New Arctic trade show emerges after controversy cancelled Northern Lights
Baffin chamber of commerce and Makivvik Corp. announce plans for ‘Aqsarniit’ in Ottawa in February
Delegates and exhibitors register for the first day of the Northern Lights Trade Show in Ottawa on Feb. 6, 2023. The new Aqsarniit Trade Show and Conference is set to replace it this February 2025 after the previous event was permanently cancelled. (File photo by Cedric Gallant)
The Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce and Makivvik Corp. are partnering to create the first “Arctic-led” trade show and conference in Ottawa in February.
The Aqsarniit Trade Show and Conference will be held at the Rogers Centre (formerly the Shaw Centre) in Ottawa from Feb. 17 to 20, 2025, a joint news release from the two organizations announced Tuesday.
“Makivvik is excited to be part of this Arctic-led event that brings together partners from across the Arctic to focus on building a future of economic success,” said Andy Moorhouse, Makivvik’s vice-president of economic development.
The conference will focus on the opportunities and challenges of operating in the Arctic, said Chris West, executive director for the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce, in an interview.
“The BRCC felt the need to have an event of this size, and feel it’s important we continue the conversations we have in developing the Arctic,” he said, referring to the former Northern Lights Trade Show which the Aqsarniit Trade Show is set to replace.
The long-running Northern Lights Trade Show was permanently cancelled in August.
For 15 years running, the biennial Northern Lights event had been held on a rotating schedule between Ottawa and Montreal. It was next scheduled for February 2025, prior to its cancellation.
It has been organized by the Baffin chamber of commerce and the Labrador North Chamber Commerce. But it also included the NunatuKavut Community Council whose members identify as Inuit, despite other organizations saying it is not an Inuit-rights-holding group.
Sometime prior to the Northern Lights cancellation, the Baffin chamber received a letter from Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, West told Nunatsiaq News in August.
In that letter ITK, the national organization for Inuit in Canada, said that if the NunatuKavut continued to be involved in Northern Lights, ITK would no longer participate and it would affect the trade show’s relationships with other Inuit organizations.
“We’ve received tremendous support from [the Inuit organizations] for all of the events we do, and by pulling out of Northern Lights it hopefully shows … the level of respect that we have for where they are coming from,” West said at the time.
The NunatuKavut Community Council is made up what it says are 6,000 Inuit-descended people of mixed ancestry.
Over the past few years, NunatuKavut has been under increasing scrutiny and faced criticism from ITK and other regional Inuit associations.
In 2023, ITK president Natan Obed published an open letter to “alert Canadians to false claims to Inuit identity.”
“NCC is a shape-shifting non-Indigenous organization that is part of the alarming trend of non-Indigenous people and groups co-opting Indigenous identities, cultures, and experiences to secure financial resources and rights,” Obed wrote on Nov. 6, 2023.
While the name of the new Aqsarniit trade show means “northern lights” in Inuktitut, it represents a break from the previous Northern Lights event and “has nothing to do with the Labrador North Chamber of Commerce,” which had been a partner in Northern Lights.
“This is our event,” West said of the Aqsarniit trade show.
He said they hope to have up to 150 exhibitors and 1,000 attendees. By comparison, the 2023 Northern Lights Trade show had approximately 250 exhibitors and 2,000 people attend, he said.
Makivvik Corp. did not respond to a request for an interview prior to publication. ITK declined to respond to a request for comment about the new trade show.
Natan’s petty grudge war against the Nunaktavut is getting tiresome.
This isn’t a petty personal grudge brought about by one person, Natan Obed.
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All rights-holding inuit organisations do not recognise NunatuKavut as an inuit organisation.
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This is like hating Gary Bettman for being the voice of all the NHL owners – it’s a misunderstanding of the situation to blame a messenger.
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Not recognising NunatuKavut is one of the few things all inuit rights holders agree on.
No different than in the 80’s when the AFN refused to acknowledge metis as beneficiaries of treaty rights and even fought to deny them status, which is why they had to be classified as their own indigenous group and identity
“Not recognising NunatuKavut is one of the few things all inuit rights holders agree on.”
Did we miss the survey?
The only people upset at Natan for this are the 1/64th Inuit people who can’t speak Inuktitut who feel like their identity is invalidated.
You may not like them, but a look at the NunatuKavut is a look into the future of Nunavut. I wonder sometimes if there’s a deep subconscious anxiety around that, driving the almost fanatical rejection of them by some Inuit.
NunatuKavut originally was called the Labrador Métis Nation, until the Métis associations denied them. Now, they have decided to become Inuit due to the benefits available from government. They are not the Nunatsiavut Inuit, and are encroaching on Inuit and Innu lands in Labrador. This is not a recognized indigenous group with a land claim, and it is fear-mongering to claim that this is in Nunavut’s future.
While we can have empathy for the members that have some blood connection and hold true to Inuit values, overall this is a group of settlers that have feelings of being disenfranchised and want to have some sort of rights or status. Nunavut will only follow the Labrador pattern, if white people start becoming beneficiaries and empathy for the individuals overrules common sense.
Framing an observation about similarities between the NunatuKavut and Nunavut Inuit as ‘fear mongering’ demonstrates my point about inner anxiety around a slowly changing demographic. Wouldn’t you agree?
White people will never be beneficiaries (some say there are plenty already). In the end it depends on how you chose to define an Inuk. This entire discussion centers on that fact. So, what are the criteria? Surely there has to be some kind of objective measure beyond your approval? If so, what is it? Is their identity invalid because ITK “says so”?
The NunatuKavut say their claim is based on academic research. The Canadian government, by signing a MOU with the group in 2019, seems to agree.
What does the DNA say? I know that’s not how claims are usually settled (and rightly so), but perhaps given the sustained and intractable disagreement that would be the thing to do. If the DNA for a representative sample of the membership comes back 30% Inuit/Innu, are Natan et al really going to keep saying no? They would look pretty churlish. (come on Natan, this is how you call their bluff!)
Also, this logic of “you’re not Inuit because the official Inuit don’t recognize you as Inuit” is more than a little circular, and it gives these political entities a magical power over identity. Surely Inukness is more than a bureaucratic designation?
Agreed
A large number of Inuit can’t, or don’t, speak Inuktitut. Who are you to tell them they aren’t real Inuit?
Will NCC be allowed to register and participate? Or is this event going to be held hostage as well?
And how are people going to get funded in time to go to this crazy show with such little time to plan and get travel funding? Mostly the gravy train elites who will go to this. should call it mailuaq
More money down the drain.
Now that NCC has be addressed, perhaps ITK can set it’s sights on other “shape-shifting non-Indigenous organizations that are part of the alarming trend of non-Indigenous people and groups co-opting Indigenous identities, cultures, and experiences to secure financial resources and rights.”
These might include Friends of Land Use Planning that say they support Inuit lead land use planning but only have one Inuk and 3 Nunavut residents out of a 6 person leadership team. Half of this group doesn’t even live here. FLUP appears to be an offshoot of the World Wildlife Fund being used to meet that organization’s Arctic goals.
Or, Arctic Connexion, an “aboriginal organization”, funded by the Government of Canada, advised by the Government of Canada, with only half of its board being aboriginal. This one appears to be a research slush fund for Canada to funnel research funding into preferred Universities so that the Feds can meet it’s Arctic policy objectives.
Or finally, Oceans North, a charity “in partnership with indigenous communities”, that has an entirely non indigenous board, only 1 of 5 senior staff being indigenous, but whose website is absolutely littered with Inuk imagery. Any casual viewer of their organization could easily assume it is northern, and Inuk lead. Again, this organization appears to be nothing more than southern non-indigenous people using Inuit to meet their own goals.
NTI, RIAs, RWOs, HTOs, that is more than enough representation for me. What do you say ITK? Maybe it is time to get your ITK broom back out and keep on cleaning house?
Taker easy
KEWL!
A “pitstop” on the way to Germany for the Makivvik Executive.
The same group that ordered Halutik Fuel to raise their prices on gas last Sept 1st, such that Halutik now have the highest prices in Kuujjuaq!
Helps pay for the trips I guess.
If you have to scramble around to “get funding” to attend, maybe you shouldn’t go.
The real gravy train are the random community reps who “got funding” to attend but who don’t accomplish anything more than selling $500 worth of crafts.
No!!! We like those shape-shifters!
Pay no attention to the people behind the wonderful Indigenous facade!