COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE HIGH ARCTIC PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS A Documentary Review Mike Lewis and Sandy Lockhart Centre for Community Enterprise April 1999 Copyright 1999 © Indian and Northern Affairs Canada All rights reserved. Permission to reproduce the material herein in whole or in part must first be obtained from the copyright holder. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE BUILDING CEDOs IN THE '90s: PUTTING THE CHALLENGE IN CONTEXT...............................4 From The Camps To Settlements To Nunavut: A Synopsis..............................................................4 Introduction to the Contextual Overview...........................................................................................5 Government & Communities - Accountability & Development..........................................................6 The Canadian Economic Development Strategy..............................................................................8 The Inuit Working Group - Getting the CAEDS Ball Rolling..........................................................9 The GNWT: Trying to Pour Old Wine into New Skins?...................................................................10 Sinaaq Inc.: Confronting the Many-Headed Beast..........................................................................12 The Emergence of Nunavut: Change in the Wind!?........................................................................13 Good-bye to Sinnaq : Welcome to the Nunavut CEDO...............................................................14 Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI).....................................................................................................17 Where are the CEDOs? The Nunavut Implementation Commission ..........................................17 Mining: The New Salvation?............................................................................................................19 Some "Strategic" Questions: A Summary.......................................................................................21 CHAPTER TWO COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: CHARACTERISTICS OF BEST PRACTICE..................................................................................24 Key Ingredients in Strengthening Community Economies..............................................................24 Key Characteristics of CED Best Practice.......................................................................................27 CHAPTER THREE KITIKMEOT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION...........................................................30 Going to the Communities...............................................................................................................30 The Clarification of the Renewable Resource Agenda....................................................................31 An Economic Delivery Model for the Kitikmeot Region...................................................................33 Building a Strategic Approach to Regional Opportunities...............................................................35 Building a Community Economic Development Strategy for the Kitikmeot Region.........................37 A Snapshot of Activities & Results: The Fifth Year.........................................................................38 1994-95 - A Snapshot of KCEDO Budgets & Results.....................................................................39 Summary of Activities & Results.................................................................................................39 The Second Five Years...................................................................................................................40 Moving Partnership Building to a New Level...................................................................................42 Draft Vision of Kitikmeot Partners...............................................................................................42 Overall Goals...............................................................................................................................43 Comparing KEDC with the Characteristics of Best Practice CED Organizations............................43 Comments Based on the Questionnaire Analysis.......................................................................47 Some Final Comments on the Kitikmeot Case................................................................................48 CED in the High Arctic: Progress and Prospects CHAPTER FOUR KIVALLAQ PARTNERS IN DEVELOPMENT................................................................................50 The Early Years - Trying to get Focussed.......................................................................................50 Snapshot of Activities & Results: The Fifth Year.............................................................................51 1994-95 - A Snapshot of Sakku Budgets & Results........................................................................52 Summary of Activities & Results.................................................................................................52 Pooling Resources: Birthing the Kivallaq Partnership.....................................................................53 Making the New Partnership Work..................................................................................................54 Vision...........................................................................................................................................54 Mission........................................................................................................................................54 Strategic Priorities.......................................................................................................................54 Struggling to Articulate the Community Role...................................................................................57 A 3-Year Strategic Plan 1997-2000.................................................................................................59 Unravelling in Late '98.....................................................................................................................60 Looking at Kivallaq Partners from the Perspective of the Characteristics of CED Best Practice Organizations.............................................................61 Some Final Comments on the Kivallaq Partners Case...................................................................63 CHAPTER FIVE KAKIVAK ASSOCIATION (BAFFIN REGION)..............................................................................66 The Early Years: Getting Organized...............................................................................................66 Snapshot of Activities & Results: The 5th Year...............................................................................68 1994-95 - A Snapshot of Kakivak Budgets & Results.....................................................................69 Summary of Activities & Results.................................................................................................69 Two Years Later: The One-Window Debate Comes to the Baffin...................................................71 1998 & the Shape of Things to Come: A New Era in the Baffin......................................................75 Looking at Kakivak from the Perspective of the Characteristics of CED Best Practice Organizations.......................................................................77 Comments Based on the Questionnaire Analysis...........................................................................80 Some Final Comments on the Kakivak Case..................................................................................81 CHAPTER SIX SOME CENTRAL THEMES; SOME COMMON CHALLENGES...................................................84 Resistance to Change Runs Deep..................................................................................................84 Control, Capacity, & Outcomes: What does the New Nunavut Want?............................................86 Taking a Functional Approach.........................................................................................................88 Distribution of Key Functions: Foundation for the Nunavut Inuit Development System..................89 Building Equity.............................................................................................................................90 Accessing Credit.........................................................................................................................91 Human Resource Development..................................................................................................91 Planning, Research, & Advocacy................................................................................................91 Strategic Networking & Partnership Development......................................................................92 Infrastructure...............................................................................................................................92 The Federal Role ............................................................................................................................92 APPENDIX Self-Administered Questionnaire: Nunavut Cedo Case Study Project....................................94 CED in the High Arctic: Progress and Prospects INTRODUCTION Nunavut is born. This historic achievement is a framework through which the eastern Arctic's Inuit majority will secure a far greater say in the territory's public institutions. What these institutions are supposed to accomplish and how they are to accomplish it are questions now subject to much more direct influence that was ever the case in the Government of the Northwest Territories. In one of the world's most remote and climatically harsh regions, communities and their citizens face unique, complex challenges. Addressing these challenges is an awesome task. In it the Nunavut government will play a key role. So too will people working and living at the community level. Regional Inuit Associations, equipped with powers related to implementing the historic 1993 land claims agreement, are also key players in the changing political map of the north. Also important in a territory so vast and with such a small, scattered population will be a variety of other kinds of institutions - organizations and associations related to the economic, cultural, and social interests of Nunavut citizens. The effectiveness of this organizational and institutional infrastructure will require a strategic and cooperative approach to working together. Success in positively influencing the future social, cultural, and economic health of the people and their communities will depend on it. This book examines a particular kind of institution that has emerged in the territory of Nunavut since the early '90s. Community Economic Development Organizations, or CEDOs, could be crucial to the strengthening of local and regional economies in the years ahead. All three regional CEDOs are controlled by the Inuit through regional Inuit Associations (Kitikmeot in the west, Kavalliq in the central south, and Kakivak in the far northeast). All three have faced enormous obstacles to arrive where they are today. The story of this evolution is the subject of this book. But we have attempted to do more than just tell their story. We necessarily have had to look at the context in which they have evolved. The political and economic policies of governments, federal and territorial, have played a influential role in CEDO development, sometimes helping and other times hindering. Understanding these factors increases our comprehension not only of the past, but also of some of the choices that the Nunavut government will have to make. Perhaps even more important to those reading this narrative is our attempt, albeit in a somewhat preliminary fashion, to assess the "track record" of each of the CEDOs in terms of "CED best practice" criteria. Research in the last decade has revealed the key characteristics of successful CEDOs and defined the functions any CEDO must address if they are to effectively advance the economic and social development of the communities and/or regions they serve. Our purpose here is to introduce this initial assessment of CEDO experience as a starting point for creating a framework for debate, for learning and for strengthening CEDOs in the years to come. From our experience as CED practitioners and researchers, the closer the three regional CEDOs come to meet the characteristics of best practice CEDOs, the better positioned they will be to play a strategic role in the new Nunavut. To the extent they do not meet these criteria, the CEDOs and related organizations can begin to think through the steps to take to increase their effectiveness. CED in the High Arctic: Progress and Prospects 1 Just as importantly, the new government of Nunavut and federal departments concerned with economic and community development will find lots to think about with respect to their roles and responsibilities as legislators, policy-makers, and program designers. In summary, our challenge in this book has been to weave together what is a fascinating development experience in a way that enables us to probe for the lessons to be learned and to explore the issues to be addressed if CEDOs and the Nunavut government are to build a productive working relationship in the years to come. Background to the Scope & Limits of the Research This document is a work in progress. Its genesis resides in the strong desire of a few people who have worked for eight years to build CEDOs in the eastern Arctic. The first task set out for us was to document the 8-year evolution of three CEDOs based in the Eastern Arctic - Kitikmeot Economic Development Commission, Kivallaq Partners in Development, and the Kakivak Association. The second task was to conduct an analysis that would assist in understanding the extent to which each of the CEDOs has evolved, or is evolving, in the direction of best practice CED organizations. (The contracting party was the Nunavut CEDO steering group, a territory-wide organization owned by the three regional CEDOs.) The authors, both of them practitioners and researchers in the field of CED, have been associated with an examination of best practice in Canada and elsewhere. We also have extensive experience building organizations that, over time, have become known for the quality of their work, the durability of their results, and their capacity to mobilize community and external resources into a framework that addresses both social and economic goals. Our results to date derive primarily from a review of a wide range of reports, studies, and internal documents. We supplemented this review with a questionnaire that was completed by staff and officers of two of the three CEDOs as well as officers of the CEDOs' sister for-profit corporations, Kitikmeot Corporation (Kitikmeot Economic Development Commission) and Qikiqtaaluk Corporation (Kakivak). We believe the results are instructive and that any serious reflection on the analysis will prove useful. Firstly, the documentation trail we have traveled is reasonably extensive; although some people in the North will have been aware of much of what we have reviewed, it is doubtful whether the overview we have been privileged to gain is widely available. Secondly, the analytical perspective we bring to bear of CED best practice is neither widely available, nor likely to be well-understood in much of the North. It certainly isn’t in the South, although it is slowly becoming more widely known. This is because, at least in part, much of the research leading to the use of "best practice" language in the field of CED has only been published in the last five years. Indeed, while there is a long history of community development in Canada, the economic dimensions of which is reflected in the history of cooperatives and credit unions, CED as a distinct field in Canada can only be traced back to 1975, with the birth of New Dawn Enterprises on Cape Breton Island. CED practice, driven by the inventiveness born of community distress, has always been ahead of the “theory and research” (although the latter have advanced somewhat in recent years due to a growing interest in CED as an important economic development strategy). 2 Introduction Having said this, we are acutely aware that documentation and questionnaire analysis alone can never reveal the nuance and contextual detail that is so important to fleshing out “on the ground realities.” The original design for this work would have had us conduct a series of interviews across the North. To date, however, circumstances have dictated otherwise. We have not had the opportunity to undertake the kind of discussions that would inform and enrich our analysis, although this may happen at a later stage. Having thus qualified our work, we do not discount its importance or strategic value. The documentation reviewed to prepare this narrative, while not necessarily revealing the nuance of the CEDO development process, is an important source of intelligence that in and of itself is a critical source of understanding. Our opinion of the progress made by CEDOs is based on a close reading of the record as documented by people who live and work in Nunavut and from organizations related to the planning of Nunavut’s future. Finally, we fully recognize that the real value of this undertaking will not be realized unless it is embraced as a point of dialogue for achieving greater effectiveness by the Inuit leadership in the CEDOs, by development corporations, and by Inuit Associations as well as key officials and political representatives within the new Nunavut. If it serves as such a reference point, the project will have been time well-spent. If it does not, it will become part of the historical record of Nunavut, available to all other voyeurs, southern and northern, to understand what factors shaped the Nunavut now under construction. The narrative begins in Chapter One with an extensive overview of the broader context within which the CEDOs emerged and developed. Beginning with a brief outline of the recent historical period, the story quickly focusses on the key institutions and actors that have played a key role in shaping economic development North of 60. The interplay of policy, decisions, conflicts, and change is complex and fascinating. Understanding this backdrop is critical to understanding and appreciating both what the CEDOs have accomplished and what they have yet to achieve. The next chapter is brief but important. It outlines the key characteristics of best practice in the field of community economic development. It is these characteristics, and the criteria that can be derived from them, that provides a basis for undertaking the tentative, but useful assessment of each of the CEDOs. The subsequent three chapters tell the story of each of the regional CEDOs. At the end of each chapter, we set out a preliminary analysis which explores the extent to which the CEDOs have developed into, or are moving towards becoming CED best practice organizations. The final chapter then discusses the overall implications of what has been learned. As indicated earlier, it is hoped this discussion will prompt a positive debate as to the future of CEDOs in the territory and begin outlining some of the policy issues that will be relevant to the new Nunavut government as it begins its historic journey as the eleventh regional jurisdiction in Canada. CED in the High Arctic: Progress and Prospects 3 CHAPTER ONE BUILDING CEDOs IN THE '90s: PUTTING THE CHALLENGE IN CONTEXT From The Camps To Settlements To Nunavut: A Synopsis Nunavut is a massive land base dotted with tiny villages in which the majority of the people are Inuit. Until recently, life on the land was the dominant mode of being. Small camps of families moving around a vast tundra lived from hunting and trapping, the latter being their primary form of participation in the broader economy. The harvest of furs had been the primary means to secure the cash income required to support what had evolved as the twentieth century version of the Inuit traditional lifestyle. Until the late 1950s, with episodic and isolated exceptions based on mining activity and the DEW line construction, the resources of the land were the economic base of Inuit. The “settlements” were primarily outposts for the Hudson’s Bay Company, RCMP, and the missions of the various churches, to which Inuit came to trade their goods and secure the provisions they needed for life on the land. In the late 1950s, the federal government expanded the reach of the state into the lives of the Inuit. The primary feature of federal policy was the drive to gather people into settlements. There were several factors that led to this policy. The legacy of the Second World War, when all parts of Canada were seen as of potential national significance, played an important role in raising awareness of the North. The birth of the United Nations spurred on a movement to dampen the exploitative features of free enterprise by using national wealth to assist disadvantaged citizens. Finally, the North was beginning to emerge in the consciousness of national policy-makers and politicians as a potential treasure trove of resources that Canada would need for its national development. In a short period (extremely short, when one considers the radical withdrawal of Inuit away from the camp life and into settlements), southern institutions came to stand at the political center of Inuit life. The trading post and mission were augmented by a rapid expansion of teachers, police, government administrators, and nursing stations, all of which were the results of policies made in Ottawa, all of which were governed centrally by Ottawa bureaucracy, and almost all of which were filled by white, middle-class 1 personnel who stayed in the North an average of 2.5 years. Among the political institutions that emerged in the late '50s and through the '60s was “local government,” a subject central to the discussion of the respective roles of CEDOs and hamlet councils introduced much later in this narrative. Local councils of Inuit were formed. They were staffed by white settlement managers who worked from the premise that the “Eskimos must take over the roles and responsibilities at present in the hands of 2 Whites.” The contradictions and irony of this position were not lost on Inuit who quickly became aware of the fact that the things that were most important to them were not within the authority of the local “jurisdiction.” Therefore, when the Inuit said X should be changed, the settlement manager, in his educational role as an agent of local government development, replied, “You cannot change X; that is not within your authority.” It is not difficult to see how the recurrence of this pattern led to confusion, resentment, and ultimately, little ownership over local institutions. As one Inuit woman said of one such “local government” in the early 1970s, “We are in a fog. The Whites have led us into this fog, and it is their job to lead us out again.” 4 Chapter One: Building CEDOs in the '90s It was in the first half of the 1970s that glimmers of a way out of the fog began to reach into the consciousness of a new generation of leadership. The Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (ITC) was established in 1973 as a national Inuit organization. The Nisga’a Supreme Court case in 1973, in which the court was evenly split on the question of whether aboriginal title existed, established the political motivation for the federal government to begin taking seriously the underlying interests of aboriginal people in the land. The Northern Quebec Agreement involving the James Bay Cree and Inuit of Northern Quebec was concluded (1975) as part of the Quebec government strategy to develop a massive hydro-electric power project in the James Bay region. At the same time, the new rush to develop oil and gas in the Beaufort Sea (1970-77) and the advent of the McKenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry (1975-77) created the context for the Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic and the federal government to begin land claim negotiations. In short, the rush for resources began to encounter a burning assertion from young Inuit leaders: "we own the land and there must be change." The dream of Nunavut emerged from this context. In one generation a “people of the land” had begun stirring with a dream to change the context within which their lives had become boxed in and controlled. By the late 1970s these dramatic events, coupled with increased resource development interest in the eastern Arctic, led to the initiation of land claims negotiations in the area that 20 years later would become the new Nunavut Territory. It took almost 15 years to negotiate a settlement. The result is not only a land base controlled by Inuit but also a political space within which to begin the process of transforming the relationship between Inuit and the state. With the conclusion of the settlement 1993, the face of the eastern Arctic is in the midst of another period of rapid change. The advent in 1999 of Nunavut as a new Canadian territory with its own public government is another important part of this change. It remains to be seen whether the new Nunavut will succeed in clearing “the fog” and enabling Inuit to chart a development path defined by Inuit priorities. The wresting of control from the bureaucracy and the return of authority to the communities and their institutions, whether local, regional, or Nunavut-wide, is a story that is still being written. Introduction to the Contextual Overview Of critical importance to understanding the evolution and future prospects of community economic development organizations in the eastern Arctic is first to establish the larger policy context which shaped them. Policy initiatives at the federal and territorial levels have been significant factors in CEDO development. An understanding of these policies will help identify some of the key issues that must be addressed by both CEDOs and the Nunavut government due to take office in April 1999. The differing visions and conflicts described in what follows are embedded in the history of Inuit-White relations, particularly as it relates to the role and function of different levels of government. These factors continue to impact on the economic development in the communities of this vast territory. To ignore the tension that pervades the debate recounted in this chapter is to be destined to repeat the same pattern many years into the future. Two last comments are necessary before proceeding. First, the broader struggle of aboriginal people in Canada has already been identified as having contributed to the Inuit struggle to assert ownership of the land and to gain greater control of their own CED in the High Arctic: Progress and Prospects 5 lives, politically and economically. However, one fundamental contextual difference between Inuit and other aboriginal groups must be understood. Apart from the Inuit and metis, all aboriginal groups across Canada have operated in the context of the Indian Act; that is, they all have had a reserve and local government system that, though circumscribed in numerous ways, has provided a limited basis for local government. Among the Inuit, by contrast, community-level government services, education, economic development, etc. are controlled directly through public government agencies. This distinction is crucial to our understanding of the evolution of CEDOs in the eastern Arctic - CEDOs being, by definition, community institutions. Secondly, the basic geography and demography of the land now known as Nunavut imposes some singularly stark realities. The territory encompasses 1.9 million sq. km. but only 20 km. of roads. Iqaluit, the Nunavut capital, is 2000 km. north of Ottawa and over 1500 km. from Cambridge Bay, the regional center of the western Kitikmeot region. Its total population of 22,000 (approximating that of a small town in southern Canada) is scattered between 26 communities. The largest, Iqaluit, has 3600 residents. Building effective community economic development organizations in any context requires sustained effort over time. In Nunavut, it is inescapable that building CEDOs is a unique and challenging task. Government & Communities - Accountability & Development: A Snapshot of the Debate As far back as 1979, a report commissioned to examine constitutional development in the N.W.T. recognized that government program delivery structures must be more accountable to the people and communities, rather than merely an extension of a centralized decision making structure: “While there is widespread criticism that the territorial government is merely an extension of the federal government, there are similar complaints that local (and regional) governments in the N.W.T. are, in effect, administrative extensions of the Government of the N.W.T. and used for the sole purpose of delivering its programs. Local councils and committees are perceived by the communities as possessing no real authority over those issues that are of vital 3 importance to the lives of residents of the communities ” Almost a decade later, in early 1988, a special committee of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly was struck to review all aspects of economic development in the N.W.T., and to provide recommendations for changes to territorial economic development policy and practices. This Special Committee on the Northern Economy (SCONE) was unprecedented; its 15 MLAs carried out an extensive consultation throughout the N.W.T. Their final report made some important observations that clarify the approach to economic development prevalent in the government departments of the day. Underlying this approach was the notion that business development as a strategy would provide the necessary impetus for broad economic development in all regions of the North. However, except in the large communities, that strategy had failed. The Special Committee cited four principal reasons. 6 Chapter One: Building CEDOs in the '90s