New Nunavik government plan nearly done

It won’t be long before negotiators from the federal and provincial governments, and Nunavik, initial the final agreement on Nunavik self-government, says Nunavik’s chief negotiator, Minnie Grey. (FILE PHOTO)

Nunavik residents can expect to see the final agreement for a new Nunavik Regional Government some time during the early weeks of 2011.

Negotiators from the federal and provincial governments, and Nunavik, will soon initial a long-awaited document that spells out the future of the region’s new model of government, Nunavik’s chief negotiator, Minnie Grey, said this week.

Completion of the deal has been stalled by delays on the part of federal negotiators, Grey said, pushing a Dec. 17 initialling ceremony into early January.

“The good news is that we’re over that hump,” she said. “We’re pretty well agreed to the wording of final agreement.

“It’s up to Nunavik now.”

Once initialled, the agreement and its summary can be distributed throughout Nunavik in English, French and Inuttitut.

That’s so Nunavimmiut can decide if they support the new governance model, which they will vote on in an upcoming referendum.

“If all goes well, we’re looking at starting our tour in mid-January,” Grey said, “in order that we can hold a referendum in March.”

This referendum will gauge the public support for the agreement.

And more than 50 per cent of the eligible voters must support the agreement for it to be ratified.

Inuit beneficiaries who live in Nunavik and outside the region will be eligible to vote and non-Inuit who are eligible to vote in municipal elections will also be able to cast ballots in the referendum, Grey said.

The question that will be asked in the referendum has not yet been made public, although it will be included in the final agreement, she said.

That tour before the referendum will gather negotiators from all three levels of government on a visit to each of the 14 communities in Nunavik, to present the agreement at public meetings and answer questions.

Nunavimmiut may notice some small differences between the final agreement and and agreement-in-principle released in 2007, Grey said, but the two documents are “not so different.”

Once it’s signed, however, the final agreement will be legally binding, meaning the three parties responsible for drafting it are obligated to implement it.

The Nunavik Regional Government, or NRG, would amalgamate existing regional bodies such as the Kativik Regional Government, the Kativik School Board, and the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services, putting them under the authority of a new elected body called the Nunavik Assembly.

A five-member executive council made up of a government leader and four full-time executive members would be chosen in Nunavik-wide elections to lead a 21-member assembly.

“There’ll be no more commissioners, no more regional councillors and no more health board representatives,” said Harry Tulugak, Grey’s co-negotiator.

“We’ll go from 45 to 21 representatives plus one from the Naskapi nation — that’s the first thing that will be visually different.”

The remaining members of the Nunavik assembly will look much like the current make-up of the KRG, with one representative from each Nunavik community.

Original plans to have more than one representative for communities with a population over 2,000 have been scrapped.

“It was felt that this kind of arrangement looks like it gives more power to larger communities,” Grey said. “They will all be equal in terms of representation.”

But that’s not to say the assembly can’t come up with rules that would give representatives from larger communities more than one vote, she said.

Community representatives will be elected by voters in their own community; the executive council will be elected by the entire region.

And the cost of running the new structure will be paid by new governance funding shared between Quebec City and Ottawa.

Early calculations showed the cost of financing the new assembly and filling new senior official positions would be an additional $2 million a year, on top of transition costs and the estimated $40 million in capital costs for the NRG’s new headquarters.

But Grey wouldn’t say if those estimates have changed as the agreement has evolved, only confirming that core funding to regional services won’t be affected.

On the whole, the NRG should make governance more efficient, she said.

Nunavik’s public institutions currently “work in fragmentation,” she said, adding that it’s expensive and cumbersome to gather representatives together.

“Under this new structure, they’ll be approaching the issues together,” she said. “This will mean better coordination and better policy because everyone will be part of the same organization.”

Grey and Tulugak’s mandate as negotiators will end once the agreement is signed, although they could be appointed to new roles in the implementation process if Nunavik ratifies the agreement.

“We’ve lived and breathed this whole process for eight years,” Grey said. “We’re very excited, but there is also a sense of urgency.

“If Nunavik says no, all of our work will have been to no avail,” she added. “But we believe in this project for Nunavik’s future.”

If the agreement is approved by Nunavik, both Grey and Tulugak say it could be implemented by 2013.

View the English version of an information pamphlet on the proposed Nunavik Regional Government below.

View the Inuktitut version at this link.

Nunavik Regional Government Pamphlet (English)