Canadian Polar Commission honours Arctic economist Gérard Duhaime

Gérard Duhaime, winner of the 2013 Northern Science Award, is pictured here at a meeting of the Kativik Regional Government in 2011 with Isabelle Parizeau, the KRG’s director general. (FILE PHOTO)

The Canadian Polar Commission has given Gérard Duhaime the 2013 Northern Science Award for socio-economic research that has improved life in northern communities.

The award, which is presented annually and comes with a $10,000 cash prize, was presented to Duhaime Nov. 13 at a Royal Canadian Geographical Society ceremony in Ottawa.

Duhaime, a sociologist and political scientist, has been a professor and researcher at Laval University since 1988.

His focus has been comparing the economies of the regions and communities that make up the circumpolar Arctic. Duhaime’s work has highlighted the global importance of Arctic resources, while also showing the disparities and conflict that resource exploitation can mean for indigenous communities.

Duhaime’s work also led to the creation of the Canada Research Chair on Comparative Aboriginal Conditions, a research body developed in 2002 through Laval University.

But much of Duhaime’s research has been focused in Nunavik, where he has most recently led the Nunavik Comparative Price Index, a study comparing the cost of goods and services in the region to southern Quebec.

“Influenced by Dr. Duhaime’s research on the cost of goods and services in Nunavik, the government of Quebec has provided millions of dollars in subsidies to offset the high cost of living there,” said a Nov. 14 release from the Canadian Polar Commission.

“The governments of both Nunavut and Greenland have incorporated economic monitoring methods he developed in their statistical research,” the release said. “The Northern Science Award is a well-deserved honour, a token of the respect Gérard Duhaime has earned from northerners and from his fellow scientists.”

The Canadian Polar Commission is an agency of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada responsible for monitoring and promoting knowledge of the polar regions.