New policy recommendations

OTTAWA – What a northern policy for Canada should do and who should do it were among the issues discussed at the recent 2030 national planning conference, organized by the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the University of Calgary's Centre for military and strategic studies.

Suggestions on how to implement a new and improved northern strategy internationally included:

• strengthening the Arctic Council;
• naming a new Arctic ambassador or a new Secretary of State for the Arctic;
• enlarging the Arctic Council's membership to include non-Arctic members, such as the European Union, China, India and Japan;
• negotiating new Arctic treaties to help Canada achieve its goals; and,
• supporting international agreements to curb climate change.
• Suggestions on how to make a northern strategy work at the national level included:
• dismantling or changing the federal department of Indian and Northern affairs;
• having the prime minister take direct charge of promoting and implementing the northern strategy; and,
• giving territories more responsibility for the domestic elements of the northern strategy.
• Suggestions for concrete actions attached to the northern strategy included:
• providing more training and education to the North's young population, possibly through the founding of a new university in the Arctic;
• implementing land claims, with more links between land claims and municipal governments: municipalities can help implement land claims, and benefits from land claim agreements should be used to benefit other levels of government that serve land claim beneficiaries;
• developing a northern science strategy;
• devolving resource revenues to the territories and municipalities; and,
• involving northerners in business to create a northern-based capitalism, so multinational companies don't move in to the region.

Many 2030 conference organizers and participants said they hoped federal bureaucrats and politicians would incorporate their recommendations into Canada's future northern strategy.

But in a panel discussion held during the conference, Udloriak Hanson, a senior policy liaison for Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. said the conference's process was flawed because the decision to hold it in Ottawa meant the voices of many northerners couldn't be heard.