Liberal promises on Indigenous relationship ring hollow to activists, experts as protests continue
Protest actions, like the ones that spread across the country and internationally in support of the Unist’ot’en camp in northern British Columbia this month, may not sway the hearts and minds of the general electorate about the government’s record on Indigenous issues come election day, says a pollster. But according to experts and First Nations […]
Is Justin Trudeau defeating himself?
TORONTO—Governments defeat themselves, as everyone knows. So is Justin Trudeau defeating himself? His opponents certainly shouldn’t keep him up at night. Most Canadians couldn’t pick Andrew Scheer out of a police lineup. He’s remarkably unremarkable. And his social media—the main way in which political parties communicate with voters these days—looks like it was put together by […]
Let’s remember: climate change is not ideological, it’s fact
As 2018 came to a close, I spent part of December in Katowice, Poland. As president of Inuit Circumpolar Council (Canada) I was there to bring the Inuit voice to the annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting. The Conference of the Parties (COP) has been held annually since 1995, when the […]
Liberal actions to blame for energy paralysis
Last Wednesday, the Speaker of the House of Commons granted an emergency debate on the Canadian energy crisis, requested by Conservatives because it is an emergency for all of Canada. The massive price discount on Canadian oil and gas negatively impacts all of Canada and disproportionately hurts Alberta. Canada’s oil and gas sector has already […]
‘Eagle Spirit’ pipeline gaining momentum as other projects stonewalled, says proponent
As Alberta faces low oil prices and other pipeline projects struggle to be built, the president of a company proposing a multi-billion-dollar Indigenous-led pipeline project that includes plans for a western “energy corridor” says federal politicians should be paying more attention to his idea. While a number of factors have to fall into place for […]
Feds’ lack of certainty being noted in international space community
According to the Canada Space Agency’s 2016 report entitled, “State of the Canadian Space Sector, Covering the Results from Our 2016 Survey,” the space industry contributed $2.3-billion to Canada’s GDP and supports just shy of 22,000 jobs in the country. However, Canada’s space sector is overseen by antiquated regulations and an equally out-of-step law called […]
How to unlock the potential of Canada’s North
While the mining industry is truly pan-Canadian, with operations from coast to coast to coast, it is particularly significant to northern Canada. In the Arctic specifically, mining is the largest private-sector employer, responsible for the employment of approximately 8,500 people, or one in every six jobs. These numbers increase substantially when the Arctic regions of […]
How to get northern infrastructure on track
National governments of every stripe around the world have understood that one of their fundamental responsibilities is to ensure that their citizens have access to critical infrastructure. Canada is no exception, except, it seems, when it comes to Canada’s North. Many historians would point to the building of Canada’s transcontinental railway, in the 1880s, as […]
Don’t squander the chance for Arctic Policy Framework to be a gamechanger for Inuit
Inuit welcomed the Government of Canada’s announcement in December 2016 that it would co-develop a new Arctic Policy Framework (APF) with Inuit, replacing Canada’s 2009 Northern Strategy and the 2010 Statement on Canada’s Arctic Foreign Policy. The inclusion of Inuit in the announcement as co-development partners signalled that there could be a potential shift by […]
When it comes to food security in the North, Inuit need a seat at the table
No one can survive without food. That is why I was not surprised to learn that Inuit left the federal government’s Indigenous Working Group on food security, nor was I surprised by the comments made by Shylah Elliott, a health policy analyst for Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI), who called the working group “tokenism and optics” […]
