Quebec must respect nation-to-nation deal signed with Nunavik: KRG, Makivik

Quebec’s new secretariat for northern development will be located in the town of Chibougamou, about 1,000 kilometres south of Kuujjuaq. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

Nunavik leaders say the Parti Québécois government needs to improve its communication with Nunavik.

And they say Quebec Premier Pauline Marois should respect the nation-to-nation agreement, called Sanarrutik, signed in 2002 between the former PQ-led government and Nunavik Inuit, which made them partners in Nunavik’s social and economic development.

That’s the message which Makivik Corp. and the Kativik Regional Government plan to deliver to Marois during a meeting scheduled for June.

The two organizations also say they intend to continue their own Parnasimautik consultations on how people in Nunavik want to direct the region’s future development.

Makivik and the KRG both received a last-minute invitation to attend the May 7 launch of the “Nord pour Tous” (North for all) plan in Chibougamou — which is not the easiest place to get to from Nunavik.

But the two organizations told Nunatsiaq News that they hadn’t been consulted on the new plan beforehand.

Makivik’s corporate secretary Andy Moorhouse said he remains concerned about the plan’s name, North for all, “when we have yet to be consulted about their new plan.”

Moorhouse said 90 per cent of the development which the plan calls for will likely take place in Nunavik — and “yet we’re being left out of the picture.”

“Nobody has clarified anything,” he said. “We have no understanding of the new concept, no understanding of the new structure, [or] what it entails.”

Information available to the KRG May 7 on the new plan lacked details and was all in French, said Maggie Emudluk, chairperson of the KRG, who does not reach French.

The new plan seems to offer nothing new to Nunavik than the former Liberals’ Plan Nord did, she said.

The plan’s new name even “means the same thing: it all boils down to development,” said Emudluk, adding that she was disappointed not to see anything in the PQ plan on additional measures to offset the high cost-of-living in Nunavik.

But the May 7 announcement in Chibougamou simply launched the new secretariat for the “Nord pour Tous,” said Luc Ferland, the MNA for Ungava, also the parliamentary assistant to the minister of natural resources.

That new secretariat for northern development will produce a northern development strategy and eventually decide how to distribute the $868 million earmarked for the construction of roads, social housing, provincial parks and training centres in northern Quebec. The secretariat will also offer assistance to northern communities and set up a round table for First Nations and Inuit.

Ferland said he and the other PQ leaders who went to Chibougamou May 7 weren’t there to make announcements on new projects and programs.

“We were there to launch the secretariat, and after that we will do announcements,” Ferland said.

The secretariat also wants to wait for feedback from Nunavik’s Parnasimautik process, he said.

The PQ government would have liked to increase the numbers of social housing units to be built in Nunavik, he said.

But his PQ government inherited a bad financial situation from the Liberals, Ferland said.

That has led to constraints on government spending, he said.