Makivik acting illegally, school board alleges

After trying and failing to reach an agreement out of court, the Kativik School Board is forging ahead with a revived legal action aimed at freezing talks to create a new regional government in Nunavik.

At a hearing this past Wednesday, school board lawyers were to have asked a Quebec Superior Court judge to grant an injunction temporarily halting negotiations for a Nunavik government.

The KSB will then ask a court to declare that Makivik Corporation has contravened the Nunavik Accord and has no legal mandate to negotiate a new form of government on behalf of the people of Nunavik.

Since August 2002, negotiators from Makivik, the government of Canada and the government of Quebec have been moving ahead rapidly — but quietly — on talks aimed at a new form of regional government for Nunavik.

Those talks are based on “Let Us Share,” a report endorsed by only six of eight members of the now disbanded Nunavik Commission in April 2001. The KSB says in its legal brief that the report is illegitimate, along with any Nunavik government negotiations that flow from it.

Last month, Donat Savoie, a federal negotiator, told Nunatsiaq News that he and negotiators representing Canada and Quebec hope to have a framework agreement for a new Nunavik government ready for signing in just a few weeks.

But the school board believes Makivik’s presence at those talks, and its conduct since last year’s release of “Let Us Share,” is illegal.

“We now know that since August, Makivik has shown total disregard for signed agreements, disrespect for dissenting voices, and has not been forthcoming with the people of Nunavik in its dealings with the federal and provincial governments,” said a KSB press release issued last week.

Is “Let Us Share” legitimate?

The dispute between Makivik and the school board is rooted in the way the Nunavik Commission ended up producing “Let Us Share” after working for more than a year on the design of a future regional government in Nunavik.

It was intended to be a consensus document, but two of eight Nunavik commissioners refused to support the final report.

Even before it was released, one Inuk member of the Nunavik Commission, Annie May Popert, accused other commissioners of deceiving the Inuit by refusing to deal with the issue of Nunavik’s position within Quebec should Quebec secede from Canada.

In March 2001, Popert accused other Nunavik commissioners of engaging in undemocratic practices to stifle debate about the right of Quebec Inuit to self-determination. In numerous letters she said they refused to record her comments in their minutes, or acknowledge them in their final report.

At a regional meeting in Kuujjuarapik later that year, some Nunavik commissioners put on an ugly, but comical, spectacle of movable chairs when they refused to sit with Popert, who had paid her own way to attend the meeting.

The other commissioner, André Binette, a Quebec nationalist, refused to sign for opposite reasons — on the grounds that the Nunavik commission’s recommendations weaken Quebec’s jurisdiction over Nunavik.

The school board alleges in its court brief that the Nunavik Commission contravened the Nunavut Accord when it released the “Let Us Share” report without consensus of its members.

The Kativik School Board also says Makivik Corporation does not have the right to negotiate on behalf of the so-called “Nunavik Party.”

The Nunavik Party is the name given to an association made up of Makivik, the KSB, the Kativik Regional Government, the Nunavik Regional Health and Social Services Board, and the Kativik Regional Development Council. It’s supposed to represent the people of Nunavik in their regional government negotiations with Quebec and Canada.

Was resolution legal?

In October 2001, delegates at a Nunavik government conference organized by Makivik passed a resolution that “authorized” the Nunavik Party to begin negotiations on a Nunavik government, “based on, but not limited to, the recommendations and final report of the Nunavik Commission.”

But the KSB says the resolution was “passed in a manner contrary to law and cannot bind the Nunavik Party.” The school board also says that Makivik has no legal authority to act on behalf of the Nunavik Party in negotiations for a new government.

In its legal brief, the KSB says that’s because delegates at that conference, including some people who had no connection to any of the five organizations, voted as individuals and not as representatives of their respective organizations.

Soon after that resolution was passed, the KSB went to court — in November 2001 — to ask a judge to stop the process. Then earlier this year, they suspended that court action, and tried to seek a negotiated solution.

But after hearing that Makivik is now moving rapidly toward a framework agreement, they decided to go back to court.

Debbie Astroff, the school board’s public relations officer, said the KSB also has serious worries about education and language recommendations in the “Let Us Share” report.

They include the following:

• A recommendation that Inuttitut, French and English all become official languages of Nunavik — the school board fears that Inuttitut could be weakened if it’s put on an equal footing with French and English.

• A recommendation that the KSB be dissolved and that education be brought under the authority of a Nunavik assembly and government — the school board fears that its successes in developing Inuttitut curriculum could be lost under a body that’s less experienced in education.

• A recommendation that the Nunavik assembly and government be “block-funded” — the KSB fears that provincial money now earmarked for education could be diverted to other purposes.

• A recommendation that local education committees be given responsibility for teacher hiring and training, and curriculum development — the KSB says that this is “excessive decentralization” and that education committees don’t have the capacity to take on those tasks.

Astroff also said that in other areas, the commission makes recommendations about doing things that the school board has been doing for years — such as involving elders in the school system.

“We don’t know if they chose to ignore the fact, or if they are really, really ignorant,” Astroff said.