Group accuses NIRB of violating land claims agreement

The anti-uranium group Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit is accusing the Nunavut Impact Review Board of violating the Nunavut land claims agreement by not translating certain documents related to uranium mining near Baker Lake into Inuktitut.

“How are unilingual Inuktitut-speaking hunters in Baker Lake and other Kivalliq communities, the people probably the most to lose if the region is opened to uranium mining, supposed to understand and take part in the review process if they are prevented from reading the most important document that the NIRB has to produce?” Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit’s vice-chair, Joan Scottie, asked in a press release.

On Nov. 15, the NIRB published the draft guidelines for an environmental impact statement for the Kiggavik uranium exploration project near Baker Lake, in English only.

Two days later, NIRB issued a request in English and Inuktitut asking the public for their opinions on the EIS draft guidelines.

“The message we receive is that you can only fully participate if you read technical English,” the press release concludes.

“Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit calls on the NIRB to suspend Phase One of the Kiggavik review process until such time as it releases both an Inuktitut translation of the draft EIS guidelines and an English/Inuktitut terminology list.”

NIRB executive director Stephanie Autut said the NIRB has lived up to the land claims agreement by holding local public hearings in Inuktitut.

But there’s no requirement to translate documents like the EIS draft guidelines and NIRB hasn’t done it in the past.

Nonetheless, in a Nov. 23 response to Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit’s request NIRB technical services director Ryan Barry wrote,”…the NIRB is currently endeavouring to translate… key provisions of the draft EIS guidelines for the Kiggavik project, and we will make these documents available for information purposes as soon as meaningful translations have been completed.”

Scottie’s press release cites NLCA sections that concern the language of public hearings in Nunavut, but do not specifically address the language of documents provided.

“NIRB shall conduct its public hearings in Canada’s official languages as required by legislation or policy, and, upon request of any member, applicant or intervenor, also in Inuktitut,” reads Section 12.2.26.

“All necessary steps shall be taken by way of notice, dissemination of information, and scheduling and location of hearings to provide and promote public awareness of and participation at hearings,” reads Section 12.2.27.

Autut said the technical nature of this type of document means that the Inuktitut vocabulary necessary simply doesn’t exist.

“We don’t have the confidence just yet that we can create an Inuktitut document that holds the same intent as it does in English,” Autut said.

Particularly where the unusual uranium-related issues of radioactivity and radiation are concerned, professional interpreters are “at a loss,” she said.

Instead project proponents translate the summaries of such documents, which are in less technical language, says NIRB’s response to the Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit request.

Neither Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit vice-chair Scottie nor chair Sandra Inutiq returned Nunatsiaq News calls as of press-time this week.