Inuit leaders praise Stewart’s statement

ANNETTE BOURGEOIS
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT – Northern leaders have generally accepted the olive branch offered to them last week by Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart in her statement of reconciliation.

Speaking in response to the November, 1996 report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in Ottawa, Stewart apologized for the federal government’s past mistreatment of aboriginal Canadians.

“Our purpose is not to rewrite history but, rather, to learn from our past and to find ways to deal with the negative impacts that certain historical decisions continue to have in our society today,” Stewart said in a “statement of reconciliation.”

Stewart was in Iqaluit early this week for a Nunavut leaders’ summit.

Okalik Eegeesiak, the president of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, said the federal government’s apology, though a long time in coming, didn’t go far enough in addressing the hardships endured by Inuit as a result of federal policy.

“It has been the Inuit presence in the North that has given this country its greatest claim to sovereignty to that one-third of Canada’s land mass in Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut and the Inuvialuit region of the western Arctic that Inuit call their home,” Eegeesiak said in her speech responding to the minister’s statement.

No mention of High Arctic exiles

She expressed disappointment that the “arbitrary” movement of Inuit to achieve this sovereignty was ignored in the apology.

“We are sorry that the statement of reconciliation makes no reference to those aspects of the Inuit contribution to Canada.”

William Barbour, the president of the Labrador Inuit Association, though not on hand for the minister’s speech, also expressed some disappointment in the exclusion of an apology for specific trials endured by Inuit in Labrador.

“I would like to think there is one required, even if it’s not by the federal government, but at least by the provincial government, where there was the relocation of two major communities north of Nain in northern Labrador. That’s never really been publicized before.”

The communities of Hebron and Nutaq were relocated in the late 1950s in a Newfoundland government centralization initiative.

Praise for Stewart

Barbour said, though, that Stewart has moved the land claims process forward since taking over the job from Ron Irwin.

“When I look at some of the movement this minister has made in terms of where we want to go, this minister has moved, not only on some of the recommendations on the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples, but under her ministership, there has been real movement at the land claims table.”

Nunavut leaders who gathered in Iqaluit this week had nothing but praise for Stewart’s statement.

Interim Commissioner Jack Anawak praised Stewart for taking steps her predecessors failed to take. Anawak was a student of the infamous Joseph Bernier school in Chesterfield Inlet during the 1950s.

Jane Stewart admitted to Inuit gathered for the opening ceremonies of the leaders’ summit that the apology was a long time in coming.

“Some people said Hell would freeze over before the federal government would offer an apology,” she told the Iqaluit crowd, referring to the freak ice storm that forced Ottawa into a state of emergency last week.

Nunavut Tunngavik president Jose Kusugak discredited early commentators who said Inuit were not satisfied with Stewart’s gesture.

“I can assure you there were other discussions outside of TV,” he said. “We as Inuit, we’ve got to take a step forward. We, as Inuit, look at this as a positive step.”

Nunavut MP Nancy Karetak-Lindell joined in heaping praise upon the minister.

“It was near and dear to my heart,” she said of the statement of reconciliation. “Inuit and aboriginal people had to go through hard times and the federal government apologized for its actions in the past.”