Makivik exec to sit on Quebec’s Plan Nord development agency

Makivik VP Adamie Delisle Alaku was appointed to the Société du Plan Nord March 12, a agency designed to oversee development across Quebec’s North. (FILE PHOTO)

Nunavik now has a seat at the table where the Quebec government oversees development under the province’s Plan Nord development policy.

Quebec’s minister of energy and natural resources, Pierre Arcand, appointed Makivik Corp. vice president Adamie Delisle Alaku March 12 to sit on the board of directors which oversees the Société du Plan Nord.

Delisle Alaku has served as Makivik’s vice-president of renewable resources since his election to the birthright organization in January 2014.

Makivik president Jobie Tukkiapik made a formal request to the province last fall to include Makivik on the Société’s board, the organization said in a March 18 release.

The appointment will ensure Nunavik Inuit are represented at the most senior level, Makivik said.

“I am pleased to have been appointed and am anxious to meet my fellow members and establish working relations to assure that any development in Nunavik provides real benefits for Nunavik Inuit and is environmentally and socially sustainable,” Delisle Alaku said in the release.

Delisle Alaku, who is trilingual, is among the first generation of French-speaking Makivik executives.

Delisle Alaku will join eight other directors, including Andrew Baribeau, formerly of the Grand Council of the Crees and now an Aboriginal affairs management advisor.

Other board members include business people across Quebec’s North, the director of the James Bay school board and rector of the Université du Québec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

Quebec’s Liberal government re-launched the Plan Nord for the third time last fall.

The Plan Nord was first launched in 2011 under the leadership of then-premier Jean Charest, and then revised again when the Parti Québécois took power in 2012.

In 2014, a newly-elected Liberal government tabled a bill to create the Société du Plan Nord as an agency to oversee development across its North, which was adopted in December.

The Société’s job is to work with government departments and other stakeholders and manage a marketing office to promote the need for goods and services among Quebec businesses.

The Société du Plan Nord’s head office will be located in Quebec City, and should be operational by April 1.