Mining in Nunavik depends on Inuit leadership, better transportation: professor
The Nunavik Mineral Exploration Fund’s mining workshop in Kuujjuaq ends Friday
Geologist and emeritus professor Michel Jébrak speaks about the impact of global politics on resource management in Nunavik Wednesday. (Photo by Dominique Gené)
While Nunavik can be a key contributor to Canada’s mining future, unlocking that potential requires better transportation to the south and the mobilization of a new generation of Inuit leaders, says a geologist and emeritus professor at the University of Quebec.
Michel Jébrak opened the Nunavik Mineral Exploration Fund’s mining workshop in Kuujjuaq on Wednesday with a presentation on how global politics shape Arctic mining — especially in Nunavik.
“Inuit communities must have the expertise, funding, and decision-making power to shape mining development,” he said in a French interview, after his talk. “Good development is development done by the people.”
About 100 people attended Wednesday’s events, including mayors, landholders from several communities, representatives of the regional government, the Cree Nation of Chisasibi and the Naskapi region, as well as officials from mining companies such as Raglan Mine and Alamos Gold.
Fund president Robert Deer said in an interview that his organization wants to engage Inuit youth.
“We are looking at ways of reaching out to our younger population of beneficiaries, how we can come up with programs to assist them in gaining knowledge or understanding of what the mining industry is looking for and also of opportunities.”
Deer also touched on the importance of communicating with communities, because many Nunavimmiut are worried about how mining for nickel, copper and other rare earth metals may affect their livelihoods.
“The land is so important to us and we have to consider how mining may affect our environment,” he said.
Deer said there is a system to address concerns about environmental impacts.
When a company plans work, he explained, its representatives submit project details that are reviewed and either approved with conditions or denied.
“Usually at these workshops, companies explain their projects and what their plans are and eventually all this information is public,” he said.
The workshop began Wednesday and ends Friday.
Speaking of “mobilizing a new generation of Inuit leaders” is paternalistic and condescending code for continuing with the inadequacy of education and skills training delivered today—the bigotry of Indigenous peoples’ own low expectations for next generations. Full-fledged management and participation in mining in Indigenous lands requires Indigenous geologists and mine managers, chemists, physicists and marine biologists as well as doctors, dentists and accountants. All that needs to start, in English, before Grade 1. The joint founders of Sony wrote a book with the self-explanatory title, Kindergarten is too late.
Prob today is the wealth gap. The rich get more rich and do as much as they can do to keep it that way, that is bordering on an outright revolt by the peasants much as in days of old. Very colonial very non indigenous is the system designed to keep us in our place. Read the news and what is told and what is suppressed mon ami.