Negotiator cites “concrete” breakthroughs in self-rule talks

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

Nunavik officials have achieved the most “concrete” breakthroughs to date in their talks with provincial and federal governments, says a senior negotiator.

Minnie Grey, who has been involved with Nunavik’s push for self-government since the 1980s, recently gave a rare public glimpse of her team’s progress in forming a semi-autonomous government for the residents of northern Quebec.

Officials from Makivik Corp.’s negotiating team gave a power-point presentation at the Inuit birthright group’s annual general meeting in March, outlining the timeline of when Nunavimmiut can expect to have their own elected government.

In an interview with Nunatsiaq News, Grey also outlined some of the negotiating team’s general positions on taxation, elections, and funding, but declined to give details about specific demands made to date.

She said Nunavik’s negotiating team can’t reveal the contents of their talks to the public until they hand over the first draft of what they would like to see in an agreement-in-principle to both levels of government in the coming months.

“It’s going to become a public document eventually,” she said. “But in the process of negotiating, the governments have to look at what they’re negotiating first.

“This document will not be revealed before all parties have had a chance to look at it.”

But Grey underlined that residents of Nunavik should know that the negotiating team has kept their priorities front and centre. Grey added that after they submit their draft agreement-in-principle to the two governments, she expects a final version to be available to the public by the fall.

After community-based consultations, a Nunavik-wide referendum on whether to stick with the final version will be held before next year, she said.

Then the negotiating team will go back to the table, and hammer out a final agreement by spring, 2005.

Grey said the team can’t speed up the process, in part because of Nunavimmiut’s hunting and camping habits.

“[Before] fall, being a northerner, I know nobody’s going to want to meet,” she said from her office in Montreal. “It’s springtime, the geese are coming, the fishing is coming. We’ll make it [the proposed agreement-in-principle] public in the coming months. Let the people look at it if they wish.”

In general terms, Grey said the team is following the recommendations of the Let Us Share report, a booklet produced by the Nunavik Commission three years ago after lengthy meetings in every village in the region.

Nunavik wants a government with powers similar to a province, with direct decision-making power over where money is spent in areas like health, education, and cultural programs.

Currently, these services are administered by regional organizations, including the Kativik Regional Government, Kativik Regional School Board and the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services, all of which lack the full power of government, such as taxation.

Under the negotiating team’s timeline, Nunavik will spend several years bringing the various organizations under one roof — tentatively called the Nunavimmiut Aquvvinga, meaning People of Nunavik’s Steering Body. All elected boards and councils will then be replaced by an elected government, referred in Makivik documents as the Uqarvimarik, meaning the place to speak.

Grey said the negotiating team won’t stray from the Let Us Share report when it comes to the structure of the newly elected government. The new Nunavik government will follow in Nunavut’s footsteps in holding universal elections across the region to choose elected representatives in the government.

In Nunavik’s case, there will be at least one elected official for each of the region’s 14 communities. But unlike Nunavut, residents of Nunavik will directly elect five members of the executive, and choose which member should be their leader.

“We want the Inuit to pick their leader,” Grey said. “We feel that a person that is elected Nunavik-wide shows real support.”

Outside of elected officials, Grey said committees will be formed to ensure the new government remains responsive to community needs in areas such as health, education, housing and economic development.

Grey pledged that negotiators will not allow any services already in place to be compromised.

“Just because we’re amalgamating, we don’t want to jeopardize any services,” she said. “More autonomy is the goal. We want to deal with our everyday life of Nunavik without having to answer to Quebec on an administrative level.”

“Throughout the history of the [self-government] file, there’s been derailments due to various. . . things. We are now where we’ve gained the most.”

To pay for Nunavik’s dream of self-government, Grey said they will draw on financing agreements already in place with provincial and federal governments, with plans to ensure funding grows as the region’s population grows.

As for taxation, Grey said that’s an area best left to the future elected officials.

“If there’s going to be taxation, let the new form of government talk taxation,” Grey said. “But our present leadership right now and the people of Nunavik are very adamant they don’t want to see new taxation. We pay enough taxes.”