Derek Neary
Northern News Services
Friday, April 30, 2007

CAMBRIDGE BAY - A group of federal senior bureaucrats, most from Ottawa, came to Nunavut last week, many of them for the first time.

The five-day tour was arranged by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), a national Inuit organization, to give the distant but influential public servants a sense of life in the North, according to Stephen Hendrie, ITK's director of communications.

"It's very valuable because it does what a briefing note will never, ever do, everything becomes much more real," he said.

Jason Tologanak agreed with Hendrie. People who are administering programs in Ottawa sometimes think of "the North" as North Bay, Ont., said Tologanak, policy analyst with the Kitikmeot Inuit Association's social and cultural department.

Therefore bureaucrats are often unaware of the high cost of living, the high cost of doing business and the remoteness of Nunavut communities, he said following a luncheon meeting with the visiting delegates in Cambridge Bay on Wednesday.

"I think it's really beneficial for the realities of the North to be addressed by the federal bureaucrats from various government sectors," said Tologanak. "We don't have a large number of people, yet there is a large need."

As a tangible benefit of such tours, Hendrie pointed to an April 19 announcement of a joint task group and workplan on Inuit health.

The initiative will see ITK and Health Canada work together to improve access to health services and form partnerships to strengthen research and information sharing.

Hendrie said the tour helps civil services realize that "one-size-fits-all aboriginal" policies often don't work for Inuit.

"The issues are not easy," he said. "When you go to the formal meetings with a regional Inuit organization the list of issues is as long as your arm -- many of them are based on comprehensive land claim agreements with the Crown, and yet the implementation is slow to say the least."

The 19 federal bureaucrats from several government departments made this the largest delegation to visit Inuit communities since the annual tour, paid for by the federal departments themselves, started in 2004.

They touched down in Cambridge Bay on Monday. On Tuesday they went on a snowmobile trip to a youth and elders camp, stopped by the schools and were guests at a community feast that included drum dancing.

Following a tour of the new Cambridge Bay health centre on Wednesday, Paula Hadden-Jokiel, senior policy advisor with Health Canada's community programs directorate, said the facility was more advanced than she was expecting.

However, she acknowledged that some medical services aren't yet available largely because of a lack of staff.

Recruitment and retention of medical professionals is a nationwide challenge, but the problem in Cambridge Bay is compounded by a shortage of housing for permanent health staff, she said.

Housing was one of the topics to be discussed during a stop in Gjoa Haven later in the week.

The final leg was to be in Iqaluit to meet with leaders from the territorial government and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.

Tologanak said that the director general of aboriginal affairs for the Department of Canadian Heritage saw firsthand some of the endeavours his department has funded in Cambridge Bay such as the youth and elders camp and a multi-media program that encompassed photography, Web page development and video and film.

"I think that was a win-win situation for all of us," Tologanak said. "It's very important that these small, little steps we take will grow into a long-lasting relationship between us and the feds."

Allan Clarke, the aforementioned civil servant with the Department of Heritage, referred to the trip as incredibly important and useful.

"Federal public servants have to see what it's like on the ground and have to see where people live, where people work... and open their eyes a little bit to the communities, to the culture, the languages," Clarke said, adding that the experience also helps bureaucrats understand the interrelationship between their departments on Northern projects.

The welcoming and friendly nature of the people they met in Cambridge Bay and the remarkable cultural exposure was something Hadden-Jokiel and Clarke both emphasized as they prepared to depart the community.

"It's just been overwhelming," said Hadden-Jokiel.

"It's a day I will remember forever," Clarke said. "I will be back."