“Promoting” Nunavut, you say?

We don’t doubt that many Nunavut residents will for the rest of their lives nurture fond memories of Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Iqaluit last Friday.

By turning out in droves to see her, ordinary Iqaluit residents showed that the British monarchy still commands enormous respect in the eastern Arctic.

And it’s safe to say that Nunavut residents instinctively understand the central function that the British monarch, as our head of state, still performs in our system of government. He or she confers legitimacy upon the democratic institutions, within which our elected representatives make law and run our government.

Her presence in Nunavut’s legislative chamber, therefore, conferred symbolic legitimacy upon Canada’s newest democratic institution – the Nunavut legislative assembly. The idea that a European aristocrat should become Canada’s head of state as an inherited privilege may look like a hopelessly old-fashioned leftover from Canada’s colonial days – and perhaps it is.

But having lived through the failures of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown constitutional accords, most thoughtful Canadians realize that changing our constitution to create a nationally elected head of state would be more trouble than it’s worth – and probably impossible to accomplish without tearing the country apart.

So it’s worth remembering that the Queen’s tour through Canada this month in celebration of her 50th year as our monarch is a constitutional gesture – and that a lot of it is about her, not us.

However, that didn’t stop a lot of local and regional leaders in Nunavut from portraying the royal visit as a chance to “promote” Nunavut to people around the world.

They should be careful about what they say, however, when they throw that term around. Used in that sense, the word “promote,” in English, means “to sell.” It means the act of putting a certain object or commodity on display to persuade others to buy it.

So “promoting” Nunavut literally means turning its land, culture and people, and their products, into commodities to be bought and sold. It means selling Nunavut the same way that commodities like beer, tampons and luxury cars are sold in television commercials.

Since Nunavut’s economy badly needs more tourists, and more people willing to buy products made here, such as sealskin clothing, country food and art work, this kind of “promotion” is essential. But only if it’s done right, and by people who know what they’re doing.

nd, of course, the promotional message must somehow get through to the intended audience, and have a clear, specific purpose.

Judged by that standard, the Queen’s visit was a lousy promotional event for Nunavut.

Contrary to what many believe, there was little international news coverage. In contrast to the April 1, 1999, celebrations in Iqaluit, there were no broadcasters or print reporters from the United States, Germany, France, Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark and so on.

The British Broadcasting Corporation did send a reporter to Iqaluit, but except for a photographer from Agence-France Presse, no other non-Canadian news organizations were represented here. And except for a few small articles that some American newspaper readers may have found in their daily papers, it’s unlikely that anyone outside of Canada or the British Isles even heard of the Queen’s Iqaluit visit.

So it’s not true, as the CBC reported Iqaluit mayor John Matthews as saying earlier this week, that “people around the world were able to visit Nunavut by watching the royal visit on television.” The truth is, most people around the world still don’t know any more about Nunavut than they did before.

And the international coverage was so brief, and so inaccurate, it’s unlikely that anyone who did see the event will remember much of any value anyway.

For example, the BBC posted a photograph on its Web site showing Premier Paul Okalik escorting the Queen to the sport-utility vehicle that she used on her Iqaluit visit.

The words underneath the picture said: “The Queen meets a local man wearing seal skins.”

In a well-intentioned gesture aimed at promoting Nunavut seal products, Okalik wore an elaborately designed jacket made from pieces of dyed sealskin. Given his interest in opening the U.S. market to Nunavut seal products, it’s understandable why he would turn himself into a human clothes-rack for the purpose of displaying such a product. It represents one of his major political priorities.

But it’s unlikely that his message made it through all the background noise.

Another well-intentioned, but naive, attempt to “promote” Nunavut was a cultural event held at the Unikkarvik visitor’s centre on Oct. 3, sponsored by the government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tourism. Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and her husband, John Ralston Saul, were among the invitees. Those who were allowed into the restricted event got to eat samples of country food prepared by a local caterer while they watched a sealskin fashion show and a drum-dancing demonstration.

Did the message get through to the intended audience? No, it didn’t. The event received little news coverage in any media outside Nunavut. As an attempt to “promote” Nunavut, it was a total flop.

And why should it have been otherwise? Those few reporters who did make it to Iqaluit did so because their employers assigned them to cover the Queen – not to provide free advertising to Nunavut’s various government-subsidized renewable resource enterprises.

So if there’s a lesson to be learned from these experiences, it’s that if Nunavut’s land, people, culture and so on are to be commodified and put up for sale in a promotional event, then it should be done in a planned, targeted manner.

If that happens, Nunavut’s producers might actually sell something to somebody some day.

JB