NTI responds to DIAND

In justifying why DIAND is still refusing to enter into DEW line clean-up economic and environmental agreements with Inuit, you quoted Steve Traynor, acting Regional Director General, as saying, “We certainly do want northerners to benefit from jobs and contracts but ultimately we have to make sure that we clean up those sites and come into environmental compliance. So, it’s always a balancing act between those two issues.”

Traynor has not explained why it is that high Inuit employment and contracting come at the expense of a proper clean-up and environmental compliance. That is colonial thinking, something which we at NTI are always attempting to change.

As you reported, the Department of National Defense and NTI have been cooperating for several years with the clean-up of DND’s DEW-Line sites in Nunavut through cooperation agreements implementing Article 24 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.

It is projected that DND’s clean-up project will result in over 2,000 seasonal Inuit jobs and $120 million in Inuit firm contracts. Levels of Inuit employment are over 70 per cent; Inuit contracting to date is 73-90 per cent. As well, DND and Inuit cooperate on environmental standards, site specific clean-up plans, monitoring and other aspects of the cleanup. The result is a low-cost, high economic benefit model of contracting, which meets Article 24 requirements.

In contrast, DIAND’s approach falls short of Article 24, and consists of issuing vague, undefined messages to potential contractors.

DIAND, the federal agency primarily responsible for Inuit economic development and implementing the land claims agreement, needs to join the 21st century.

Paul Kaludjak
President
Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.