Nunavut’s land-use plan: Don’t make perfect the enemy of good
Is a document that has gone through 5 drafts over 20 years going to get any better?
Representatives for the Nunavut Planning Commission as well as hunters and trappers associations surround Government of Nunavut members in 2022 as they present at the final hearings of the Nunavut Land Use Plan. (File photo by Emma Tranter)
War and Peace wasn’t written in a day.
But the 13 years Leo Tolstoy took to finish one of history’s greatest (and longest) novels might seem speedy in comparison to the nearly two decades it has taken to come up with a land-use plan for Nunavut.
Next year will mark 20 years since 2006, the year work began on the Nunavut Land Use Plan. Over that time, five drafts have been presented to the three signatories responsible for its passage — Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the Nunavut government and federal government.
The plan, which remains an outstanding contingent of the 1993 Nunavut Agreement, will lay out a comprehensive guide to areas of Nunavut open to development, areas that will be partially protected and areas off limits to development.
The latest version has been sitting on the desks of its signatories for two years. What is going on behind closed doors?
Are there people actively working on it, or are the decision-makers letting the plan collect dust while exploration companies reportedly amp up claims around the territory in hopes they can get their interests grandfathered into the final version?
How long needs to pass before what we consider to be careful deliberation is actually just stagnation?
Nobody is going to walk away completely happy when those advocating for the environment go up against business interests.
Nunavut’s geology hasn’t been sufficiently explored, argues Karen Costello, executive director of the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines, when asked earlier this month for her thoughts on the issue.
It’s absolutely fair to be concerned that Nunavut could lock away areas that might hold untold mineral potential, especially as Canada, alienated from its closest trading partner, struggles toward a more independent economic future.
On the other hand, this same economic uncertainty drives prices up everywhere, including the North. When access to affordable, nutritious food is a perennial struggle in Nunavut, there are serious consequences to potentially separating Inuit hunters from the traditional foods that play such a vital role in sustaining their communities.
As Tagak Curley and Qajaaq Ellsworth so eloquently put it in their letter to the editor last week, “Nobody wants to trade access to the land, the ocean, the lakes and river; access to nattiq, tuktu, iqaluk, qilalugaq — our sustenance — for part-time labour, hunting restrictions and grocery store vouchers.”
The plan’s latest iteration, created in 2023, was revised from a 2021 version after consultation with communities.
Let’s accept the reality that there are simply too many cooks in the kitchen and when industry, hunters, environmentalists and politicians are all invited to add their own spices to the stew, not everybody at the table is going to like what ends up in their bowl.
We can also depend on the fact that the Nunavut Land Use Plan is a living document. What’s protected today could hypothetically be accessible in the future, through amendments.
With that in mind, let’s consider this: how is a document that has gone through five revisions over nearly 20 years going to get any better?
Don’t make perfect the enemy of good. Adopt the Nunavut Land Use Plan.
“Don’t make perfect the enemy of good.”
That statement assumes there is something “good” there to start with, and I have not seen very many arguments about why it is “good” other than about how long it has been worked on.
Agreed with the first commenter, what is good about this? Come on Randi, you skipped the real journalism here.
Thumbs down in support of mediocre journalism!
the best laid plans of men and mice…
Likely should get Shawn Lester off the Board.
The Planning Commission has turned into a make work project for lawyers, planners, the executive director and staff! They have no intention of putting a plan forward that will be accepted by the signatories, they just want to keep this going forever so the keep the money rolling in! Nunatsiaq do the deep dive journalism required and investigate the costs and spending to date of the Commission!
This is the real story here.
If it’s almost 20 years
Soon 25 years then they retire
And we will be stuck with new negotiators
Saying well it was the previous guys that screwed it up
It is what it is
This editorial is devoid of research and journalism. Pure clickbait.
It is sealift season, and a time that your own eyes can give you some sense of numbers and statistics that are normally hard to visualize.
This month, thousands of metric tons of non-perishable food is being delivered to us by our dedicated shipping companies to feed our 40,000 residents.
This includes feeding the tens of thousands of us that may not own a skidoo, ATV, or boat, have no gas and parts, nor the skills, ability or even desire to go out and catch our next meal. You can see all this sealift food landing on our shores, like dozens of gigantic, shrink wrapped bowhead whales.
This includes hundreds of tons of junk like pop, chips, gum and candy bars. But the majority consists of things like flour, rice, pasta, beans, cereals, canned vegetables and meats, powdered foods, nuts, spreads, dried fruits, soups, jerky, shelf stable or dehydrated milk, and margarine, (to name a few staples) that are the main things keeping Nunavut from mass starvation.
Statistics on food imports is hard to come by in Nunavut. Nobody wants to know. We just want to know if we still eat off the land.
As in, if you ever manage to get a mouthful of char per month plus a few berries, this is a big win for Nunavut because it can be said you relied on country foods as part of your diet.
However, it can be discovered that retail food sales in Nunavut continue to grow steadily to $665 million in 2024. Each and every one of us spent over 16 grand last year for all this stuff.
As important as country foods are (and they are to many), the potential to deny hunters the chance to hunt (if that were even possible; what a joke) this is not top of the actual list for food security priorities for us Nunavummiut.
Nor is the odd piece of leaf lettuce from grossly inadequate local greenhouse efforts.
What is top of the list is us earning or being given enough money to buy food being brought into our community stores.
The Land Use Plan does nothing to help us accomplish this daily or weekly task. In fact, reasonable arguments exist that it does the exact opposite.
Neither good nor perfect.