AUSUITTUQ/GRISE FIORD
Larry Audlaluk was worried he might have started to babble when he came face-to-face with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a CBC special that aired Jan. 31.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, listens as Grise Fiord's Larry Audlaluk asks him about climate change, Northern sovereignty and the high cost of living Jan. 31. - photo courtesy of CBC

"I was feeling very privileged and very humbled. What I said on TV may sound a little blabbering because one can only hold one's composure for so long, so I might have been a little bit nervous at times," laughed Audlaluk after returning home to Grise Fiord.

Audlaluk was one of 10 Canadians given the opportunity by CBC to ask questions of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a televised interview.

His questions focused on climate change. Audlaluk told Trudeau that the people of the North could see climate change happening and affecting hunting seasons.

"In recent years it has become more difficult to get our winter supply of fish, caribou and seal," he said in the CBC interview.

Trudeau responded that he remembered a trip to Pangnirtung where elders told him that all the lessons they had learned through their lives to be able to time their hunts had been changing in recent years.

Audlaluk also asked about the Northwest Passage with relation to the plans other countries have for the route and what Canada's position on it will be should Arctic warming make it navigable.

"We're scared," Audlaluk said in the interview.

He was happy to hear Trudeau's response.

"The Northwest Passage is Canadian," said the prime minister.

Audlaluk told Nunavut News/North that's what he had wanted to hear.

"He said the Northwest Passage is not a no man's land, nobody can just come up and do what they want," said Audlaluk.

The Grise Fiord elder also brought up the difficulty with the cost of living in the North. He mentioned how Grise Fiord was settled as part of Canada expressing its sovereignty, but that the community members were not subsidized in the way other civil servants from the south - be they scientists, military or Coast Guard - are when they come to the area.

Trudeau told him that the Nutrition North program isn't working and that "these are problems I am very familiar with."

But Audlaluk wasn't entirely satisfied with that answer, he told Nunavut News/North.

"Unfortunately with such a short time that we had to talk with him, I was not able to answer and say to him the program is not working," said Audlaluk. "I could say the first part of my question about subsidized living up here wasn't answered, so that was the part (of his responses) I was disappointed in."

Trudeau told him that the people of the North are what matter to him.

"Everyone talks about the land and the Northwest Passage and the resources, but the North runs through the people who've lived there for millenia, and respect for you and respect for the way of life you have and ensuring that we're able to support and continue and allow you to continue that life for generalizations to come really matters to me," Trudeau said during the televised interview.

When he talked to News/North on Feb. 4, Audlaluk was still digesting the answers. He said he could have gone much deeper on the topic of sovereignty and relocation but 10 minutes just wasn't enough.

Audlaluk recalled Pierre Trudeau visiting Grise Fiord in 1968 and said the elder Trudeau had earned a title of "Tulualuq," meaning mighty Trudeau, by the Inuit people.

He said he's optimistic that Justin Trudeau is going to do the best he can for the country and the North.

Maybe in a year, he said, the current Trudeau will get a notable Inuk name, too.

Audlaluk is a well-known and outspoken community leader who was appointed to the Order of Canada by then-Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean in 2008.