Savoie to lead new Inuit secretariat

Donat Savoie, a longtime bureaucrat with the department of Indian and Northern Affairs and a well-known figure in Nunavik, is the first director of the federal government’s new Inuit secretariat.

A spokesperson for DIAND confirmed that Savoie is acting as the secretariat’s director. DIAND has said the appointment of a non-Inuk to the Inuit secretariat is an interim measure.

The secretariat, whose creation was announced last April by Prime Minister Paul Martin, is a new special office within DIAND devoted exclusively to Inuit issues.

A DIAND spokesman recently said that the secretariat’s director would have to possess “a strong knowledge of the North, of Inuit culture and heritage and understanding the very broad political and socio-economic factors in the North and in the Inuit communities.”

Savoie has a 30-year connection with Nunavik, which he has built and maintained over the years.

Savoie was born in Montreal and received a master’s degree from the Université de Montréal in 1969.

For his masters’ research project, Savoie headed to the community of George River, now known as Kangiqsuajujjuaq, in 1967.

There, Savoie lived for eight months with the family of Tivi Etok, an experience that changed his life and deeply affected his way of thinking.

“By allowing myself to be integrated into the family and village, I learnt a great deal about the Inuit way of life, their mode of thought, their values and the difficulties they faced daily in a quest for food and family essentials. This was an opportunity for me to witness not only their capacity to survive, but also their creative response to many obstacles,” Savoie says on a Nunavik government web site.

Soon after his return from George River, Savoie joined DIAND.

But, at the same time, Savoie continued his scholarly pursuits. He studied the archives left by Emile Petitot, an Oblate missionary and explorer who lived from 1862 to 1882 with the Dene. Savoie wrote two books and many articles on Petitot.

From 1977 to 1988, Savoie served as DIAND’s director of scientific and circumpolar affairs, where he was responsible for the Northern Scientific Training Grants Program and relations with other circumpolar countries.

In 1987, Savoie was the federal government’s head organizer for the visit of the late Pope John Paul II to Fort Simpson, N.W.T.

Under the executive interchange program of the Public Service of Canada, Savoie also worked as senior advisor to Mary Simon, when she was president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference.

In 1991, the Arctic Institute of Canada named Savoie as an Arctic Fellow, honoring his contributions to knowledge about the Arctic.

Over the years, Savoie has been Ottawa’s chief negotiator on many negotiating teams.

In 2000, he received a public service award of Canada for his involvement in the negotiations leading to the creation of Nunavut.

Savoie is now the head of the federal negotiating team for self-government in Nunavik.