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Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services
Yellowknifelife: You have been nicknamed the "Arctic Bear." How did that come to be?
Claire Barnabe: I guess it goes back to the Talbot children, who were the children of John Talbot -- who was principal of Deline at the time. When the kids were young they use to call me Claire the Bear. At my cottage in the Gatineau Hills on Deep Lake there's a sign on my door that says "Claire the Bear."
Yellowknifelife: You first came up North in 1965 as a teacher. How did that happen?
CB: I had a high school teacher, his name was Francis MacNamara. He said if any of us went teaching we should consider going spending a year or two in the North. I was always full of adventure. I had spent five years in the convent as a nun, then finished at teacher's college as a lay person. In 1965 there was a teacher shortage all across Canada. Then I decided if you're going to go North, you better do it when you're young.
Yellowknifelife: How many settlements have you managed?
CB: There was Port Burwell, then Repulse (Bay), and Norman Wells. After Norman Wells, I decided if I was going to stay in public administration I should go back to university. So, I went back to university in '76, and did a public administration degree at Carleton University.
Yellowknifelife: Transportation and highway infrastructure is a big issue today. A lot of that began in the early '60s. Was isolation a problem back then?
CB: Well, you know, I've been a nun for five years, and I've always been a pretty independent person. These isolated settlements are not for everybody. Some people go there, get bored out of their minds and start drinking and gambling and whatever. But I've always had so many interests, and I found it really interesting. I like hunting and fishing. When I went to Port Burwell as settlement manager, I was the first woman settlement manager in those years and, at that time, the settlement manager was a bit of everything. I was the chief administrative officer for the territorial government. You were like a local development officer. You were training the people to have a town council, elect councillors. Eventually, have a chairman, then a mayor. It was really like five jobs in one.
Yellowknifelife: So you got a degree in public administration. That was sort of a prelude to your days in the back room of territorial politics.
CB: Well, after finishing public administration at Carleton I went back to Yellowknife and worked for cabinet in the policy and planning area. After that I was on the Drury Commission for three years that studied the political and constitutional future of the North.
Yellowknifelife: There were a lot of political developments going on at the time. The territorial council was on its way to becoming the legislative assembly...
CB: Yeah, it just happened that way. But I came North in '65 when the Carruther's Commission was appointed, so I lived through that whole political era. When we had this thing, this Living (History) Society meeting, which was '77 to the present, but so many things happened between '65 and '77. Of course, former commissioners (Stuart) Hodgson and (John) Parker outlined it, and there was a lot of life here before (Thomas) Berger. Berger got the spotlight on aboriginal rights but the development of local councils and all that stuff was well on its way between '65 and '77. Probably the saddest thing of that era is that although the territorial government and territorial council was bringing government to the people, we might've missed the boat. We really didn't understand native people and native government. Maybe we didn't understand the bands and the importance of the aboriginal leaders.
Yellowknifelife: Do you think Ottawa respects the North?
CB: People say that to me all the time, and I mean I'm a political junkie. I've been a political animal all my life and my response to that is the politicians then are not doing their work. It's that blunt. This business of dumping on bureaucrats is just so stupid and irrelevant because behind every bureaucrat there's got to be a responsible politician. This is an old story. Northerners have been dumping on Ottawa bureaucrats for 40 years. But to me it's totally stupid because what they have to do is attack it on a political level and have a real game plan. Like have the whole cabinet or legislative assembly say this is what we're going to do and deal with the politicians.
Yellowknifelife: What do you think Northern politics will look like say 10 years down the road?
CB: You know, I've been trying to understand consensus government as long as I've been up here. People say consensus government is the greatest thing since ice cream.
Well, maybe it is, but it also has a lot of drawbacks. On the other hand, people say look at party politics now, look at the mess -- fractured Parliament in Ottawa with five parties going off in every direction. Is party politics really any better? Maybe it wouldn't be a 100 per cent better but you would have a tighter agenda and tighter control.
Yellowknifelife: You're saying with consensus government that cabinet sometimes loses control of the agenda?
CB: Well, of course it gets off course because basically there are 19 agendas. It's very hard right now for the premier -- whether it's the NWT's premier or Nunavut's premier - to really go in and have a team or program. You know what's been going on over the last couple of years. All these conflict of interest things. Is it really that important? Maybe it is, I don't know, but from far way in Ottawa it all looks pretty insignificant.
Yellowknifelife: Insignificant how?
CB: Well, there are so many problems in governing. Why are they always getting stuck in all these sort of piddly things? Maybe they should re-look this whole business over the ethics commissioner. Jim Burke, who was the ethics commissioner for a while, basically put everyone in a room and listened to everybody's story. Then he would bang on the table and say, "this is it." Instead of going on and on and on.
Yellowknifelife: Nunavut has a planned direction, although perhaps imperfect. What do you think the NWT should be doing?
CB: It all looks very complicated when you think of all the levels of boards and committees and government. It's really sort of mind-boggling that Northerners are always dumping on bureaucrats, whether they be in Ottawa or anywhere else. On the other hand they're creating more and more layers of public administration. Call it whatever you want. It's just more government. I would really like to see a chart to see how all this is suppose to work because right now I don't get it. Every time you look around there seems to be another board or committee. Everybody seems to be travelling around all the time going to meetings. What does it all do? How does it work?
Yellowknifelife: Are you still keeping busy now that you're in Ottawa?
CB: In the spring of '98 I went to a reception called the Northern Science Award that every year the federal government gives to an outstanding person, mostly scientific or academic. I went to that reception and Nancy Karetak-Lindell went down. By then she was the new MP for Nunavut. She asked me if I would go and help her because one of her assistants had quit, and the Nunavut Act was in the middle of going through committee at the House of Commons.
Then I did a bit of work for Peter Irniq who, at that time, was the new deputy minister for Culture, Language, and Youth. Then in Sept. '99 Nick Sibbeston was appointed senator for the Western Arctic, and he asked if I would help him set up his office in Ottawa, and help him find some staff. In June 2000, I was appointed a member of the Aboriginal Economic Development Board. But I'm not the NWT representative, I was appointed at large. That takes me across the country three or four times a year. So I still stay involved, and now and again I write a column for News/North.
