LAC Forum on Canadian Democracy

Nunavut at 10: What's working, what's not and what's next?

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Gisèle Jacob: … for the past hour. You may also have been listening to former Premier Paul Okalik's presentation on the vision of Canada from the North and I am sure that that would have been very interesting also. So before concluding this day, we have organized a panel discussion, that will be extremely interesting about Nunavut, about the 10 years of Nunavut's life so far, about the successes and the accomplishments and the challenges. …on Nunavut at 10, what's working, what's not and what's next. So I would now like to invite Chris Dorman, Director the Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Public Affairs at Carleton University to introduce the members of the panel. Chris.

Chris Dorman: Thank so much and thank you everybody for being here, for coming to participate in the celebration. I wanted to first of all thank our partners in mounting today's event, Library and Archives Canada and the Forum on Canadian Democracy, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and in particular, the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation and Canadian North Airlines who really were instrumental in putting this together. We wouldn't really have been able to mount it without their very generous support. Before I introduce everybody on the panel here, I want to point out that everyday whose here and participant is distinguished but I thought that I might mention that Leona Aglukkaq, the Federal Minister of Health and the MP for Nunavut is here today, fresh from the fray on Parliament Hill.

(applause)

Also, our panel tonight is going to be moderated and orchestrated by Rick Boychuk who is the editor-in-chief of the Canadian Geographic Magazine but this is going to be one of his last acts as editor of Canadian Geographic Magazine, he's stepping down from the helm of the Magazine after 14 years as an editor, he has done a brilliant job in stewarding one of Canada's best and highest quality magazines, a magazine that really is all about Canada.

(applause)

And our panellists tonight, they are not sitting in the order I am going to introduce them, I am going to introduce them in alphabetical order. First of all, we have Jim Bell who's the editor of Nunatsiaq News, a weekly newspaper in Iqaluit. In his 25 years at the newspaper, Mr. Bell has been called the "conscience of the Nunavut" and is known for his hard-hitting weekly editorials.

Then we have Nancy Karetak-Lindell who served as Member of Parliament for Nunavut from 1997 to 2008. She was a Liberal MP and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources in 2003, and chaired the standing committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development from 2004 to 2005.

(applause)

Jose Kusugak is the former president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national organization representing Canada's Inuit. He was instrumental in the standardization of Inuktitut, the Inuit language, and in negotiating the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. He worked for CBC, and has served as president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and of the ITK.

(applause)

Ed Picco finally was first elected to the Northwest Territories Legislature in 1995 and served as a member of the Nunavut Legislative Assembly from 1999 to 2008. He has held several positions in the Nunavut cabinet, including Minister of Health and Social Services and Minister of Education.

(applause)

And now I hand things over to the capable hands of Rick Boychuk.

Rick Boychuk: Thank you very much for those kind words Chris and welcome to everyone. What I thought we do this evening, well first of all I should tell you that although the panellists will all be speaking in English, translation devices are available, you can pose your questions in whatever language you prefer, Inuktitut, French or English and we will be able to respond. But, we are going to start with a short presentation by each of the panellists. I have asked them to address the question what is the greatest challenge facing Nunavut in the next 10 years, in the next decade. During the course of the evening, they'll also talk about some of the significant accomplishments of Nunavut in first 10 years. So without further due, we are going to start with Jose.

Jose Kusugak: Thank you Rick. I am not going to look cool in these glasses (laughter). As a matter of fact, they are not mine, I think they're Suzanne's (laughter). I left mine in the hotel. I too would like to thank the Canadian Geographical Society and the Library and Archives Canada, also Carleton University and the Gordon Foundation. And I must say, because there are some people here from First Air that Canadian North did make an effort of getting us here but they went mechanical so First Air took us directly to [inaudible]. Thank you.

(applause)

I was at Walmart like any good Inuk does when you get to Ottawa yesterday and came across one of Dweezil Zappa's CD called Zappa play Zappa, in other words, his father's music and he quoted his father Frank Zappa and says "Progress is not possible without deviation from the norm". Any of you who've heard Frank Zappa knows how he spent his life and musical career [07:14 inaudible] corroborating that statement. He also said: "Don't eat yellow snow" which is very profound if you are from the Arctic. (laughter). And I must say, I apologize ahead of time if I hurt anybody in the statements I am about to make and so on, because I know that many of you were part of the making up of the Nunavut government, as members of the Legislature Assembly and so on. So it is very hard to be very genuinely critical (laughter) … yes, I will be careful (laughter). People often compare Nunavut with Northwest Territories. Northwest Territories had over 30 years of experience based in the North running its own government when [08:09 inaudible] took place in 1999. So comparing Nunavut to Northwest Territories is not a fair comparison. It takes a long time to build a traditional public service. For example, the example I always use, the McGill University started out as a Jesuit Seminary some 130 years ago and it took a good 100 years for it to become a good recognized excellent university as it is today. Government of Northwest Territories' Senior Managers were old Northerners who started their service in remote locations in many small communities and many of them with Hudson's Bay Company, sometimes doing relatively menial tasks and worked their way up. They understood their role and the role of politicians and were mostly respectful of boundaries they were in. Nunavut is not there yet. Many public servants have not served in communities, nor spent a lot of time in the North. It is frustrating for employees who have spent their life in the Arctic and understand the first language of the people working with colleagues often their bosses who don't know and ignorant of Nunavut and sometimes they don't even know that they don't know. It takes (applause) and it will take a while to fix that. Nunavut was also expected to get Inuit and other Northerners to control over key government programs so that they could be adapted to reflect the traditions and values of the Arctic. In this respect, I believe the government of Nunavut made a fundamental mistake very early in its mandate and still has a long way to go. When Northwest Territories was divided, Northerners were firmly in control of health and education through Regional Division of Health Board and Board of Education. This control was not [10:32 inaudible]. They managed the entire operational budget of those departments and the senior managers [10:40 inaudible] and were hired by and reported to the Boards. The Boards set spending priorities and made difficult decisions. Those Education and Health Boards were composed of respected Inuit and other Northerners from each region who were providing clear and wise direction to the directors of both programs in each region and through them to their staff. The government of Northwest Territories had done a good job of creating Board members to understand that their role was to make policy and not to interfere with the day-to-day operations of the Health and Education systems. And those Boards had made great progress in many areas. Health Board developed policies which were culturally sensitive in matters like [11:32 inaudible] and health promotion. They made important decisions like transferring medical services from Southern Canada, from Montreal to Ottawa for example. In [11:44 inaudible] of Nunavut Health Boards to [11:48 inaudible] and promoting and designing regional Health facilities including a replacement hospital in Baffin. In the Baffin, the Regional Health Board also led a process which led to accreditation of the Baffin Hospital to national standards. In [12:07 inaudible], Health Board pushed for [12:10 inaudible] sensitive patient boarding homes. In education, the Regional Education Board actively promoted curriculum development and publication of Inuktitut government materials based on the history and dialects of each region. The Boards played a major and positive role in recruiting teachers and encouraging teacher training. What was striking about both of Health and Education Boards and probably the underlying reason why they were dissolved by the new Nunavut government was that those Boards had actual control of the budgets and the setting of priorities within the mandate of the Legislation. In those departments, they recruited the CEOs of those Boards and held them accountable for the performance of their staff. They set goals and objectives and developed policies in sensitive areas like medical escort for example. I know this as first hand because I was Regional Manager for CBC at the time and because my children were growing up, I wanted to get into the Education Board and CBC didn't allow that. So I approached the president of CBC and threatened to quit. So he gave me a waiver and the people I was in the Board with where older people from Rankin and unilingual Inuit as well as long time Northerners Qallunaat, white people and they were genuinely running the Education Board. However, for no reason that was evident, even adequately explained, except a vague promise that it would save money, early in its first term the new Nunavut Cabinet decreed that Health and Education Boards would be dissolved in one hasty decision made without any meaningful consultation. Hundreds of respected Inuit elders, leaders from every community in Nunavut, who were champions of Health and Education and had been creating a corporate governance, were told that their help was no longer needed. There were to be replaced by Cabinet ministers and members of the Legislative Assembly who were apparently going to provide more accountability to the delivery of services.

Before, they were dissolved, Education and Health Boards were strong advocates for health and education. That passionate advocacy often resulted in pressure put on politicians, ministers of Health and Education for advocate financial resources to meet the demands of Nunavut rapidly growing population. I believe that the new government felt politically threatened by the regional boards and instead of understanding that respectful challenges to government can help, a minister of Health or Education gained a fair share of the government overall budget for these important departments. The new ministers and government felt threatened by the Boards who were led by experienced and respected community leaders. They overlook the fact that ministers had ultimate control over the Boards by their power of appointment and removed [15:44 inaudible] Boards or Board members and they are all come with power to cease control if the Board grossly overstepped its authority. I believe that the dissolution of Boards of Health and Education, the proud Inuit and other Northerners of vital importance in these culturally sensitive programs replacing them with [16:08 inaudible] bureaucrats from Southern Canada who had minimal understanding and sometimes [dangerous] conception about Inuit culture and values. As a result, the department soon lost credibility and effectiveness. This is fundamentally why Health and Social Services and Education programs are not seen as working effectively in Nunavut.

Now I realize … I have a book of this… we have no time to really go through it but I hope it sets a tone, a stage that there were some things that were working in the Northwest Territories and because of some recent, unseen by many of us, when those empowerments were taken away, it caused a great confusion because we thought that Nunavut was going to be the Inuit and Northerners homeland.

Chris Dorman: Thank you Jose. That's a view from outside the government. Now, we are going to hear from Ed Picco who will give us the view from inside of the government.

Ed Picco: Thank you. I wouldn't touch that Rick (laughter). First of all I would like to thank you … [where are you, I can't hear him… I can't hear him sorry]. I am going to very briefly talk about Nunavut and the Nunavut Government implementation very briefly. … very good issues there and we have been debating Nunavut for over then years. And our top of the conversation tonight or debate is to look at where we see Nunavut in the next 10 years. So I would like to address that by just going back a little bit to see where we are. And as everyone in this room knows tonight, that the history of the Nunavut Land Claim goes back much further than 1999, indeed it goes back in the early '70s when Jose and Mr. Curley and John Maqualik and Paul Quasa and many people like that worked really really hard to develop a land claim. When the Nunavut Land Claim was finally signed off in Iqaluit in 1993 by the then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, it brought a lot of hope. And in that 6-year period leading up to Nunavut, from 1993 and 1999, I would like to talk a little bit about that because I wasn't involved in that process and can say we have a fair contradiction, you know, we had built a framework for government, we had to look at the logistics, the administrative and the financial and the [19:08 inaudible] processes to be developed. And many people don't realize and probably have forgotten we weren't born or were involved in the process at the time. We didn't have a capital so one of the first things we had to do was to decide on a process to develop a plebiscite to select a capital, we had to pick a Nunavut flag, we had to pick Coats of Arms. And the Northwest Territories government had to put in place enabling legislation to be able to have two territories created. Now there were a lot of [19:38 inaudible] issues of how the new government would reflect Nunavut and Jose has given some examples. But we didn't want the government of Nunavut to be just a clone of the Northwest Territories' government. And it was in this context in 1995-1996 that again, when I think about what's happened over the last several months here in Canada, I think you should pay very close attention to what happened in 1995 and 1996. In 1995 and 1996, the other shoe dropped and that shoe-drop was the election of the Liberal Government and everyone knows here in the room, they don't know, they probably know that I have been a long term member of the Liberal Party and indeed, supporter of Mr. Martin in 1990 when he ran for leadership, he lost against Mr. Chrétien. But after saying that, when Mr. Martin came into power in 1995 and 1996, the Canadian government had a huge deficit. The international monetary fund and other groups internationally and politically and domestically here in Canada, some of you will remember this, that we needed to cut our deficit. So in 1996, arbitrarily, the Federal Government of Canada cut the budget of the Northwest Territories by $100 million, $60 million in the first year, $40 million in the second year. Now the impact on the Northwest Territories was dramatic and indeed I would suggest you tonight that it was catastrophic. We lost, out of our gross expenditure base almost 14% of the total budget of the Territory.

At that time, the Northwest Territory Government Finance Minister was Mr. John Todd a very [21:13 inaudible] politician, a very hard working man and you know, I had a lot of differences of opinion with Mr. Todd that are well documented. But Mr. Todd had to try to balance our budget. So, he eliminated the vacation travel assistance. We rolled back wages, we cut the public sector and indeed for the first time in the Northwest Territories or in the North, or in the North, people lost their jobs. In Iqaluit alone, over 40 people were laid off from the government. It was quite traumatic. I went to … and I was representing Iqaluit at that time, Iqaluit was the largest community in the Northwest Territories outside of Yellowknife, the second largest community. And we had to take our fair share of hits as it were. Indeed being the only MLA representing Iqaluit at that time, we held a public meeting, many people, when I look around the room, some of them are here tonight, were in that room in 1996 when people smashed my van window, they threw eggs at Mr. Todd, it wasn't nice because we had to balance the budget. Now, the Northwest Territories' Legislature had to draft plans enabling legislation to create Nunavut and indeed we had to try and balance the budget with a $100 million deficit. In this scenario, in this case, in 2 years, we had to create Nunavut. So Nunavut starts behind the ball fiscally, financially, administratively, logistically before we even had a chance to start our government April 1, 1999 and my friends, people forget this. Now just imagine that scenario moving forward. We had to balance budget, we had to cut, we had to find $100 million, so Mr. Martin, the Finance Minister came into Iqaluit, a very nice man, Nancy was there. And he said to me in a conversation at one point, he said, you know when you get $0.95 for every dollar from the federal government you have no wiggle room. And I just kind of back away from Mr. Martin and said, thank you very much and put my head down. And it wasn't a very good scene. But that's the scenario, that's the backdrop for the creation of Nunavut. We had one [23:20 inaudible] minister at the time and I won't say his name, Mr. Irwin who said that two territories would not cost more than one territory, remember that Jose? We were in a meeting and he said, it wouldn't cost more than one territory, two territories wouldn't cost more than one. So basically what the Federal Government of the day did was cut the territories' budget in half and we gave or they gave Nunavut an extra $1 million for infrastructure funding, meaning for a new school, housing and so on, nowhere near the needs that we had in Nunavut at the time with the social housing and all this kind of stuff. So we were created in a bad situation. The federal government then did not move to top up the budget and indeed as far as I know unless there is someone here that can contradict me, I don't think there is, there was never a study done, a cost benefit analysis study done to see what would it cost to run two territories. Do you know of any Jose? So we got half the budget for the territories, $100 million and now, on April 1, 1999, you had to hit the ground running.

When that budget came forward in 1999, remember, it was not complete because the $100 million that was cut out of the base of the Territories' budget in 1995-1996 wasn't replaced. So about 15% of the total budget that was needed wasn't even in place, the budget in 1999 was based on half of the territorial budget, that was the Northwest Territories' budget and bring forward, you know, $100 million in infrastructure funding. Now, Nunavut covers three time zones. We have to deliver services, and govern people and almost 30% of our budget last year in 2008, 30% went to subsidies for electricity, oil and gas. Nunavut is the only jurisdiction in Canada that has to buy 100% of its fuel one year in advance and deliver it to its people. And you have to subsidize that. And I'll give you an example. If you are living in social housing in Nunavut right now today, you pay $0.06 a kilowatt/hour for your electricity. If you are Jose and you have your own private home in Rankin, you pay $0.37 a kilowatt/hour. That's the difference. 60% of the population in Nunavut live in social housing. And we have to subsidize that because you would never be able to afford to pay the real cost. When I see the biggest challenge facing Nunavut over the next few years, now I will put away my prepared notes for a second, just to say when I look at the next 10 years, what do I see? I wasn't born in Nunavut, I've lived in Nunavut for 25 years. I am proud to have been a person who had an opportunity to work with the government and raise a family in Nunavut. I wasn't born in Nunavut but Nunavut is my home. When I look forward, when I look over the next 10 years, I see the current fiscal situation in Canada as being the greatest challenge for Nunavut. Because last year, as an example, over $272 million were spent by mining companies and explorations in Nunavut. That benefited everyone of our communities and sometimes, and Jose and some other people will tell you, people in the government in Nunavut become to Iqaluit centric, it is always about Iqaluit, what's going on in Iqaluit. We have to look outside of Iqaluit, look at the 24 other communities and their economic development and all of our communities in Nunavut, the only thing that happens every year is construction. The building of new schools, houses and health centers in our communities. That's been basically the only economic opportunity we've had, except for the last couple of years where the mining industry has been able to pump money in. Now we see what the Canadian economic opportunities that have missed, gone by the way side, and what we see on the Federal scene and the national and international federal scene, it doesn't bode well for us. So we have to do now in the government in Nunavut is to get that devolution signed, the devolution agreement which will give Nunavutmiut the opportunity to control the royalties that come from exploration, that would come from mining, that would come from Hydro development and other opportunities for us in Nunavut. We sit on Nunavut right now and it's not well known publicly and in Canada but Nunavut has almost 25% of known oil and gas reserves in Canada. We had a producing oil well in Nunavut right up to 1996, it was called [Bent Oil] outside of Resolute Bay. A lot of people don't realize that. And it worked for three years and the oil from that was so pure, it used to go right to the power plant in Resolute Bay without any type of refining. The only problem with that oil was that it had a heavy sediment content and we used to have to change the filters. We have diamonds, we have gold, we have uranium, we have right now, north of Avigluik, across Miglulik, the Baffin Island has the largest pure iron ore site anywhere in the world. Number one. So we have all these opportunities and we have mining and natural resources. And the greatest natural resource that we have in Nunavut is our people.

And what a thrill today to be here tonight, to wrap up very quickly, to see so many students here from Nunavut Sivuniksavut program, I meant one young person from [Arviat] who is in Carleton doing a bachelor's degree in Humanities. We have over 300 students in the south right now from Nunavut going to college. 10 years ago, we had 100. (applause). As a parent who has raised kids, my son is in college right now in St John's doing computers, I have a daughter who just graduated, I am telling you, and as a former Minister of Education, yes there is a lot of issues with Education in Nunavut but we have to… instead of people, you know, always looking negatively on what's going, sometimes you have to take a positive outlook. In today's fiscal climate and our social and economic situation in Nunavut, I always like to think that the glass is half full. I see so many great things that have happened over the last 10 years in Nunavut. You never used to see the … Northwest Territories, and I know I was a member of the Assembly, the Premier never came and visit us, we never saw him, we never saw the Health Minister, the Finance Minister, we might get a visit once a year, and we were the second largest community in the territories. Today, I know the Education Minister, the Health Minister, all these people are out into the communities, we're trying to bring the government closer and is it perfect? It's not. And I said to Mr. Bell from the Nunatsiaq News, I went tonight before we came here, before I started writing up my speech, I went back and look at what the Global & Mail, the National Post, ten years ago, McClain' Magazine, Nunatsiaq News, News North said about Nunavut. And they said in the newspaper, you know, some people thought we would fail within three years, the feds would take us over. Some people said that there are going to be huge mistakes made and so on and so forth. We haven't killed anyone, there has not been an insurrection, we haven't had a "coup d'état". I think we have done pretty well. Have we made any mistakes? Yes. Will we continue to make mistakes? Yes, of course we will. But for the first time ever, Nunavutmiut have control of their government and their destiny and hopefully, with some more help from our Federal partners, the Federal Government of Canada, and I think we are all proud to have Leona here with us tonight who can bring that forward now, you know, more proactively, we can more forward. So again … thank you and look forward to your questions maybe.

(applause)

Rick: Thanks for that Ed. It is a sobering history lesson really. Jim Bell has been observing … observed the first 10 years of Nunavut, he was in Iqaluit long before then but he really has an insider's view, a first hand view from the backyard of the Nunavut government, of the development of the territory in the first ten years so, I am keen to hear what his view is on the biggest challenge lying ahead.

Jim Bell: Thank you Rick and thank you to the Public Archives and Library of Canada and to Canadian Geographic Magazine, Rick and my old friend Patricia DeSousa for inviting me to come down here. It's very flattering and humbling to be here. Ever since I received the invitation a couple of months ago, I have been thinking about what I would say and also about what the 10th anniversary of Nunavut means because until that point, frankly, I had been too busy to really give it a lot of thought, it was actually just a wee bit of a surprise that I realized that it had been 10 years because it has gone so quickly. It's been, ever since April 1, 1999, it's been just a rush of events from one thing to another. I would also like to thank Jose and Ed for their history lessons. I wanted to talk a little bit about the future however. The question was: What is Nunavut's greatest challenge over the next 10 years? And in my opinion, I think the only way to really describe what the greatest challenge is, is with this term human development. And in Nunavut, we hear a lot of people talking about education and training, the need for education and training to prepare young people for jobs in government and in the mining industry and so on. And that is one really important component of human development. It's much broader than that though I think and I think that we also need to have a really creative and focused and broadly-based effort on other areas such as public health which is often now called wellness. We need a lot more intervention in public health including in mental health. We need to start paying attention to what's going on inside the justice system and to look at how the justice system is coping with the crime rate in Nunavut which is very very high. We have to look at addictions and numerous other issues like that. And I will just give you some examples of why I think this is important.

Just before I came here, I look at the latest Inuit employment report that the GN issues every three months. And this is a report that states how many employees are working for the government, how many Inuit are working for the government, how many non-Inuit, how many positions are filled, how many positions are not filled, and all that sort of thing. And these numbers have become just by themselves, become subjects of argument and debate in Nunavut partly because of the growing political importance of Inuit employment within the government of Nunavut. People are constantly arguing over percentages and all this sort of thing. I think people are actually too obsessed with numbers but that's how it is in Nunavut, right now. And at this moment, there are, within the government of Nunavut, which is the largest employer in Nunavut and probably 1/3 of all of the people in Nunavut who have jobs work for the government of Nunavut, it is by far the most important employer there as well as being the central political institution. There are 3,849 jobs. Of those, 2,942 of those jobs are filled but 907 of those jobs are vacant. 907 of those jobs are sitting vacant and this is in a territory that has an unemployment rate that is greater than 12%, that is in a territory where the smallest communities, the unemployment rate rises above 23-24-25% and where, even in the 10 largest communities, which have the largest number of jobs partly because of decentralization, a lot of government jobs have been moved out to these communities, the unemployment rate is around 8 or 9% which is almost acceptable, despite all of those unemployed people, there are 900 vacancies in the government of Nunavut. Now, if you look more closely at these numbers, you'll see that in the department of Health and Social Services, which is an extremely important department because in a territory that has … that suffers from the really serious health and social issues that Nunavut suffers from the work they do is really important. Only 59% of jobs in the Health department are filled. That means that 4 out of every 10 jobs in the department of Health and Social Services are filled. Now, I think there are using contractors and employment agencies to fill out a lot of the nursing and social work jobs but this is the department that has all of the frontline workers who help people. The social workers who refer you to counselling, the nurses who give you healthcare when you have an accident or when your child gets sick. And, this is a really really serious situation. I think it is partly routed in the events that Ed was talking about back in the middle of the 1990s when the government of the Northwest Territories at that time was forced to cut back on wages and on employment just to balance its budget. The other thing that happened that Ed didn't mention is the government of the Northwest Territories at that time basically imposed a wage agreement on the territorial public service at the time, but cut their wages by 6.5%, eliminated their vacation travel assistance and removed other benefits and they also sold off much of their staff housing stock. And this all happened in 1995-1996 and this was the time when Ed's car was vandalized and a lot of people were really angry and I saw this from a perspective of Iqaluit where there were a lot of government employees who lost their jobs. And this happened on the eave of the creation of Nunavut, just 2 or 3 years before the creation of Nunavut. So that in 1997, after the office of the intern commissioner was set up I think in April of 1997, and to begin to really … to start to build a Nunavut government, they were having to hire new employees in an environment where they had, in many cases, they had no staff housing, where they had … they couldn't offer people vacation travel assistance. And for those of you who live in Ottawa, vacation travel assistance is really important, especially if your job is located in a small community. If your job is located in Arctic Bay, or in Pond Inlet or Grise Fiord or Resolute Bay, you're Gjoa Haven or Iglulik or a community like that, if you don't have assistance to travel, it can cost you thousands of dollars every year just to take a vacation with your family or to visit relatives in another community. And this … I mean, I think this is still an axis of major disincentive towards people who might want to work for the government of Nunavut. That's not the entire reason why we have these shortages now but it's one out of the great many factors.

One of the good things however that has happened in Nunavut over the past 3 to 5 years, is that the economy has done very well, the ex-Premier Okalik, in his speech this afternoon was boasting that the government of Nunavut's growth during that period exceeded that of Alberta. That's true, especially in 2007, the Nunavut's economy grew by, I think it was 10 or 11 % and many hundreds of new jobs were created in construction and seasonal jobs, in mineral exploration and also generally by the growth in government. And this sort of things has now led to the growth of an Inuit middle class. Now there have been middle-class Inuit for a long time actually but in more recent years, the size of this class of people has expanded exponentially. And this is really important because this is the class from which every society draws its leaders. This is the class that brings stability and leadership to a society so this has been a real good thing and a lot of these people are my neighbors and friends and so on. This group has done really well out of the creation of Nunavut. On the other hand, those who have not been able to participate in the creation of Nunavut through government employment for whatever reason, whether it is because of social problems, or because of poor education and health and other causes haven't done very well. And what we are seeing now is the growth of two class divisions in Nunavut. And this is leading to a certain amount of resentment. So when you hear people saying Nunavut hasn't done anything for us, hasn't made any difference, quite often, this is economic frustration. These are people who are … whose lives materially are not getting better. I think this particularly the case in the small communities where the unemployment rates are still high and people often feel ignored by the Iqaluit government but this is why human development is important because this is how, you know, we overcome this sort of thing.

I see Rick pointing to his watch which means I am blabbering way too much. So, in closing, I think the development, what the economists call the development of human capital. We will hear a lot of talk about infrastructure, and dollars in infrastructure is really really important. Nunavut has almost infinite needs for infrastructure but if Nunavut is going to have a priority for the next 10 years, it has to be people.

Rick: Ok, thank you. (applause). Thanks very much Jim. Nancy Katerak-Lindell was elected to the House of Commons in 1997 before the creation of Nunavut and she continued to serve in the Commons until last year. So she has … I think, brings a unique perspective to Federal attitudes towards the North and Nunavut in particular. So, I am eager to hear what she thinks are the challenges going forward.

Nancy Katerak-Lindell: Thank you I am very pleased to be here. I am honoured to be here and I would like to thank the people that sponsored this celebration. I am very honoured to be one of the panellists here and I totally thank our sponsors also that have been mentioned. I am trying very hard to stay within my five minutes so I know I don't mention them by name but I am very thankful to all the sponsors that have brought us here. When we were asked what we thought would be the biggest challenge for the future of Nunavut, like all the other panellists, I thought about this long and hard because they gave us a lot of time to think of what we can say that would make some discussions happen. And you know, we are going to take questions after and so, I thought long and hard about what my topic would be as the challenge that we see for the next 10 years of Nunavut. And we almost have to go back and see where we have been. I remember April 1, 1999 and it was a very difficult occasion for me in that I was very happy to be there and yet, it was the first major event for me since I had lost my husband. And to me, that has been the defining point of how I go forward. We're all going to always have challenges in our life, in our government and in our country. But how do we go on? How do we inspire people to carry forward? And it's very much in our ancestry either. So I say that for Nunavut, it will be to sustain that hope we felt on April 1, 1999 because there was tremendous hope in people. People were walking lighter, people felt that they actually had a role as Inuit to be part of Nunavut, being involved in policy decision making, be involved in changing our territory so it could be our territory. So I think, you know some people might say, that's a bit idealistic, but in order for us to achieve things in life, we have to have the right attitude and the right thought and the right determination and so that's why I think with 4 sons, my goal as a mother has been to sustain that hope that they have a part to play in the future of Nunavut, that they have a role to play. Every one of us and every generation has a role to play in what we will see as an ever changing Nunavut. And Jose is very right in saying that with very high expectations of Nunavut that things are not going to happen overnight, it took the country years, hundreds of years to be where it is today and yet people want results yesterday for Nunavut and we are not allowed that same process of making mistakes and carrying on. So, I really wanted to base my comments on Inuit [47:49 culture] IQ. How do we really incorporate it into the policies and legislation of Nunavut so that we're not just paying lip service. How do we make people feel that they have something to contribute. People talk a lot about capacity building but for me, it's really tapping into the capacity that's already there. And we didn't get to be where we are today as Inuit by being ignorant, by being non risk takers. We got to where we are today because we wanted to survive, because we had a system of government amongst us that made us survive. So it's not like we had nothing to start with, it's a matter of incorporating it into the present system of governing today but I think there is real opportunity to do a balance of both because we all know we are not going to go back to how things were done 50 years ago, that's even saying 20 years ago, we are not going to back to how things were being done. And we don't want to go back there. But how do we move forward? And when we came out with the report, when we say we, you know, the people that were helping make Nunavut become a reality and that goes back 35 years, I thought that the title of "Footprints in new snow" I just loved that title because it really gave us a chance to chart a new path and something that most people don't get a lot of opportunity to do. People in Nunavut have the most unique opportunity to chart their own future. And I think we really need to tap into the capacity that is already there and learn to incorporate it into the modern way of doing things.

We have got to be the most adaptable people us Inuit because we have seen tremendous change in our history. You know I sit here as a previous member of Parliament and sometimes, I have to sort of take a step back and say, I grew up when my father still had a dogs team and here I am sitting in the House of Commons, you know, how do you jump forward, fast forward all that and still be able to function. So I am not saying that to put myself on a pedestal, it's only because I have seen so many other people do it besides me that I was able to do it when a lot of times we underestimate ourselves as people as Inuit that we sometimes are our worst enemy saying we can't do this. So, I think our challenge as residents of Nunavut is to sustain that hope to make sure that my son who is here feels that he has a good future along with all the other kids he is here with. That they have something to look forward to. That they will have a strong role in deciding what kind of government we are going to have, what kind of people we are going to elect. And I have parents who are very active and have been their whole lives. They are now almost 76 and 79 and if I had my way of doing things I would give them Ph.D. because I think their knowledge is that equivalent but somebody always just calls my father a hunter. Well, you know, we get hung up on titles and I could call him a climatologist, I could call him a wildlife specialist, my mother has been involved in government for ever but she just gets the title elder because she is 76. Well, she can be 10 different titles to me and she can have 10 different doctorate degrees on her wall. So how do we instil that belief that we are capable, how do we pass that on to our young people that that knowledge is there. We didn't get to where we are without that kind of heavy duty knowledge that we think only belongs if you have letters passed your name. So we have to incorporate IQ and believe that we have the capability in order to meet the challenges, the challenges are always going to be there. If it's economic downturn today, it will be something else next year and the year after. We'll never going to run out of challenges but how do we learn to meet them and meet them well. And as I said, we are adaptable people, I have great faith in the ability of the people around me, that we have to give them that responsibility instead of just putting in… as Jose said, I don't want to offend anyone but, instead of just putting a consultant who is going to be in my community for 2 years, they are not going to buy a house there, they are not going to buy their food there, most of the time, they've gone down and they'll bring their food up, they don't support the local stores. I mean that's not to say we all have to find ways of stretching our dollars, their kids aren't going to school there, so their drive to improve Nunavut is not the same as mine because I live there, I have a house there, I brought my kids up there. So how do we pass that on to the young people and even not so young people so that they have that sense of hope that they have something to contribute to our territory. And then with that ability, we can deal with educational challenges, we can deal with better healthcare, we can deal with more infrastructure needs, but we have to give that ability to people so that they are able to meet those different challenges that are going to come their way. Thank you.

Rick: Nancy, thank you very much for that message of hope, safeguarding that sense of hope is, I think critical too for Nunavut. I recall the astonishment I think that we all agreed that the development of Nunavut which was such an audacious act of self-definition and it's wonderful to have an opportunity to hear from people who have actually been involved in that process. We are going to open the floor to questions now. Again, feel free to pose your questions in whatever language you wish. I am delighted to see Federal Languages Commissioner, Graham Fraser is here, I am sure he'll have questions about Nunavut's new Language Law. And the author of our cover story in the January-February issue on the 10th anniversary of Nunavut, Lisa [Grayward] is here as well, I am sure she will have more questions, as she didn't pose enough during her travels there. But let me start by…

Audience Member: My name is [55:23 inaudible]. I represent [55:26 inaudible] which is a think tank and also we have some projects in developing countries. My question is that with the world financial downturn, all governments are going to infrastructure now. I didn't read the budget yesterday. What would be the share of Nunavut in the Canadian total allocation and infrastructure and is there any feasibility studies or [55:58 inaudible] studies for infrastructure that we can look at? Thank you.

Rick: Ok, who wants to take a crack at that one first? Jim? Go ahead.

Jim: I was traveling for half of yesterday so I haven't had a chance to really read everything I should read about the federal budget. As for … this is a real important question that you raised though. In this federal budget, the most important item for Nunavut was an announcement that there will be a continuation of a very important social housing construction program that began in 2006. The first one was worth $200 million which is being used to build 725 social housing units. The reason this is important is that Nunavut is short of at least 3,000 social housing units, probably more than that and also because of population growth, new family formation and all that sort of thing, Nunavut needs 270 to 300 new social housing units every year. And until 2006, we had a few programs here and there, I think there was one year there was 40 units, I think about 80 over 2 years or 100 over two years or something like that in 2000 and 2001 I think. But throughout most of the '90s and the early 2000s, social housing construction in Nunavut really fell behind the growth in population. So that was an announcement in the budget. I think it would have … I would have been more encouraged if I had seen $200 milllion or $300 million over 3 to 5 years and also an announcement that there would be a phase III to this program but at least that gives some indication that the current government is still thinking about building social housing in Nunavut. And this is really important, it has a big impact on health for example. The rate of overcrowdedness in Nunavut is the highest in the country.

Ed Picco: Just very quickly on housing, I mean, Jim is raising a good points about the big issue of housing, it's not building the houses, how you provide and maintain the houses afterwards, the owning cost. So every house, when you build a new house in Nunavut, if it's a social housing unit, the government of Nunavut covers 100% of the costs to run that house, oil, electricity, maintenance, upkeep which is about $30,000. At the same time, which a lot of people aren't aware of, is that Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) is withdrawing from all social housing units in Canada the percentage of money they used to subsidize the actual costs of that house. So as an example, right now in Nunavut, we received about 47% of the costs of the social housing unit, its owning costs, oil, electricity and so on from our federal partner. That is a sunset of the clause that's in place on contract, not just for Nunavut but with the rest of the provinces and territories. So, I believe it's 11 years from now, Nunavut will have to pick up 100% of the costs of operating all these social housing units. So while the housing stock is old, if you can imagine you have houses that were built in1970, 1980, 1990, in 20 years, in 10, in 11 years from now, we'll still have to maintain those. So that's the extra cost, great, thank you very much for giving me 700 new houses, but give me the money to help run those houses, that's the part people don't pick up on. The percentage for Nunavut, every billion dollars that come from our federal partner, Nunavut usually gets about $5 million because the process for federal transfer is by per capita or by population. So when you hear the federal government say we have a billion dollars in the pot for healthcare, housing and so on, it's by per capita. We get a very small slice of that, about $5 million. However, I am very pleased to see that in the new federal budget, Nunavut was actually mentioned 3 or 4 times. As a politician, when you see your name in a federal budget, even in the footnote mentioning Nunavut, you would be happy. This budget, we've actually had several sentences in line so thank you very much.

Audience Member: Besides housing, health and funds, we, from the outside, have the feeling that there was something in Nunavut. That Nunavut was accomplishing something that maybe Canada would not deserve that there was a special quality there, a difference, a memory that on a world basis was beyond what the country had been accomplishing. And then, we wonder Nunavut is never to Greenland, to Europe, to other aboriginal people in Americas, it has produced films like Atanakjuak that had an international success. We, from the outside even doubt that Canada would not be part of the G8 without Nunavut. It has been using it in Brazil, in Australia as an identity figure and then I don't know what we can derive from what you are saying. Nunavut has a power of creativity that projects the country further but in the end, ends up with problems which at the end of the day are not worth the quality, the memory of what Nunavut is for the world.

Rick: While that is a very interesting comment, do you have any question, no? Alright, thank you.

Audience Member: Hi, my name is Kathleen Merit and I am a student with the Nunavut Sivuniksavut Program. Acknowledging Nancy's remarks about how do we … you know, give young Inuit pride in, you know, being the future of Nunavut. Growing up in Nunavut myself as a young Inuk, I never had that pride, not until I learned at school what our leaders did for us. And I saw it in my High School growing up. When I went back to the school to do a presentation over Christmas break, I saw the same thing, there was no interest in, you know, being an Inuk, sorry, it's kind of an emotional thing for me to say but, I want to hear from Nancy and Jose, like, more of advice how do we, as young Inuit, who have learned what, you know, our leaders have done for us, how do we put that back so that other students can gain that same pride that we do. Thank you.

Nancy: Thanks for the question. I think we need to go back to how we incorporate Inuit IQ. We need to put it into the curriculum, we need to celebrate people in our communities so that other kids see that Inuit are people to be proud of and, you know, my mother talks to me all the time about all the great things Inuit can do, my father also. Even if they don't say it, I see it. And I see it in other people. So we have to learn to look for those abilities that sometimes are overshadowed by all the stuff that we turn a success. Because we learn in some way by TV and things that we hear other people say, we learn to equate success with, let's say, a university degree, you know, we learn to equate success with someone who has been given an award for something. And we don't see it in everyday life's people that have survived in our communities. We don't highlight people in our communities and their abilities. So changing the education curriculum to reflect who we are and where we have been and how we got here I think is something to celebrate and again, we have to do it in a way that people understand today. Marketing, you know, people do marketing of a product or a person to portray them as a certain way. So I think we need to learn to market ourselves and get savvy and use the technology that we have today with internet, YouTube, every other kind of audio visual capabilities that people have today. And I look at my 5-year old granddaughter and she watches Dora and all those shows on TV and I keep trying to figure out, she speaks more Spanish sometimes because Dora says Spanish words than Inuktitut words. How do we get the money to create those kinds of medias so that my granddaughter is watching those IBC shows or things on APTN. How do get those to be the norm in our kids' life instead of something totally foreign and I think that's a challenge for us.

Rick: Jose, telephone.

Jose: Yes, Prime Minister (laughter). I think one of the great things about Nunavut [Stivuniksavut] is that the young people who go to Ottawa get to see and look at themselves from outside of Nunavut and it really makes you look at the Arctic in a totally different way. We do this all the time. I know in your offices, you go to your retreats to get out of your office and that makes a difference and it works. One of the problems that we have not just for young people but for all Inuit as well is the actual history and the reality of the past. Inuit were traditionally far less social people, it would make NDP look [1:08:05 inaudible] in other words, in sharing and the things that we do. Peter Irniq was talking about today where there is a gathering of playing drums and so on, which we saw a little bit of that and that was doing, did not stand alone by itself. In that situation, people actually were there to sign about their [evack]. [Evack] are … it would be like pairing each of you off with each other whoever it might be and your role would be to take all the sins of your [evack] and write them into music and we have [1:09 inaudible] to sign that song to embarrass the guy. And that was in a way a social contest kind of …. Inuit were told to be humble all the time. That's the whole basis, as a matter of fact, when we were trying to run before an office, it's very hard to self-promote because that's illegal in Inuktitut. One of the times, my son was playing hockey in Toronto and he is a darned good player and, in one of my campaigns, I mentioned this to a friend of mine in [1:09 inaudible] and he said, you want to get elected, don't talk about your son like that. And the whole idea was that you do the best you can in life and let other people judge what you do to be good or bad or whatever. And so that's why today I was cringing every time Peter was up here saying we are the best of this, we are the best of that because that's illegal in our society. Even that song that Nunavut [inaudible] would sign [inaudible], it doesn't mean … what they introduced it as a song for kind of a passage to adulthood or something but [1:10:33 inaudible] means literally your little runt, a little kid, a boy. But it doesn't mean that, it means the opposite of it but a whole society that you would have to learn. So what I am saying in fact is to say that there has to be a decision [1:10:55 inaudible] sometimes, in the future to say how can we deal with today's society because if you think Japanese are humble the way they bow and humble themselves, Inuit are twice that and it's very hard to put yourself in a higher pedestal, when it's illegal to do that socially. So and I was going to just mention because [1:11:33 inaudible] has a slogan that tries to get Canada to embrace Inuit because we embrace Canada and the slogan is "We are first Canadians but we are Canadians first".

Rick: Thank you Jose. Yes, Mike Furlon.

Audience Member: Thank you. I am a Liberal member of Parliament for Yukon and a colleague of Nancy and Leona in the House of Commons and a critic of Arctic issues and Northern Development in Yukon, Nunavut and NWT. And thank you all for your very passionate wonderful presentations. Just before I ask my question, a quick answer to that infrastructure question is some of the money we have access to is $25 million a year next couple of years but also accelerate the $25 million from years 3, 4 and 5 which would make instead of $125 million plus potentially some infrastructure money for green infrastructure, for rural infrastructure and for community college infrastructure. My question is just a short question, is from each of you, if you had to prioritize, could you just tell me the one thing or a one major thing the federal government could help you into a brighter future. And my second question is not a serious question but if you are really creative, do you good question I could ask Leona in the House of Commons tomorrow?

(laughter)

Nancy: I would have to say education because I always feel that if you can give people that ability to deal with issues and find out that they can blossom under a good education system, than they tackle all those other issues whether they're be social, lobbying for more money for houses, lobbying for money for health. But I think again we really need to find a way again to tap into the knowledge that people have. And if that means teaching in a totally different way, then so be it. Because we have to admit that the way we have done the education system today has not worked for us. So we have to get creative and we have very talented people out there who can be very creative in their ways of teaching. And I think one of the most unique ways that Inuit have of teaching is so subtle as Jose says that you don't even know you are learning something until you find out really that somebody was teaching you something and you didn't even know you were learning something. So we do have capabilities of passing on that great knowledge, so education for me would be my priority. And I don't have a good question for you, I am going to abstain.

[panellist]: Well for infrastructure I would say that the number one priority must be housing closely followed by marine infrastructure, docks and ports and so on. For human capital, it has to be education closely followed by public health and more interventions as public health measures.

[panellist]: Thank you very much, this is fantastic, I get to ask question to Larry. Larry I would like to ask you a question. If you had the opportunity to give Nunavut something, what would you give it in the federal government? But you know that answer. We've had some discussion…Very quickly, no seriously I had an opportunity to get something from the federal government and I wish they would open their eyes, whatever government in power, see what great potential we have with human resources, natural resources with the North instead of always hearing sovereignty issues. The best sovereignty Canada can have in the Arctic is having people on the ground working and living and prospering. What else could you ask for, seriously?

(laughter)

I have to ask that question to Leona, I used to sit next to Leona for 4 years and she worked in the Legislative, Leona is, of course as everyone knows, a friend of mine, one of my biggest fans. Leona, my question to you is, who is the best signer in Nunavut? Thank you.

Jose: He asked me to be brief, that's an impossible task. I think our national organization, that's a criss-cross of Canada tour and the message I would try to give Canadians is that Canada is not healthy until all Canadians are.

(applause)

So I think we've got to try to pass that message on to all Canadians, we are, we didn't develop Nunavut, negotiate Nunavut to separate, we want to embrace Canada more and partake as Canadians. So pass on that message that needs to go out. But at the same time I wanted to address Miss Merit's original question because I think it was a very important question. This morning I was surfing the television, I am guy I do that and the women, Yopi Golberg, the View, yes, on the View, what's Condoleezza Rice and that's where I stopped not because of the View but because she was on there and she said, one day I asked her, what was it like, it must have been really hard to become who you are and she said, it matters not where you come from, it matters where you are going. And I think that is a really good statement for Inuit who … I was born in an igloo and we started with the Hudson's Bay Company, we had nothing. At one time in my life we were fighting over crumps of bannock, after the Nickel mine closed in the Ranking Inlet. That doesn't matter now, it's were we are and where we are going that matters and that is where we have to try to go.

(applause).

Rick: Commissioner, we'll get to you in a second but this young lady has been waiting. Go ahead.

Audience Member: Hello my name is Cary and I am from Ranking Inlet. I participated in Nunavut Sivuniksavut in 2006-2007 but I grew up in Ranking all my life and I am an Inuk, and I was a proud Inuk. I went to … this matters a lot to me (crying).

Rick: It's ok to take your time.

Girl: I'll gather myself.

Rick: You're ok, you want to hang on there? Question Fraser?

Fraser: Until you outed me, I wasn't intending to ask a question. But I am Commissioner of Official Languages and there is an official Language Act that is being discussed at a conference in Iqaluit in about a month and I will be going up for and which is one of the reasons I came here tonight to do some homework. And so, I would like to ask the panellists … I would like to say just in parenthesis, anytime I talk to people from outside Canada about languages in Canada, I get the sense that they are not really interested in French and English which is my responsibility and they say, tell me about aboriginal languages. And what I understand is that although Inuktitut is not the largest aboriginal language, it is the healthiest. I would like to know from the people from the people on the panel is that true? What do you consider to be the threats to Inuktitut as a language? What do you hope for the future of the language? And how should governments support your language?

Rick: Thank you, thank you. Who wants to go first on that? Jose? Ok.

Jose: Actually that's my passion. You are the Commissioner of Language in Canada, wow, far out (laughter). I think it is the strongest, although it is threatened from all sides, it is spoken in Greenland Canada, Alaska and up there in Russia. We call Inuktitut Upit and Aliut and the combination of both two is was we call [1:22:07 inaudible]. Somebody mentioned Peter Irniq again this afternoon, he said thank you in four Inuktitut languages he said. It's not different languages, it's just dialects, you know, like you have in English, Texan, Newfoundland (laughter). It's the same thing. But most people find it very hard to teach it to their children. But it is a matter of doing it. In our family, we have refused to answer our children in English sometimes when they ask certain questions, especially if they are asking for money or (laughter), you know, we don't understand (laughter) so they have to speak Inuktitut. As a matter of fact, I have nephews and nieces who are adults now who make a point of saying, thank you for Uncle Jose and Nellie forcing us to speak Inuktitut at their house because if they didn't, we would not be able to do it. In the circumpolar region, we are talking about an actual Queen's Inuktitut version of Queen's English because that's the only way I think … we are not trying to do a way with regional dialects, we are just thinking of an actual… being able to work on computer and so on, not just on the written but the actual language, not unlike Italian was done or some of the many European languages that were developed into one common national dialect which is what we are working on. You'll hear this when you do get to Iqualuit. By the way, can I make a statement because we were never taught French in our schools. We didn't oppose it, we wanted to learn French, we were just not taught so when we are looking for government jobs, understand that and give us wavers because we want to learn.

Fraser: Just very briefly about the … there are many threats facing the Inuit language and they are the kinds of threats that threaten most other minority languages. There are actually 2 laws that were passed, one is the Official Language Act and the other is the Inuit Language Protection Act. We don't know whether those laws will work or not, there is a lot of optimism about it. I am just taking a wait and see approach. The really important parts of those two laws are not proclaimed yet, the Inuit Language Protection Act, there are big parts of those laws that are not proclaimed, especially the sign regulations and all that sort of thing. But one thing I could say is that in order to be deemed successful, after being carried out, these acts have to make Inuit feel more secure and more at home in their own land. If that doesn't happen, then those Acts would have been a failure. That's the whole point of the exercise to help people become more secure in their own identity and their own culture. If that doesn't happen, then it will have been a waste of time.

Rick: Nancy, would you like to say something?

Nancy: Thank you. Thank you for the question because that' really the part of the basis of IQ that I was talking about. If we are not going to put the resources in, the language will die eventually. We have a very good opportunity before us to sustain that language and again we have the means to record it and we have to put the right resources into it so that people have a chance to either refresh it or relearn because there are some kids that first language was Inuktitut but because of lack of use, they have lost it and they are not comfortable using anymore. I bring out a challenge to Inuit organizations that they do their role in making sure their staff are capable of serving their beneficiaries in Inuktitut and also with the government with in-service training that they really encourage people because laws are only as good as people supporting them. You can't force people to do something that they don't want to do and we should learn that by now. We have to make that parents personally take a responsibility to make sure their children are learning Inuktitut because in some families, parents, two Inuit parents are choosing only English for their children and we have to reverse that.

Ed Picco: Thank you very much. I don't pretend to be an expert in Inuktitut but I know, I have been fortunate in our home that my life always speaks to us in Inuktitut about 80%. What I find in Iqaluit in particular but we also see in other communities is that a lot of kids are very passive when it comes to speak in Inuktitut and sometimes it's because they are made fun of by their peers or even sometimes by parents and so on. In Iqaluit in particular and the Inuit in the room will understand what I am saying, a lot of people make fun of Iqaluitmiut because they [1:28:31 inaudible] when they are talking, they drop their finals, they don't pronounce words properly and that has always been a concern. So in my house is an example, when my wife was saying [1:28:24 inaudible], upside down, my kids wouldn't say [1:28:27 inaudible], they would say upside down, they don't use the Inuktitut word because they are not probably pronouncing it right. Once you get to know and understand Inuktitut, and I don't profess to be an expert, it's such a beautiful language, it's like… and I will just give you a very quick example. In English, when I am afraid of Jose here, Jose is a very dominant guy and I am afraid of him, I am scared of him, I am intimidated by him, they are all the same words and adjectives in English to be able to describe Jose as a scary person. However, in Inuktitut, if I am scared of Jose, that could be [1:29:04 inaudible], like that in Inuktitut. If I am scared of a devil, frightened of a spirit, a ghost, in Inuktitut, that would be [1:29:13 inaudible], for us in our dialect, it would be [1:29:15 inaudible]. In English you can only say I am scared of Jose, I am afraid of Jose, I am afraid of the ghost, I am scared of the ghost, in Inuktitut you actually have a word that describes to be afraid of a spirit world [1:29:26 inaudible]. If I am afraid when I am in a boat, I am traveling, around the airplane, I am going too fast, my wife won't go with me in my boat because she is [1:29:34 inaudible], she is scared of being in a boat, you actually have a word for movement when you are scared. In English, you can only say, I am scared of being in a boat or frightened to be in a boat, frightened of Jose, frightened of the ghost. In Inuktitut, you can say [1:29:47 inaudible], to the spirit, [1:29:49 inaudible], when you are on the boat for example when you are traveling [1:29:53 inaudible], to Jose as a person. And just to give you an example, outside, when you go outside on a sunset, when it is a beautiful day, I say it's a beautiful, it's a sunny day, it's a great day, a gorgeous day, all those types of words. In Inuktitut, if it's was beautiful day, I would say [1:30:08 inaudible], and you can only use that when you are outside for the weather outside and so on. If Jose is a really good looking guy, which he is, I would say [1:30:21 inaudible], he is really pretty, right. In English, you just say pretty, beautiful, good looking, gorgeous. So you have so many different words you can use in Inuktitut when you learn the language it's so beautiful. As a non aboriginal, non Inuktitut speaking person who came to North 25 years ago, so many people who come North don't try to learn the language. I look out and I see [Nole McDermitt] out there, [Nole] is one of these guys who came up years ago and tried to learn the language. And there are so many people like Nole. The problem is today, since the last 10 years or 12 years, whatever, so many people don't try to learn Inuktitut and I think that's a shame because there are so many opportunities to learn the language. So as parents, the best way to get kids as just Nancy pointed out and Jose, for us to keep Inuktitut going is have parents keep saying it in the home. A teacher only has a kid 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. If we want to really keep Inuktitut going, we need to be able to do it in our conversations with Jose, conversations with Ed and try to help Ed get more words and Ed has to speak to his children in Inuktitut more. Thank you.

Rick: Great. Thanks Ed.

(applause)

Rick: Ok young lady, give it another shot

Audience Member: I'll give it a go. What I was trying to say was I grew up in Ranking, both my parents are Inuit and I was growing up around Inuktitut. My mom sat in a family kind of grew up in Churchill where they were put .. her family, she was taught to be ashamed to be Inuk. She saw it as the way that she was telling me before, the White man was up here and Inuk was below him, but an Indian was even further below the Inuk. And so, being an Inuk, it was kind of like… aboriginal you have to be ashamed to be, you know. But my grandmother my dad's mother taught my mom to be proud to be Inuk. When I was in high school … throughout all my education, I was on top of the class, I kind of want to say that I grew up [1:32:37 inaudible] way, going, knowing that school was the first thing that I had to do, I had to finish graduate high school and then I had to go to post-secondary education. My parents didn't go to post secondary education, my dad did for a while. He is an electrician now. My mother didn't but she is good at what she does because of experience and like Nancy was saying, you have to give credit to Inuit but it's not always a paper document. And down South, government, bureaucrats, paper pushers, paper matters and I remember hearing a story of an elder in Ranking when he was first brought down South to do some kind of a talk, they gave him a cheque, a per diem, paid him a per diem, I am talking about Aliak, when he went down South to work in … I don't remember what it was but he was given a paper, but the paper didn't mean anything so he ripped it up and threw it in the garbage. And his co-workers said, what did you do with that cheque? And he said he threw it away because it didn't matter anything to him. But that kind of concept, things happen so fast in Nunavut and we're still trying, I don't want to say trying to catch up to Canadian society, to catch up with, the employment rate, you know, we don't.. there is .. in Nunavut there are so many statistics but it's not always given a good image but Inuit are so [1:34:13 inaudible], and it's just like a puzzle piece. All this work was put together this puzzle of Nunavut but how do you fit Nunavut in the rest of Canada, it's like a puzzle piece that doesn't fit. And it's like we have to carve each side to see, ok we carve this side, ok, now this side fits a little bit more, now you got to carve this side just a little bit more.

But I am sorry for babbling on but as a young Inuk, when Jose said, you kind of have to step out of Nunavut, look at it from the outside and then realize what's there. And that's what I had to do as a young person. And there are so many opportunities for Inuit in Nunavut and Inuit all across aboriginal people, there is a lot of support now but the lack of support that was long time ago, I feel like the government was trying to stop out aboriginal people, aboriginal culture, language and they were trying to die it off. But Inuit, we are kind of lucky because we kept with our culture and language. And now that we have survived, how do we prosper and I think that more Canadians need to be educated about Nunavut, about Inuit, about what it's about. But that takes time. And I see people participating in international meetings and I am really happy that I am in here listening to you guys [1:35:45 inaudible], I didn't realize what was going on around me until you listen and you watch [1:35:55 inaudible]. There is so much relevance already in Inuktitut history, culture, language but it needs to be recognized by other people as legitimate. I am a person, you are a person, we are all people, we all have different backgrounds and understandings of life, different perspectives but you need to share that communication and that needs to be seen as valid both ways and sometimes I don't think Inuit are recognized and appreciated for who they are. Because I am a proud Inuk but I speak more English than I do Inuktitut. And I am kind of ashamed of that but I can always learn.

One more question tough. I wanted to say, I am sorry, what would like Ed and Jim, when you first went to Nunavut, it's very different now but what would you say to new comers that are coming to Nunavut because people will always be coming up North, what would you tell them, how would you describe Nunavut? Even myself, I grew up in Nunavut and I came out of Nunavut and I am in Ottawa in Ontario and I can tell people about Nunavut but I grew up in Nunavut so it's only one perspective, you know. How do you explain that?

Rick: Thank you, let's hear what they have to say.

Jose: Can I quickly, while they are thinking, I think your mother was absolutely right, people were superior. When I was a kid, they knew everything but they have deteriorated (laughter) I am just kidding, just kidding.

Rick: Ed, what would you tell new comers coming to Nunavut?

Ed Picco: Thank you and great question. Some of us have deteriorated like Jose. Seriously though, I was fortunate when I first came to Nunavut over 25 years ago that I went to a small community and I was in [1:38:18 inaudible], and I'll always have fun memories of being in [1:38:20 inaudible], spending a lot of my time in [1:38:23 inaudible], and people were always very friendly. But at that time, we only had one television channel which used to come in now and then, honey, we only had one honey bucket in the house, so we use to have [1:38:32 inaudible], remember that Jose. So it was a different kind of life. What I tell people today, like I had an opportunities over the last 25 years to meet a lot of people who were coming North for the fist eighth time and do an orientation and speak about Nunavut and their love of Nunavut and I would tell them that if you are going to go to Nunavut, like I said earlier, try to pick up the language, try to learn what it's like to be in the community and try to learn what people are doing. Today I think the problem with a lot of non aboriginal people, when they come to Nunavut, they shut themselves off and they don't have to go out anymore when we used to in the old days, meaning they can stay home and watch 75 cable television channels on the satellite dish and they work 9 to 5 and they don't go to the community hall, they don't experience Christmas canes and they don't work on the land and so on. And I think when they talk about Inuit and a lot of non aboriginal people in Nunavut and in Canada, I see a lot of non aboriginal people when they see aboriginal people, it's because they are sick or at the hospital or they are in jail or something. And that always gives a negative stereotype for aboriginal people and I know when I am in Nunavut, you hear some of this sometimes and I find that to be very, you know, very evil in some ways because they actually, the people speaking haven't actually been out on the land, they actually haven't gone to a person' house. And I can say one thing very quickly here. You know I have been very fortunate I have probably been in the best houses in Nunavut and probably some of the very worst houses in Nunavut. And it is a shame that not more people who come north to Nunavut don't have an opportunity to experience everything that Nunavut has to offer. And they just see that one small piece and so my word to anyone coming to Nunavut is to enjoy it, get out on the land, meet people, not just at the Bay or at the nursing station but to get out and meet them when they are at play, at work, at home and having fun. And I think they are like me and a lot of other people who have stayed for long time in Nunavut because it is our home. Thank you.

[panellist]: I am actually not going to answer your question, but I do want to respond to what I think you were talking about. And what you were talking about can be summed up in one word: identity. Who am I, what group do I belong to, am I the same as people who belong to another group, and that other group over there, what do they think of me? And that's really what you were asking, you were looking for something that I think would reaffirm your sense of your identity, partly when you were asking about what would you say to people… how would you describe Nunavut, you were looking for us to give Nunavut an identity, I think that you can then take and absorb and do something with. The real answer that I would have for you is stop being afraid to be who you are and you mentioned that you were ashamed about .. that you speak English more than Inuktitut. That's perfectly natural, you're living in an English speaking community right now. There is nothing to be ashamed about there. So don't be ashamed of that, be proud of who you are and you will … you are still a very young person but I know that some of the things that matter a lot to you now probably won't matter so much when you get older, you realize they are not so important and you'll have… but you will have a strong base. So but the most important … but people in Nunavut talk all the time about identity issues. Young people in Nunavut are obsessed with it, who am I, am I an Inuk, am I an Iqualuitak, am I half and half. That's an expression, some people call themselves half and half when they come from mix families. And young people are constantly obsessed with this. But my advice would be just be brave in who you are and regardless … you will find a definition eventually. And the first thing to stop worrying about is what other people think, what I think or what I tell someone else about Nunavut doesn't matter.

Rick: Go ahead

Audience Member: I would like to talk about where I come from. I was born … the school was opened in 1950 when we were a small town, my father was living in the … when we lived in a camp, outpost camp, my father was a camp leader. When the school was opened in 1950, they started coming to the outpost camp where we lived, education people were traveling by dog team to our outpost camp and encouraging us or forcing us to move to government communities they had created. And I asked before an elder one night he was a camp leader like my father was, we had a society and a governing system in our tribal camps. One camp leader would be in charge. I also asked that one time but they had to consult with the camp leader because they had to plan ahead where they would go hunting and how to … there was a governance in place in our tribal camps or family camps. In the '60s when we were forced into the communities today and that was imposed on us by government, we traveled by dog team, we had seal skins and we would travel by dog team in the springtime. When we went to the government communities that had been established by the federal government, our fathers who were our protectors and hunter gathers, their dogs were destroyed, their livelihood, their way of life. When we gathered too many people into one camp and different tribes got together, we started to see a lot of alcohol drunkenness and we became scared of the new life that we were now being forced to live in.

The traditional leaders lost their voice completely because now, it was a government agent running the town and the churches. So they had no more power as leaders and because we had too many people living in one community, we saw a lot of chaos that we had never experienced before. And I moved to Ottawa in August this year. I enjoy … I had to buy a freezer but I need my Inuit food. I need my country food, it's my soul, part of my soul, so I had to buy a freezer. But I eat [1:46:32 inaudible] food, if you don't understand the seal, the caribou, the char, the seal especially. Newfoundlanders destroyed our lifestyle because of the way they killed the pups, seal pups. We, Inuit, still need seal meat, I need a freezer because I need my country food. I lived in Northern Quebec in Saluit at Christmas. I had to get a pair of seal skin mites waterproof and I keep them in the freezer because I cannot use them in Ottawa. I will use them when I go back up North, when I used to take up camping again, hunting but for now I keep them in the freezer. We used young seals in the springtime to make waterproof clothing, we also eat the meat, I can tell you, that we, Inuit, are very adaptable, we have so much talent as well and abilities. Yes, we have a lot of abilities, yes, we are proud. I know that I, myself … they were presenting us … our leadership is representing us if they have scene where we have come and where we are today, I know that I am very happy. I want to thank, I am very happy and proud of Leona who got elected as the federal Minister of Health. Thank you.

Audience Member: … but it's found to be unprofitable largely and workable for the Arctic and also that there is currently a project looking at providing Iqaluit with hydro-electricity plant and I was just wondering what the progress has been on that and what other options are being explored for the territory currently, because I realize that's a huge issue and the amount of funds that are being funnelled towards this could otherwise be going towards social programs and otherwise?

Rick: Excellent question thank you. Ed, it's for you.

Ed Picco: Thank you. Thank you very much for the question. Just very quickly. The situation in Iqaluit right now, we have … we use about 10 megawatts of power and we burn over 100 million litres of diesel fuel a year to provide electricity in the community. And if we were able to put in place a small hydro dam of 5 or 6 megawatts, then we could reduce that by about 40 to 50 million litres. Now last year, in 2008, in July 2008, oil was at over $135 a barrel as we all know in this room and that turned out to be a very expensive proposition for us as a government because the government of Nunavut is the only jurisdiction, as I said earlier, that has to buy its own fuel supply one year in advance for everyone. So if we can off-set the usage of diesel and that's the problem in Nunavut, we have an addiction to oil, it's an awful addiction and we need to be able to look at other opportunities. So hydro in Nunavut is a lot better than it is for example in Southern Canada where you have to flow valleys and you have mercury issues and so on. In Nunavut, we don't have that problem, we don't have the vegetation issues. And within a 100 kilometres of Iqaluit, there are 7 possible sites for hydro that go anywhere between 5 and 20 megawatts of power, 2 sites, one is in a place called Janes Inlet and another in [Camptly] Bay, probably the two best sites. [Camptly] Bay is a crow flies and is about 50 miles from Iqaluit. And Janes Inlet is about 60 miles of Iqaluit and both of those sites could be harnessed. The problem again is to be able to build them. The cost of building those would be about $350 million to $500 million and that's why I said earlier with Mr. Bownell's question, is that it would be great if the Federal government could look North and say, you know why are we continuing to burn diesel, how can the community expand? If you have an opportunity to bring renewal resources like a hydra dam in place and put Hydro in place, then we need to be able to do that. The total budget of the government of Nunavut is only $1 billion a year. How can we find the money to put $350 million to $500 million to this hydro project? In the past, federal governments used to … Diefenbaker in 1960 had the road to resources, they built infrastructure, they would build the road from Churchill in to the [1:51:23 inaudible], for example. Those types of pro-active foresightedness is what we don't have in Canada right now in the Northern area. So you think your federal partner would come to the table and say, look instead of burning 100 million litres of diesel to provide electricity, why don't you go and use a renewable resource like water. Is there an opportunity to look at other hydro sites. So in Iquivik where Jose is from. Within 100 miles of the Manitoba border, we have something like 12 commercial possible hydro sites but we can't develop them by ourselves. We need the federal government to come in to the table and move them forward. So right now, the quick answer is, those projects have been look at, we have to look at the hydrology meaning how much water is in place and so on, that takes 4 or 5 years and that should end next year. And then you would hope to be in a position to be able to build those dams within a 10-year period. The problem of course is who's going to come in and build them. The Power Corp hasn't got the revenue, you would need a loan guarantee from a federal partner and that's why we need Larry to ask that question in the House next Tuesday, you know where is that plan to the federal government. I can say one thing and that's that the Federal Conservative Party has taken such a strong stand in Iqaluit issues [1:52:41 inaudible], we need to move a little bit further now to see how we can develop our North with Northerners, for Northerners and for Canadians. Thank you.

Rick: Thank you Ed.

Jose: Can I just make a quick comment. I was criss-crossing Canada with this young gentleman here who just turned 48, yesterday, Happy birthday, advocating for wind-power generators. Alberta which is the biggest oil field in Canada has over 200 wind-powered generators in that province. Quebec who has Quebec Hydro etc. they have over 150 wind-powered generators. In all Nunavut I think we have 3 and I think 2 of them don't work. And we have to use the power, the natural wind power in the Arctic and it's so there. And we need to think those kinds of things.

Ed Picco: I don't want to debate Jose on this, and the guy here from the Wind Energy and all these other wind experts but the reality in the North, the problem we have with wind energy or wind production is not the wind, we have the wind and Jose is correct, it's the synchronization between the wind and the diesel generators. There is no wind system in place right now anywhere in the world, we have an off set 100% of your diesel. So what happens is when the diesel … the windmill goes kicking out 3 megawatts but the community needs 5 megawatts of power, then, the diesel has to kick in. And right now, in Alaska, Iceland, Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, they fried more generators try to synchronize … you can't synchronize them. The other problem is that when the wind kicks off energy in Edmonton and Winnipeg and anywhere else where you see this Southern situation, it gets fed into a grid system. So if the power is not needed just in Winnipeg but needed in St Boniface Manitoba, just down the road from Winnipeg, a suburb, then the power can point to the grid and can go there. Our problem is all of our communities are self-contained. So if I need 12 megawatts of power, as example and the wind is only giving me 3, you know, then I got to suck 9 from the generators. So that's the problem, it's not that we haven't tried it Jose and Jose is correct, we do have 3 windmills in Nunavut, 2 aren't working and again the problem is to get the synchronization, we spent a lot of money. Last summer by the way, I went to Skypower and some people there are from Ontario, Skypower is the largest industrial producer of wind internationally in the world, owned by the great Lehman Brothers who just went belly-up and Lehman Brothers owns the Skypower and I met with them and they said they would come to Nunavut and they would put up the generators of wind but even they couldn't guarantee 80% or 60% of capacity because of those problems. So there are some technical issues, there. It's great to have the wind, we would like to be able to use it, but we should be looking at other opportunities like the Hydro because Hydro is readily accessible, run a line from, you know, Arviat into Rankin and some of the other communities and there would be some opportunities. But we need a federal partner to help us with that.

Rick: Ok. We have time for one last question. Go ahead.

Audience Member: Good evening, I just have a question in reference to, you were talking before, when you guys were doing your little speech about sort of the employment gaps in relation to the government of Nunavut, how these sorts of spaces are opened. I spent most of my summers in Iqaluit and I used to play soccer right in front of the NorthMart and I am sure for some of you who live in Iqaluit now know what I am talking about, beside the school and I would be playing with a lot of the people from there, the locals and I asked them a lot of times in reference to jobs and future. Because a lot of people don't know that Iqaluit has such a large youthful population, I think it's over 50% is under 15. And I asked them if they want to work for the government, what they want to do and a lot of them don't want to work for the government, they have no real interest in it. And of course, they are still trying to make up their minds, but they don't want to leave Iqaluit either. And I had a lot of respect and pride in them for that because they don't want to leave their home. So I am just wondering, because you represent some of the leaders of Nunavut and sort of the benchmark, what are some of the opportunities are you going to take to meet sort of the divers needs and sort of the desire of this youth they don't want to follow the footsteps, just with the government?

Jose: It is happening, there is 29 nurse graduates that just came out of Iqaluit recently. The teachers to the program, the two couples there were teaching in Iqaluit produced many many teachers. And through that program, my wife graduated from that school and my son. And when they took over the teaching [1:57:54 inaudible] in Rankin for example, you could actually see the improvement of the Christmas concert even. And expectation of my wife and my son of the students was a lot higher for some reasons than the expectation of Southern teachers. I am not putting the Southern teachers down but, there will always have some kind of … our own prejudices that we don't know. And we tend to put other races down or something rather. But, the teachers program has put a lot of that up. So, Arctic College is doing I think an excellent job in their promotion, in trying to get away from the mentality of I want to work for Northern, or Hudson's Bay Company and start looking at being lawyers, nurses, doctors and all the other things. Unfortunately, we've never really had a workforce screened of all the jobs Bell was talking about. There is nothing that prepares students for those jobs until the school system understands there have to be a workforce screen as well, it's a goal that we are going to look at.

Rick: Ok thank. Ed, you want to say something?

Ed Picco: Thank you, I think you made a good point, I mean, I think in Jose's point I think in Nunavut today, you have so many other opportunities other than government and a lot of people, a lot of the kids, they don't want to work for the government. But that's why it's important that in our school system in Nunavut, in 1987 we had 20 high school graduates in all the territory, 20. As Jose just pointed out, this year, we had over 40 graduates from high school in Iqaluit alone. So people are graduating they are being successful, but they want to look at taking other jobs, there is no territory there is no jurisdiction in the world where 100% of your employees that work in whatever position come directly from that community or that jurisdiction. If you look at Dons Mill Ontario, how many of the people who were doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, candlestick makers are from Dons Mill, there are from Newfoundland or Saskatchewan or they are from Toronto or so on. You find that everywhere. What we need to be able to do is to try to get to the point where our students when they are finished, like the nursing program that you hear talk about tonight, when a nurse graduates from a nursing program in Nunavut, they can go to Edmonton, they can go to Winnipeg or they can stay in Iqaluit or they can go to Arviat. That's what our education system needs to do. We've had Inuit nurses working in the general hospital in Edmonton, fantastic, fantastic, because education gives you choices. You want to stay in Nunavut, that's fantastic. You want to go to Ottawa, that's fantastic. That's what our education system should be doing. And we're not there yet. We need to continue to work on it and as Nancy says, how do we "nunavutize" our curriculum, how do we get more Nunavut in our curriculum. And that's been a big debate and it's going to take years to bring it forward but we are seeing successes and I think we should be celebrating those kids today from NS that you saw tonight performing. You know, when we started the NS program 20 years ago and Jose and other people, it was look down upon, they couldn't get credit to go there, it wasn't funded by the government, it wasn't funded by the Financial Student Assistant program at the time. I know because I was an adult educator trying to send people down there. Today that's not the case. It is nationally and internationally recognized, it is funded as a program, it takes time. And I have seen a lot of good things happening, again it's the glass half full or half empty. We have a long ways to go but let's start celebrating our successes. Those jobs that Jim was talking about, there is 900 vacancies, that's bad. Why are the positions … are they in epidemiology, are they architects, engineers, we don't have people trained for those positions. We've got to get people trained so they can take those positions. I don't want to be an epidemiologist. You are taking about mining jobs, I don't want to be down the hole and dig a hole in a mine. So you've got to be able to match people and skills. And it's easy to throw out blank statements and say, you know, we're not doing very good, we only got 50% or 55% we need to be able to match the people with the positions [2:02:09 inaudible] my son doesn't want to go work in a mine, he doesn't want to work for the federal government, he doesn't want to kill himself in Afghanistan with the Armed Forces. That's his choices. But he wants to stay here in Nunavut and work and wants to be a computer person, fantastic. So I think sometimes we need to get down the narrow scope and start looking at the larger picture. I am proud of the work that has been done in the last 10 years and I think, you know, there is more work that needs to be done and we all to start from one point and move forward.

Rick: Thank you very much. So briefly Jim.

Jim: Very briefly. I think what you heard there tells me that Nunavut needs … also is a priority to develop a strong private sector economy. When I was a kid growing up, I didn't dream of becoming a bureaucrat, and you know, I wish I had when I look at the benefits and the pensions they get but sure, a lot of young people do not dream of becoming government officials. Some do and all power to them but for a lot of young people, especially young male, one thing we haven't talked about is how young males are falling behind young women in education and employment and so on in the Nunavut government for example from the Inuit who work for the government, a majority of those Inuit, an overwhelming majority are women. Nobody knows where the men are and but, in any event, that's why for Nunavut's long term health, we need to develop a strong private sector mining economy, because mining is just about the only thing there is plus may be some fisheries.

Rick: Ok Nancy.

Nancy: Thank you. In speaking with a lot of young people, I was surprised how many of them wanted to be their own employer, like self-employed. And I think that's very different than we were growing up. And I think every generation goes through its own phase of what they want to be when they grow up and I am hopeful that the more they see different people doing different things that they'll realize that the sky is the limit and that's a message that we are trying to give them, that it doesn't have to be the same jobs that they have seen their parents do, that they have that opportunity to be what they want to be. And you know, it's still, it's very nice for me to see Inuit RCMP, Inuit teachers, nurses, because when we were growing up, we certainly didn't see that and we never thought we could take those positions. And now, you know, it's quite normal to see Inuit teachers, again thanks to people like Kate and Nole. And while I am on that line, I really do want to thank people who were brave enough to come up North in the '50s and '60s when we had no television and no phones and no doctors. I mean we still don't have a doctor in [2:05:13 inaudible] but they were very courageous to come up there. And they might just as well be going to a foreign country for all their family was concerned because in a way, they were. So, it's perception again, of telling people that everything is a possibility out there. And that we have to dream big.

Rick: Ok. Thank you very much. Thanks for all your questions. It's been a provocative and interesting evening (applause). I just like to thank all the panellists for travelling south to attend this event. They traveled through some fierce winter weather. And let me end by thanking my colleagues who worked on the issue, our January and February issue in which we featured the 10th Anniversary of Nunavut and in particular, once again I would like to single out Liza Gregoire whose provocative piece provided the center piece of that issue. She has done a wonderful job in illuminating some of the issues and I think provoking some debate. Thank you too for coming out this evening.

Gisèle Jacob: Thank you Rick. My turn to thank the panellists again, you have done a wonderful job, it was very interesting and thought-provoking. I also want to thank all the people who took part in this event. This morning's presenters, the artists, the elders that we met, you have been a wonderful audience, you participated, you were keen, you asked questions and I think you made the day an even bigger celebration than what the people who had planned the day had hoped for. So the dialogue has started today. I hope it will continue throughout the year as we continue to celebrate the anniversary of Nunavut in 2009. I wish you all a good night, I thank you all. There are buses outside to take some of you back to Vanier, I guess, there was a bus service that was provided to you this afternoon and buses are outside waiting for you. So once again, thank you very much and have a pleasant evening, what's left of it.