An Arctic Council delegate makes her way past protestors for the annual meeting of senior Arctic officials, taking place at the legislative assembly Tuesday. - Cody Punter/NNSL photo

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Members of international organization Greenpeace showed up to protest against oil and gas development in the North as senior officials of the Arctic Council gathered for an annual meeting at the legislative assembly on Tuesday.

Carrying a large banner that read "no more hiding behind closed doors," the half-dozen protestors urged delegates representing the council's eight Arctic states to be more transparent as they made their way into the meeting, which was closed to media and the public.

Greenpeace campaigner Kiera Kolson said the slogan was created after members from Greenpeace who flew up to meet with Yellowknifers Sunday to discuss what issues were important to them ahead of Tuesday's meeting.

"We wanted to ensure that we were honouring the Northern voice," said Kolson, who skied to the North Pole to raise awareness over oil and gas development in the Arctic last spring.

Kolson said she was particularly concerned that although indigenous groups of the Arctic sit as permanent members on the council, they do not have voting power.

Norwegian delegates Else Berit Eikeland and Gunnhild Eriksen were the only representatives from member states that took the time to stop and talk to the protestors.

"We don't regard them as protestors. We regard them as stakeholders," said Eikeland, who was previously the Norwegian ambassador to Canada from 2009 to 2012.

"We don't do this just to be polite."

In response to Kolson's criticism, Eikeland pointed out that the Arctic Council is the only international forum where indigenous people have a seat at the table alongside nation states.

Canada's indigenous population is represented by three permanent partners on the council - the Gwich'in Council International, the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the Arctic Athabaskan Council, which represents both Canadian and American aboriginal groups.

"I think the Arctic Council is a role model when it comes to involving indigenous peoples," said Eikeland.

The annual gathering of senior Arctic officials from member states Canada, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Russia, Sweden, and the United States, as well as six indigenous councils, is the second to occur under Canada's two-year chairmanship, currently held by federal Environment Minister and Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq.

Under Aglukkaq's watch, oil and gas development in the North has become a priority of the council, said Kolson.

"The original mandate of the council was to provide pan-territorial sustainable development," she said.

That is what the council is currently trying to achieve, Eikeland said. She added that the council is concerned about issues such as global warming, but that there is a need to create jobs, especially in countries such as Norway, where 10 per cent of the population lives in the North. Seventy thousand of that is made up of the indigenous Sami people.

In comparison, less than 0.2 per cent of Canadians live North of the 60th parallel.

Meetings between senior officials on the Arctic Council were expected to continue Wednesday. Representatives from the Canadian delegation did not return a request for comment by press time.

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