Transcript
Transcript: A Conversation with Natan Obed About the Inuit Nunangat Policy
[00:00:16 Text appears onscreen that reads: A Conversation with Natan Obed about the Inuit Nunangat Policy]
[00:00:25 Text appears onscreen that reads: "Natan Obed…Natan Obed is President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national organization working to ensure that Inuit in Canada prosper through unity and self-determination. He is originally from Nain, Nunatsiavut, and currently lives in Ottawa. A skilled negotiator and consensus builder, Obed is the architect of the Inuit Crown Partnership Committee, a collaborative leadership table devoted to addressing the most urgent policy challenges facing Inuit and creating conditions for Inuit to thrive.]
Natan Obed: My name is Natan Obed. I am the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, here in Ottawa.
[00:0:57 Text appears onscreen that reads: "What is ITK?."]
Natan Obed: Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, or ITK is the national representational organization for Canada's 70,000 Inuit.
[00:01:07 Text appears onscreen that reads: "What is the definition of Inuit?"]
Natan Obed: Well, it was a lot simpler before colonization, where there were just Inuit from Greenland all the way to Russia. And we have tight kinship, we have family groups, but we have a common language and a common culture across what is probably 6000km east to west. In this age, Inuit is a defined term through our modern treaties. And to be a beneficiary of a modern treaty and to be a part of our Inuit organizations, you have to be eligible under one of our four land claim agreements. So, Inuit is -to be an Inuk in this day and age just to be a part of your community but is also to be a part of a modern treaty process.
[00:02:05 Text appears onscreen that reads: "Is there a distinction between Inuit and First Nations?"]
Natan Obed: Yes, in the Constitution there are three peoples that are recognized: First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Each of us have wildly different relations with the government of Canada and with provinces and territories and also fall very differently in legislation, in Supreme Court rulings and also in policy and programs.
[00:02:39 Text appears onscreen that reads: "Does Inuit governance differ from provincial governance models?"]
Natan Obed: Well, Inuit have the right to self-determination, and we've been exercising that right more completely in the last, say, 20 to 30 years. We have created orders of government that sit alongside municipal, provincial, territorial, and federal governance models in this country. So, we are not exactly like being a province, and I, as the national Inuit leader, I'm not the same as the Prime Minister or the same as the Premier. But we interlock in many ways with political governance models across the country. It is an evolving process. We have self-determination through self-government in Nunatsiavut, the region where I come from through the Nunatsiavut government. We have aspiring self-governments in Nunavik and the Inuvialuit region in the Western Arctic. Nunavut has spoken about self-government, but they also have Article four of their land claim agreement, that was done in 1993 and actioned in 1999. That gave rise to the Government of Canada and changing the map of this country.
[00:04:03 Text appears onscreen that reads: "Could you clarify what the INP is?"]
Natan Obed: INP is the Inuit Nunangat Policy. It's a policy that we have co-developed with the Government of Canada through the Inuit Crown Partnership Committee. The Prime Minister announced that the government was adopting the INP in April of 2022. We've been working with the government to implement it as best we can, but in many ways this policy is something that is government's and we are cheerleaders. We can help people understand how to use this policy as it was intended. But we're really excited about this day and age where there is an INP.
[00:04:51 Text appears onscreen that reads: "What obligations does the Government of Canada have under the INP?"]
Natan Obed: First and foremost, it recognizes who Inuit are in this country. It recognizes our treaty history and the sum total of our modern treaty settlement areas being the space or area that describes Inuit Nunangat. So, the obligation of the government is to accept that Inuit Nunangat is a geopolitical space. And that the Federal Government recognizes and upholds that and will work with Inuit to implement our existing rights on any piece of work that impacts the Inuit in the areas of policy legislation or programs.
[00:05:44 Text appears onscreen that reads: "Is the INP an obligation for one or two ministers, or should it be understood by all ministers?"]
Natan Obed: We have agreements with Canada and we have always imagined that the work that we do as Inuit, at this representational level in Ottawa is to try to have the Government of Canada understand itself and its function on the treaties that it has made and the obligations that it has signed on to, whether it be the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Supreme Court rulings, the Constitution our modern treaties. And all of those obligations and considerations are exhaustive of every federal department and every federal agency. What we've tried to do with the INP is to clearly define how you make sense of those obligations and how you action them in your daily work.
[00:06:40 Text appears onscreen that reads: "What would you say to federal public servants about their responsibilities under the INP?"]
Natan Obed: The INP is publicly available on the Government of Canada website, and it is drafted to be as straightforward as possible and starts with just the definition of who Inuit are within the context of the constitution. It also references our four treaties and are four settlement areas and then very clearly describes the necessity of Government of Canada departments and public servants to uphold the inclusion of Inuit within the deliberations around issues that affect Inuit. So, we have often been lost within the public policy debate in this country. We are 70,000 there, I believe, at last count, over 1.4 million Indigenous peoples in this country. So, from a policy perspective, we are dwarfed by other Indigenous peoples. We also do not fall under the Indian Act, which has been the major consideration of Indian Affairs and now Crown-Indigenous Relations or even other departments. And so, we have been a very particular policy consideration that has often been overlooked without consequence. This INP allows for our positions to be structurally connected to the outputs of departmental work and hopefully can allow for us to have pragmatic judgement of whether or not departments are doing well or not through the implementation of this policy.
[00:08:29 Text appears onscreen that reads: "How would you assess the Crown's progress working with the INP?"]
Natan Obed: There have been challenges, but there have also been successes. We didn't want this policy to have an implementation phase. Like many novel ideas that are implemented by the federal government, where there's a period of time where you have pilots, or you only implement a particular new policy if you have funding to do it. We see this as universal and pretty easy to understand on a conceptual level. Sometimes it will be very difficult for departments and key leaders within departments to consider the financial implications or the timing implications of adopting and implementing the Inuit Nunangat Policy. So, we understand the reticence in some places within the federal government to do things differently. But we've also heard of success stories across the government of people just naturally being able to work in a more complete way on Indigenous issues across First Nations Inuit and Métis scenarios and uphold the Inuit component of the policy work that they're doing based on the implementation of the policy.
[00:09:56 Text appears onscreen that reads: "What milestones or markers would define the success of the INP?"]
Natan Obed: We hope that the Government of Canada will incorporate the Inuit Nunangat Policy. First in its political advice that it gives to any minister or the Prime Minister on any issue affecting Inuit. We often have had to chase announcements to find out exactly how Inuit fit within an Indigenous announcement. We hope that in the future there can be more of a distinctions based way in which decisions are made so that on day one a minister or a prime minister or a deputy lead would be able to articulate very clearly how Inuit fit within a particular decision that the Government of Canada has made.
We also hope that on the day to day, more and more public servants, if not all public servants, will understand the distinction between First Nations, Inuit and Metis and how then that leads into a difference in the way policy applies, the eligibility or ineligibility of programming funding, the breaking down of the barriers that have been put in place through things like North of 60, South of 60 allocations based on territorial versus provincial funding within the federal government. We've seen through things like the adoption of the Arctic region that is inclusive of Inuit Nunangat by DFO and the Canadian Coast Guard, that Canada is now at a place where it can understand itself better.
And from an administrative perspective, from government, we can start being believed when we say we have a better way to do this, which will save money, which will ensure better outcomes and ultimately uphold the rights of Inuit. All of these things seem great. The status quo sometimes means that people know a certain way of doing business and get protective of that. We're asking for, in this time of reconciliation, public servants and whoever is working on this to imagine from our side, the challenges that we've faced and also our practical advice to not only make our lives better and become a fuller part of this country, but also the ability for public servants to feel as though they know exactly why they're doing the work. They know exactly how to do their work, and they have the space to do it in, that this INP gives cover for.
[00:12:54 Text appears onscreen that reads: "What key points should political leaders and public servants take away from this?"]
Natan Obed: The government of Canada and all those who work for it or politically are engaged within running the country, have an incredibly important role when it comes to Inuit and Inuit self-determination. Unfortunately, we still live in an era where there is a tremendous amount of personal discretion that a public servant or a politician can use when working on behalf of Indigenous peoples and implementing Indigenous peoples rights in this country. Inuit understand this and we are trying to work with the Crown in Right of Canada through structural agreements that allow for our rights to be implemented, the vision that we have for our communities to be better fulfilled, but also the vision that we have as Canadians and in partnership with Canada, to be fulfilled as well. So, we don't want our issues to be imagined as problems for the country. We don't want our politics to be completely dismissed as either defective or not relevant at all. So there needs to be an acceptance of Inuit governance and acceptance of ITK as a national expression of Inuit democracy, that sits alongside the federal government and demands the respect of public servants and political leaders.
We also need for the considerations of Inuit as Canadians and the public policy interests of Inuit, the considerations for the way in which we implement big ideas in this country, if they are for all Canadians. And if the Inuit Nunangat Policy can connect a large initiative with a practical application to our communities, that would be a tremendous success. And would help to implement all the visions that I just imagined for all of us, for Inuit and for Canada. I would also say that the world is watching, and we can be leaders in this country to show the rest of the world what a progressive nation state looks like when it comes to respect for Indigenous peoples and Indigenous peoples rights. We are trying as Inuit to share that path with Canada. We are trying to do this practically. We're trying to imagine how the federal government can work better to achieve that hope that we have, in the face of a really dark past. But today we can accept and acknowledge what has happened. But we also aren't doomed to that fate moving forward. And things like the INP allow for us to get beyond the colonial histories of this country and move forward in a way that I think can make us proud to be working on Indigenous issues, to be Indigenous peoples, and also proud of our country.
