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Ambassadors taste true North
Overseas delegates visit Nunavut, NWT, Yukon and Nunavik over nine days

Casey Lessard
Northern News Services
Monday, June 20, 2016

QUASUITTUQ/RESOLUTE
When the European Union's ambassador to Canada, Marie-Anne Coninsx, visited Resolute Bay June 1, she was surprised to hear Mayor Ross Pudlat wanted an audience with the ambassador of Ukraine.

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Resolute Mayor Ross Pudlat meets Ukraine's ambassador to Canada Andriy Shevchenko June 1 during a grand tour of the North for 21 ambassadors and heads of mission. - photo courtesy of Andriy Shevchenko

"He told the ambassador, 'My son has been in Ukraine, on tourism there,'" Coninsx said.

Ambassador Andriy Shevchenko noted on his Twitter account that Pudlat's son had just visited Odessa.

"From Resolute Bay travelling such places, it's amazing," Coninsx said.

Such adventures are top priority for Pudlat, Coninsx heard on her trip.

"The mayor of Resolute told us his absolute priority was that the youth would have the opportunity to travel, to discover trees and green and parks, which they had never seen in their lives," she said.

But for the ambassadors, visiting Resolute and many other communities throughout Nunavut, NWT, Yukon, Nunavik and Labrador was an opportunity few ever get.

The 21 heads of mission journeyed 12,000 km from May 29 to June 6, making 16 stops, including Iqaluit, Cape Dorset, Hall Beach Resolute Bay, Cambridge Bay, and Rankin Inlet.

"Going to places where you cannot go as a normal tourist was fascinating. It was in 2014 I think, the Chinese ambassador was leaving Ottawa and he said at his goodbye reception that his best experience in his whole diplomatic career has been the Northern tour," Coninsx recalled.

"So you can imagine being very keen to experience it."

But it was no tourist trip. For the European Union, the Arctic is a priority, and Coninsx has already reported to Brussels about her experience.

"There are a lot of challenges in the High North which are very common as well to the European and Canadian and American North," she noticed.

"We are trying to address these challenges in a similar way."

Still, "you cannot speak about one Arctic," she discovered. "You have to speak about different Arctics because if you compare the situation in Iqaluit or Cape Dorset and Resolute Bay with, for example, the situation in Dawson City, it's completely different. Particularly in the High North."

The harsh conditions in the North were no surprise, she said.

"But seeing it concretely gives you another image of how difficult it is, very remote, everything is very expensive, the energy is a lot of diesel," she said.

"The economic file is quite important for us. The issue of sustainable development and the opportunities there are for mining, this is an issue where there will be some opportunities for increased investment from our side."

Across the tour, the ambassadors heard the same message.

"Everybody in the High North was saying, we notice a climate change," she added. "That climate change has had a bigger effect in the North than it has in other places. This impacts the way of life of the people that are living there. The effect on the permafrost and the effect on the infrastructure, buildings and sometimes roads. The caribou are now taking another route."

The ambassadors got an unpleasant surprise that is no surprise to those in the North.

"Waste management seems to be an overall problem," she said. "There, also, we heard in the Yukon about some research projects which are being developed which would be particularly adapted to the North."

But the highlight was meeting the people of Canada's North.

"The indigenous people and how proud they are of their roots and culture.," she said. "A lot of grandparents were still living in nature itself, and were forced into (housing). And they were forced into residential schools. You see with all the indigenous communities that we met, they are very proud of their roots and culture, and are trying to give it to the youth."

The North could benefit from some of the economic opportunities offered by partnerships with foreign countries. But the world benefits from Canada running a tour that forces 21 emissaries into a plane together, Coninsx said.

"When you're travelling nine days with a group together, it created also a special and good relationship between the participants," she said.

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