EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
As a department, of course, as elected officials, this was decided through an urgent teleconference.
Later on, the chairmen of the wildlife organizations, HTOs, and QWB were also involved, including NTI. We had an emergency meeting.
The only time that it could be made public was when the minister declared the moratorium.
We consulted the communities and also the conservation officers by telephone.
After the enforcement, we communicated through correspondence. After that, the minister had made the announcement.
I would like to respond to the deputy minister’s response.
You said that the elected officials had a meeting. For us Baffin MLAs, we were told that we were going to meet through a teleconference. Apparently it was after the decision was made.
When Mr. Keyootak was asking a question, he was given an example that there was a representative for Uqqummiut.
I just want to remind you and to remind myself also that towards the end of our meeting via teleconference, I had asked the (interpretation ends) Hon. Minister, (interpretation) Minister Mike, if we were able to inform the people through radio.
He said no and that the department will make the announcement.
Even though that may have been the case, to hear the department now place the onus on the MLAs to inform their constituents about this issue is reprehensible because your department stated that they would do the public announcements of this moratorium.
This is what I want Nunavummiut and residents of Baffin Island to be absolutely clear about.
I asked the question previously if we could now make that announcement on the local community radio stations.
The answer was no and that the department will conduct the public announcements on this issue.
With this process continuing up to this caribou moratorium now in effect on Baffin Island, how are you working with the local HTOs to ensure that this moratorium your department wants followed is complied with by their local memberships?
Hon. Johnny Mike (interpretation): Thank you. I also thank you for bringing up that concern, my nukassakuluk, Member Enook.
Yes, this was occurring at the same time we were focusing on other issues, including the various management options that stemmed from the NWMB meeting.
After this meeting, we didn’t have a lot of time to deliberate on this issue within our department.
I also recall that after we announced the moratorium, when the government released the announcement, our department identified that this would be made public with announcements to follow.
It was my personal choice to include MLAs representing the Baffin region only because I felt it was right.
There is nothing legally requiring us to consult with regular MLAs and (interpretation ends) this was at my courtesy (interpretation) where I included them.
I felt it was prudent to inform the Baffin region MLAs, although I wasn’t required to do so, as I felt that the lines of communication had to be respected through both avenues, both through the MLAs and HTOs.
We didn’t have to do that as we could have just unilaterally informed the public at large about the moratorium.
I am only referring to the public announcement aspect only. That is all.
With respect to public announcements of the issue we are debating as it was asked about, it was only due to my personal convictions on the matter that I involved the MLAs.
I wanted to do that and because of that, all members heard the exact same news when the government made the caribou moratorium announcement.
I never asked the members not to speak to the issue prior to the announcement of the moratorium.
If members misunderstood that, then I can only state that related to government operations, although I am a minister, I still needed to consult with my executive colleagues, particularly with our Premier.
At that time, the Government of Nunavut was faced with several wildlife issues and we didn’t have much time to make that decision as we had to inform the residents about this issue. Due to that reason, within our mandate, we aren’t the only ones involved in drafting public service announcements related to the caribou moratorium and how to disseminate the information.
I suppose the rapidity of the decision caught people by surprise and I just wanted to reiterate that (interpretation ends) it was at my courtesy, really.
It gratifies me to hear that your department is aware of their need to provide that service.
Inuit fought hard to get a government closer to their lives and one that would keep them informed of momentous decisions and who included Inuit. That mollifies some of my concerns that your department is aware of their responsibilities and I thank you for your awareness of this requirement.
Let me then turn to this next question, Mr. Chairman.
Now with the moratorium in effect, some communities are placed in a very difficult situation as they are faced with food insecurity issues.
Has your department researched any other alternatives specifically for this? I imagine there are discussions ongoing to that effect.
Indeed, this has impacted me on a personal level as well. Most of my life, I have practised our tradition of hunting and harvesting animals for food, so this also impacts me personally.
I wanted to speak to that feeling because I totally empathize with the local hunters. When I was faced with this momentous decision, it was almost like taking a knife to my own heart to make the decision to enact the moratorium.
That was my own personal battle I faced over this matter.
That is obviously the case for Inuit when dealing with wildlife, but government operations dictate difficult decisions.
In looking back at the year 2009, it is now six years ago. In 2010, concerns were raised about the decline in the caribou and hunters were voicing their concerns about the lack of caribou available.
I, too, was amongst those who felt that. Even back then, there were management options being debated in the government.
To use Pangnirtung as an example, our land use area usually has an area somewhere that caribou inhabit, at least based on the knowledge I was given and learned.
When these areas were void of caribou, the Nunavut government, the local hamlet, and HTO banded together and ordered caribou from Repulse Bay in 2009-2010 for a local Christmas feast.
I want to return to this statement: a moratorium is useless to enforce if there are no caribou to protect.
If there are no caribou, then a moratorium is basically void and useless as it would only work with a caribou population.
Every community had different situations. As harvesters, we generally know which areas have caribou.
As an example, Iqaluit had roughly the same number of caribou harvested throughout the year while some communities with sparse caribou populations hardly harvested any caribou.
These harvest numbers are available.
This issue also requires alternatives, as this lack of caribou exacerbates the meat requirements of our people. We are trying to collaborate with other departments. We have started discussing the effects of this development with the departments of Family Services and Economic Development and Transportation.
Various alternatives were identified during our last meeting. They have stated that they will try to make programs available much like our department is attempting to do with our programs.
Also, within our main estimates, we have identified increases in the funds used for the purpose of obtaining country food for communities.
We are considering all of our options.
Now, in the Baffin region, angajuksakuluuk, Minister Mike, don’t think that I am personally dead set against this caribou moratorium.
I am not personally attacking this moratorium.
When the reasoning is clearly understood, it is much easier to make difficult decisions.
However, I want to ask about this issue next.
Now that everyone in the territory is aware of this caribou moratorium in the Baffin region, all sorts of scavengers, or (interpretation ends) vultures (interpretation) as an example, are already raising freight costs to take advantage of the uptick in demand.
They know Inuit have no choice but to order caribou from other regions outside of the Baffin region, particularly given our taste for caribou meat.
We have already seen drastic increases set by these unscrupulous airlines, although they pretend it is due to the rising costs of conducting business in the north.
In my personal opinion, I noted that it was exactly when they learned about the moratorium that the rates changed, almost as it was done in step with the moratorium.
It was unerring too close, although I know that it may not have been intentional.
The food freight rates changed overnight, seemingly in line with the caribou moratorium for food shipped to Baffin Island.
While we are in that situation, it is already obvious that people are going to be in further hardship.
Have you outlined or made any plans as to how you are going to help certain communities now?
For example, in Pond Inlet, we go through hardships, but we can fly to Igloolik or drive by snowmobile to Igloolik and then go caribou hunting away from Baffin.
For the people in Cape Dorset and Pangnirtung, it is too far for them to go.
Have you thought of any ways of supporting those communities or is it too soon that you haven’t made any plans like that yet?
I fully understand what my colleague is saying.
We are doing this for the people out there, all of us.
The Government of Nunavut has set this up. I know from the Department of Environment that requests for the funding that is used for country food distribution haven’t changed.
We know that the airlines that carry country food raise their freight rates and it will change a lot of things.
Perhaps later on, we will see what it does. We may need to reconsider things.
Inuit need to have food. We are working together for this.
The Government of Nunavut’s various departments are aware of it.
I know that if we need to do more things, then we will have to consider that for all the communities, especially for the people who yearn for the food that they know.
This moratorium, temporary ban, I know that I have stated that it may stay until March and April.
However, NWMB is holding hearings right now in March.
There are a lot of discussions. People have a good opportunity there and I’m sure we will be given more ideas about country food from those meetings.
Page I-4.
Following my list of names, Mr. Shooyook.
Welcome to one of the member’s angajuksakuluk, Mr. Nirlungayuk, and that other person.
We are happily trying to do things that the people of Nunavut need, not just those things.
I appreciate my colleague for talking about this because it is extremely important for our lives.
Now, we have heard and I don’t know if this is true or not, but somebody has killed a caribou.
We are not quite sure.
There is a moratorium.
Has it happened? Right now, we are banned from killing caribou. Have you set up strong circumstances or things that could happen to people if they don’t listen to the law?
If they don’t follow the law, what will be done to people who decide not to follow the moratorium?
What have you set up for this? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank our colleague for asking the question.
Before the moratorium, the Department of Environment’s Wildlife Division looked at wildlife laws that are being broken. Enforcing the wildlife regulations is always continued.
After the caribou moratorium had been announced, as a minister, it just falls under the Wildlife Regulations of Nunavut.
Today, whenever a new law is enacted, only after people start breaking it, we learn it.
That’s how laws seem to work these days. It’s like somebody makes a law knowing that it will be broken, and then it gets tested.
That’s how laws seem to be made.
It will probably happen with the caribou moratorium.
That is how I can respond to that question.
I would like to talk about this again.
I thank you a great deal for this.
I was concerned about it. I know there are regulations that fall under it.
I know that HTOs have to follow regulations as well.
Even our community has their own committee that makes sure animals are not wasted.
You have the authority to do things like that.
Let me change the subject a little bit.
In the Department of Environment’s business plan, one of the priorities for 2014-15 is to “Undertake a review of the department’s suite of harvester support programs…” It talks about support programs.
What is it directed towards? Does it have to do with country foods or gasoline subsidies for harvesters?
Can you describe to me what is available under it?
It’s an operational matter. I would like the Assistant Deputy Minister, Steve Pinksen, to respond to that, please.
The Country Food Distribution Program is a program that is administered through the Department of Economic Development and Transportation.
It’s not our program, so I’m not an expert on it, but I do know that it provides funding for communities to purchase country food from other communities and ship it to the community that buys it.
They have various schedules under the program.
The main purpose of the program is to make country food available and it provides financial support for that.
Thank you for explaining that and for answering my question.
I’m happy because it’s very difficult to work with.
Please know that we are not asking questions because we’re angry.
It’s just normal practice to ask questions.
I also know that kind of experience because caribou weren’t available during those years, and the HBC traders imposed a hunting ban and this was around 1944-46.
The HBC traders were adamant about Inuit not hunting any caribou.
With respect to bans, that practice continues up to today and it’s not alien to Inuit.
Nonetheless, I believe it has more to do with Inuit population increases and I think country food has returned to being an Inuit delicacy, at least for older Inuit like us.
I don’t want you to be overly concerned, including our listening audience, as this ban won’t be in place forever.
After the situation has improved and all the information has been collected, will you be informing the public about the next management steps?
Will the department inform the public about either the month or year when this ban may be lifted?
Is that the direction you are going towards?
I thank my colleague for asking that question about the timing, as we are all wondering about that issue as residents of this region.
The government also has to follow the process laid out in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement where they work with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, as they are the main instrument of wildlife management in Nunavut.
This includes the public hearing process and currently, the caribou issue is being debated in that forum.
This is an opportune time for this process to be held, at least on a personal level because NWMB has the authority to conduct public hearings on certain species.
The public hearing is something I want the public to fully understand, as the (interpretation ends) public hearing (interpretation) includes the Nunavut government as an intervener, much like everyone else submitting their positions like NTI, QWB, HTOs, and every Inuk who wants to submit their opinion.
After the hearing process has run its course, NWMB still has to evaluate the submissions made during that hearing and they will have to arrive at a decision.
This applies to the Government of Nunavut submissions as well submitted at the public hearing, as they also have to assess all the information.
I, too, am in the same situation as all the other residents in waiting for news about when the moratorium will be lifted and replaced with different management options.
Even though we’re the government, we can’t decide that until the hearings have been completed.
Environment. Branch Summary. I-4.
Following my list of names, Mr. Keyootak.
I also have further questions related to the caribou issue.
I raised several concerns in my questioning to the minister about our community’s lack of information and of the fact that community members weren’t at all pleased with this development.
The department has stated that efforts were made to inform all the communities about this moratorium, but as per my earlier comments, the community wasn’t provided with any public announcements in Qikiqtarjuaq about the caribou moratorium.
The Qikiqtani Inuit Association represents all of the Baffin Inuit and has representatives in every community. Unlike the Qikiqtaaluk Wildlife Board, which doesn’t have representation of all the communities, at least at the executive level, and NTI represents all Nunavut interests, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association is the only organization that has a representative in every Baffin community.
I wanted to know if QIA was involved in this caribou management issue.
As I understand, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association has not contacted me up to today.
I have not heard from the Qikiqtani Inuit Association in my office. That is what I can say.
Some communities have no renewable resource officer and my community of Qikiqtarjuaq has had no wildlife officer for some time now. This makes it hard to deal with some issues.
Why have you not met with the HTA or notify them as to the moratorium?
We only heard about the caribou moratorium through the TV.
We had no prior warning and this makes it harder to live in our community.
Why did the department not issue a written notice of the pending moratorium on hunting caribou?
Hon. Johnny Mike (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also thank my colleague for that question. I will ask my deputy minister to respond.
Mr. Nirlungayuk: (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Keyootak.
I am not happy too that Qikiqtarjuaq has no conservation officer.
We are looking to place a conservation officer there.
QWB has a representative from Qikiqtarjuaq and they were aware through that process.
The minister never wrote to the communities as we were hitting the Christmas rush for this. We are sorry.
The minister stated that communities that have no caribou will not be affected.
I want to let him know that we have no caribou, but we do go get caribou at a very far distance traversing across Baffin Island and we take a long time to go get caribou.
If a hunter returns in a week, that is considered a quick caribou hunting trip. If he brings only one drum of gas, we consider that a quick trip as well.
That is how we go and hunt caribou.
As he stated, communities without caribou will not be affected, but I can assure you that Qikiqtarjuaq is affected.
Does the minister not feel that Qikiqtarjuaq is affected by this caribou moratorium?
I never stated that they would not be affected.
I said that if you have no caribou, then this moratorium does not affect you.
If there are caribou, then you are affected.
I know for a fact that the hunters in Qikiqtarjuaq harvest caribou, although no population exists nearby, and we always heard about Qikiqtarjuaq hunters harvesting caribou even when they were far.
My father’s stepfather, Pauloosie Angmarlik, moved to Qikiqtarjuaq, and I learned from him personally about caribou and their usual haunts. This knowledge has become more common. ‘
For that reason, I want everyone to understand this point: pretty well every community that had caribou close by has seen the caribou move away, as if they migrated elsewhere.
This happened on occasion, at least in the past.
This doesn’t seem to occur anymore, but this is just an example.
I wasn’t insinuating that this moratorium won’t impact communities, but rather that without any caribou, a moratorium is useless to try and enforce.
Do I understand then that Qikiqtarjuaq won’t be affected by this moratorium because there are no caribou populations in our land use area?
This moratorium affects all of Baffin Island. There are 10 communities that aren’t allowed to hunt caribou.
I have continued to maintain in my statements that our community is without a conservation officer. How will this information be provided to the members that there is a moratorium?
As per my earlier comments, our hunters travel great distances to hunt caribou. I wonder if your department will have employees monitoring this moratorium.
Will this include monitoring hunters to ensure they aren’t going for a caribou hunting trip? Would they confiscate any caribou harvested? I’m asking about communities that don’t have a conservation officer.
How will your department keep abreast of developments?
At that time, we had a teleconference with QWB and at that time, we discussed the issue of a moratorium on Baffin Island and the concerns.
Before the moratorium was placed, the Qikiqtaaluk Wildlife Board was involved at those meetings.
All affected hunters and trappers organizations, the conservation officers, the communities, and the government were going to be working together.
The first ones to voice the decrease in the caribou population came from the hunters and trappers themselves.
As the Minister of Environment, I was working with the communities.
I can only use Baffin Island as an example. We know that there will be some people who follow this moratorium and there will be some people who will be harvesting a caribou every now and then. We know that laws are broken all the time.
We would like to work closely with the hunters and trappers organizations.
We are already doing some research.
I think there are going to be some people harvesting caribou, but we have been doing research. I think there are going to be some people harvesting caribou, but we have been doing research on this issue already since the moratorium came into effect.
Mr. Keyootak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also thank the minister for his response.
As I indicated earlier, we have to go very far to go caribou hunting.
We have to cross the ocean and just about go to the other side of Baffin Island, and I don’t think it’s going to change in our community at all. We have to go to the mainland to go caribou hunting.
As I indicated earlier, if we’re gone for a week, then that’s a very short time.
We usually know where to go caribou hunting, but in Qikiqtarjuaq, we have to go to the mainland and right now, we’re not crossing to the other side.
That’s why I asked you how this moratorium was going to be enforced. How are you going to know if caribou were caught on Baffin Island or from somewhere else?
The moratorium is only in effect for Baffin Island.
If you want to go caribou hunting for a month outside of Baffin Island, you are free to do so. You can go caribou hunting anywhere as long as it’s not on Baffin Island.
The moratorium is only in effect on Baffin Island.
If you were to go caribou hunting anywhere else, that is perfectly fine.
I can use Igloolik and Hall Beach as an example. They were also involved in the caribou issue, but they do go caribou hunting because they are outside of Baffin Island. They go caribou hunting in Iluili on the mainland.
If you want to go across, then by all means, you can go caribou hunting.
Branch Summary. Corporate Management. I-4.
Mr. Akoak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Minister Mike, and staff.
In your business plan on page 140, you’re talking about the first of a three-year quantitative assessment of McClintock Channel polar bear subpopulation. It says that it was successfully completed in June of 2014.
I would just like to know how that survey went and if the subpopulation is healthy.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you very much. (interpretation ends) Minister of Environment, Mr. Mike.
Hon. Johnny Mike: I’ll get my Assistant Deputy Minister Pinksen to answer that one.
The first year of the survey was completed last year. It’s a three-year project and it takes at least two years of results before we can really get an indication of the population and whether it’s increasing, decreasing, or stable. We’re not really able to say until we finish the second year, which will be this year.
What is the total allowable harvest for that area?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you very much. (interpretation ends) The minister has indicated Mr. Pinksen.
The current allowable harvest for McClintock Channel is three, but the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board is presently considering whether to change that number.
It’s currently in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement decision-making process.
The three are shared between Cambridge Bay and Gjoa Haven.