution.
Back then, we were never worried about pollution and we were never worried about contaminating our wildlife.
We were never concerned about wildlife having diseases or sicknesses.
In my constituency, we use seal and seal meat for sustenance and as the spring season arrives we tend to get sicker, too, and we tend visit the nurses more often or more frequently even I have not seen a laboratory set in Nunavut.
I can use an example, last fall, with the sea cucumbers, we were quite concerned about the sea cucumbers and it took a very long time for the officials to do something about the sea cucumbers dying off.
And it took a very long time for officials the reason why they were dying off.
There are no laboratories in the north to do some testing for our species.
It would be ideal to get a laboratory where you can get the results the very next day.
We are concerned about eating contaminated species and getting contaminated ourselves.
Although we know that we expect to see some negative impact coming to the north, such as pollution, because the other international country’s pollution are coming up here and it is becoming more evident in the Hudson Bay area.
There are many rivers that are flowing right into the Hudson Bay area.
There is a lot of sewage and raw stuff being poured right into the river and they are flowing right into Hudson Bay.
There is a lot of forestry work done in the Quebec area, so the river flows into Hudson Bay and I am concerned about that.
We are concerned about our species and once we find out what kind of diseases our species are contaminated with, there is no laboratory place where you can do some testing on theses specimens, and we can’t get results the very next day.
I am just making these comments here.
Just for the opening I would like to make a short comment to the department.
I would like to be able to work with the department on this fiscal year and the coming year in regards to the protection of wildlife in the north.
I am happy that they are starting to help the people of Nunavut.
What I am concerned about is the department used to have quite a chunk of money before Nunavut was created.
I think that they were supposed to be getting some money from the federal government annually.
The Department of Environment wanted to be able to give out Grants and Contributions as well.
There have been a lot of problems coming from the Hunters’ and Trappers’ Organizations because they don’t receive much funding from the department.
There is also the Canadian Wildlife Organization have also wanted to get some Grants and Contributions.
Also the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board is giving out some funding too as well but the funding that they receive is not adequate.
Also in our community what I am saying is that I am talking about mostly my constituents.
There are a lot of wildlife organizations in various regions and they ask for funding and the funding is being asked by various organizations.
Under the department’s funding, there used to be some funding available in the Northwest Territories days to help out the fishing, and then there has been a lot of people saying that this department is not giving out as much money as they used to.
These are the two things that I am mostly thinking about because there’s a lot of funding coming from various organizations as well to help out with fishing, but we would like to be able to have some more money for the fishermen from this department, but they have not been doing that as much to those fishermen.
There’s about $875,000 in that amount from the Department of Environment for fisheries and I know that it’s going to be going into the deep sea fish for deep sea fishermen and some other areas.
I think the department should be able to look at this funding more so.
I think we have to concentrate more on the Nunavut fishermen rather than the other fishermen that receive a lot of money.
It seems like the Government of Nunavut is not doing as much for fisheries as much as they should be.
So I figured that I should talk about this, Mr. Chairman.
I will make a brief comment, too.
What the Inuit people are mainly doing today in my constituency about looking after their wildlife and the environment.
The department is doing something about what we are doing in my constituency.
The Inuit used to say that when they have their own Nunavut Government that the government would be able to make their own legislation that directly effective to the people of Nunavut.  There are a lot of people that don’t know anything about what’s happening about the wildlife regulations and they said that this coming July that they would be doing something about the regulations.
We want to involve the people of Nunavut when it has to do with wildlife.
Also, we have seen some strange animals coming up north that don’t belong in the north, but there’s not enough information going to the public.
I know that with diseases and everything else that I think there should be a laboratory in the communities of Nunavut to be able to test those animals.
We were very happy to hear that the polar bear quota has been increased, and then all of a sudden when they did the counting of the numbers of polar bears, they said that there was not enough in numbers.
Perhaps the number is not declining.
Maybe their route has changed say to mostly on the shore.
I have seen a lot of polar bears around my community and there have been a lot of polar bears coming into my community as well, although it never used to be that way years ago.
We are seeing more polar bears coming into our communities more so than years back.
Nobody seems to know the reasons why.
Also, there are a lot of snow geese now in the north and because they put a ban on killing on them, there are too many of them now and the same thing will probably happen with the polar bears.
That should be the thought in the biologists minds all of the time.
Even though the polar bear quota doesn’t increase, it would be okay, but there might be a decision by the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board in that regard, but I have to say that all of the wildlife in Nunavut is the source of food and clothing, and we want to be able to have no ban on anything.
First of all, I would like to welcome the minister and his officials.
I just want to comment on commercial harvesting in regards to the polar bears, the grizzly bears, and the wolves.
These were the concerns from the communities of Kugluktuk, Cambridge Bay, and Bathurst Inlet.
The concern was the quota for the wolverines.
It was not too long ago when the biologists went to Kugluktuk for two years to monitor wolverines.
(interpretation ends) The biologist had just moved to Kugluktuk a couple of years ago now probably and according to what I heard from some of the hunters was that the biologists wants to see a quota system for wolverines.
A lot of hunters were not too happy because that’s their main source of income to put food on the table for some of the hunters who are doing trapping and fishing.
When they heard that the quota system was going to go up on the wolverines, some people were not too happy.
In Kugluktuk alone, in probably 2001/02, I guess they had caught 112 wolverines in one winter and two days ago, I called the wildlife officers he mentioned there’s about 79 caught so far.
He told me there are 85 averages per year.
I am sure that it’s going to go over again.
I don’t mind seeing the quota system as long as the biologists and the hunters meet together and come up with what they both agree with, otherwise if the biologists put a number down without consulting with the hunters or Hunters and Trappers Organizations, a lot of people are not going to be happy.
So it’s best for you to let the biologists know that they should work very closely with the Hunters’ and Trappers Organizations and also individual hunters.
Then that way, everybody will work together and nobody would point fingers.
That’s the proper way to do it, that’s what I think is best in Kugluktuk area.
I am in support with what you are doing; I am quite happy with what you are doing as the minister and keep up the good work.
I may have some questions later on for you and I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Evyagotailak. (interpretation) We are on I-5. (interpretation ends) Corporate Management.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Are we finished with the opening comments?
Chairman (interpretation): I don’t have any more names on my list for opening comments.
You can start asking your questions.
We are on I-5. (interpretation ends) Mr. Curley.
I just want to find out in regards to the wildlife regulations that are being worked on by the department.
The Aboriginal Harvesting Rights have been negotiated and if the Government of Nunavut is going to comply, the Inuit harvesting rights have to be respected.
In the regulations that are being worked on right now, and it seems like the non-beneficiaries are being given an opportunity in the regulations.
It seems like they are going to have the same rights in regards to hunting caribou.
Is that the way it is right now?
Yeah, we are in the midst of doing regulations and we are still working on them.
Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated and Nunavut Wildlife Management Board have an agreement in place, and we have an agreement before the community consultations.
We are not exactly sure of how the regulations are going to be.
So with the agreement with Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated and Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, so when our department goes to community consultations, we will find out the problems that people are encountering in the communities.
That’s the way it is right now until the changes are put in place.
The way I see it, Mr. Minister, I am pretty sure if the majority of them agree with change, but the regulation; maybe if you say those non-Inuit do they have a quota? The present practice before any changes.
The non-Inuit are allowed to harvest five caribou a year.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): So why is that policy inadequate?
Why do you feel that it’s not sufficient?
It’s not their diet and they don’t use the caribou fur as clothing, and if they are residents, what is the residency requirement; a year?
Isn’t that sufficient?
Chairman: Mr. Akesuk.
After the consultation, then we will find out if it’s sufficient or not.
So you’re just going to find out what I have heard and reading the agreement that harvesting rights; it’s the aboriginal right and if it’s sustainable, the Inuit can hunt without a license.
If they feel that there might be a surplus, then they are willing to do more.
Is it true that they have drafted regulation and non-native, non-Inuk who is not a beneficiary can harvest five caribou at one time?
Could that be every day; would that be the case?
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): No we don’t want to see that.
The government can’t do this alone and we are working together with Nunavut Wildlife Management Board and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated.
At this time it’s very difficult to give a response without consulting the communities first.
I think they’re stepping over their boundaries.
If you agreed to that regulation, even if they have consultations with those people who are non-Inuit, they can’t get five caribou, but after the consultation they will be able to get five and when you make ...(interpretation ends) ...when you do a draft regulation with proposed wording will probably cost you more than $25,000, (interpretation) it has to be drawn up by a lawyer.
If a non-Inuk has five caribou at any time then it’s okay for them to re-apply for five more caribou if they don’t have five in their possession.
(interpretation ends) So you could conceivably give the Minister of Energy the same rights as Inuit have over and above his sons and wife.
So (interpretation) our aboriginal rights are depleting because they are being taken over by non-Inuit.
It’s not just on assignment rights anymore. (interpretation ends) They are giving them their rights now. (interpretation) I don’t think that you realize what the impact will be (interpretation ends) 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the road.
(interpretation) It’s not their diet and they don’t use the fur for clothing.
I want to ask the minister why he’s rushing that.
Can you table that draft regulation here in the House?
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk (interpretation): No, I cannot table the document because it has to be approved by Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporate and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board and I can’t just agree to it just by myself.
When we reconvene on April 26, then I’ll be able to table it because we want to start the consultation this month.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): During the consultation process, is the draft regulation under working groups because we don’t have access to it at this time as Members of the Legislative Assembly.
We’ll finally be able to see it after it’s decided upon.
The bills or acts are passed, but it’s a regulation.
As Members of the Legislative Assembly, we don’t have access to them.
How can we participate?
Last week, I made a statement that as soon as the draft is ready for consultation that I would make it available to you and before the consultation, I will make them available to you before the consultation and you will be able to ask the people who are doing the consulting and I will also be available.
I just want to thank the minister because we will be able to review them.
We have to protect our harvesting rights because it’s not protected by the government.
So you have put yourself in a dangerous position (interpretation ends) without a key, without compelling, without a substantiation, without justification.
(interpretation) So that work has to be done. (interpretation ends) Are they in a desperate state that they meet without a quota (interpretation) given to the Qallunaat if they don’t hunt over five caribous that’s possession on the day when they are seen by the environmental officer, if they don’t hunt more than five caribou, then they can keep them.
As Inuit, if we request something, then we have to wait for studies after studies. I wonder if you, as the minister, can do that because the non-natives seem to be just for the sake of killing, especially if the limit will be five.
You will definitely need to do more studies on this and have a mini-referendum.
We will look at this closely and this will have an impact and we will be careful of how we come up with the regulations and also using Inuit knowledge because we don’t want just anybody killing our wildlife in Nunavut, but it should be taken seriously.
The work that we are doing with Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated and Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, I will be working with them because the Wildlife Act is being made as a made-in-Nunavut Wildlife Act.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): Thank you. Once you start putting the regulations in place, you will need direction from the minister.
If you keep getting suggestions, if they feel that five is not sufficient and if it’s left wide open...because we even see now just because nobody is there to supervise them that they kill more than five.
If it has to be increased by two or three, maybe the Inuit will be able to decree.
As long as they are told it’s not over five and for us 85 percent, when we try to do something in regards to wildlife or we have a very difficult time.
So I would like to ask you under your budget, corporate management, travel budget, where does that $500,000 go?
Hon. Olayuk Akesuk: I will get Mr. Jarett to answer the question, please.
Chairman: Mr. Jarett.
Mr. Jarett: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This budget is broken down in terms of a lot of training and development.
Training and development for our Wildlife Officers is incorporated in the Corporate Management budget.
That alone is $400,000 of the travel budget.
It is to coordinate the training efforts for all the Wildlife Officers throughout the territory for the pneumatics and so that they can enforce what is basically passed accordingly.
We bring them in here twice a year.
They have just been in town in late February and early March, for their recent conference where they have gotten a briefing on it.
They will be back next year and this is a budget to bring them back in.
And further to this training budget is also a new allocation for a new Field Officer training program for which $40,000 is travel and transportation is to bring in three Inuit new Wildlife Officers per year.
Get them trained and the travel component is accordingly.
Mr. Jarett said that a significant portion is used for training and development in the proposed new regulations.
How do they get to see these proposed new regulations before we even have a chance to look at them?
What are you training them on the proposed new regulations with either I know this Assembly has recommended it be approved.
Who authorizes them to see these proposed new regulations that are confidential?
Chairman (interpretation): Mr. Jarett.