National Inuit groups ponder closer ties

DWANE WILKIN

Canada’s oldest Inuit organization may soon find itself with a cozy new affiliation with the Canadian arm of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC).

Delegates to the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada’s next annual general meeting next April in Iqaluit will be urged to support a plan that would see them share resources and even leadership with ICC.

The proposal is contained in an option paper prepared last fall by ITC in conjunction with several regional Inuit organizations, including the Makivik Corporation, ITC president Mary Sillett said this week.

Based on a review of ITC’s mandate, which delegates urged the executive committee to conduct at their June 1996 general meeting, the proposal calls for greater cooperation between ITC and the circumpolar conference and even recommends that the organizations amalgamate some resources.

Not a merger

“It’s not a merger,” Sillett was quick to point out in a telephone interview from her home in Ottawa on Tuesday. “ICC will still be responsible for international issues, and ITC will be responsible for national issues.”

Aboriginal groups across the country are finding themselves competing for the same shrinking pile of money from Ottawa, Sillett said, and a closer collaboration between the ITC and the ICC would likely increase benefits for both groups.

The Inuit Tapirisat and the ICC have also come under harsh criticism in recent years from members of regional land-claim organizations who question the wisdom of supporting two lobby groups.

“What happened is that the board of directors said there’s so much competition for resources and such duplication of efforts, there has to be a way of increasing the efficiency of the organization,” Sillett said.

Delegates to the ITC’s annual meeting last June passed a resolution asking for a complete review of the mandates of all Inuit organizations, including the regional associations, “but because of a lack of resources, the task was pared down and only the ITC and the ICC were looked at,” Sillett said.

“Finances weren’t discussed at that particular time, but the issue was, a lot of people were wondering what the ICC and ITC were doing, I guess.”

Double executive duties

Among the issues raised in the option paper, Sillett said, is the recommendation that ITC and ICC staff share administrative resources such as office space and personnel.

“Maybe there’d be a shared receptionist,” Sillett said.

Another proposal would even see the lobby groups swap their executives.

“The ICC president would become the ITC vice-president and the ITC president would become the ICC vice president,” Sillett said. “So there will be a sharing of executive responsibility. And the reason for that would be to enhance the understanding between the organizations.”