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Land use plan hearing coming in March
Feds provide funding, clean financial audit of planning commission

Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Monday, December 5, 2016

NUNAVUT
With $4.8 million from the federal government in its coffers, the Nunavut Planning Commission is in the final stretch, with plans to submit a Nunavut-wide land use plan on the desks of federal ministers of Environment and Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the fall of 2017.

NNSL photo/graphic

Five representatives from each Kitikmeot community, as well as all Kitikmeot Inuit Association board members, participate in a Nunavut Planning Commission consultation of the draft Nunavut Land Use Plan held in Rankin Inlet. From front right: Jordan Takkiruq, Salome Qitsualik, Ralph Porter, Miriam Aglukkaq, Uriash Puqiqnaq, all part of the Gjoa Haven delegation. - photo courtesy of the Nunavut Planning Commission

The long-awaited $2.7 million public hearing is to be held in Iqaluit March 21 to 28 and will see more than 200 participants streaming into the capital, with an expected 300 to 400 attending. The days will be long, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The purpose of the public hearing is to offer parties – Inuit, government and industry – a venue to present comments and rationale after each has reviewed the plan. Covering two-million square kilometres, the plan is intended to provide for the conservation, development and utilization of the land.

"It's the first ever plan of its kind and the first ever for Nunavut. We recognize it's a first generation plan and it's a living document," said the commission's executive director Sharon Ehaloak.

"The plan can be amended in the future. It does have some controversial areas – caribou protection and marine corridors. There's been a lot of issues raised."

Protections for caribou calving grounds famously received a good airing in March this year, when the Government of Nunavut (GN) announced its surprise decision to oppose prohibitions on sensitive caribou habitat. The GN suggested a case-by-case decision-making process, rather than comprehensive prohibitions.

The hunters and trappers organizations, regional wildlife boards, and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board all came out decrying the government's position reversal, with one notable exception – the Kugluktuk Hunters and Trappers Organization. Regional Inuit organizations mostly supported the case-by-case approach.

Iqaluit-Sinaa MLA Paul Okalik, who had recently resigned from cabinet, confronted Premier Peter Taptuna in the legislative assembly the week the news came out, accusing the premier of scare tactics and, later, of backroom deals.

"We had no idea how this came about," Okalik told Nunavut News/North March 22.

In April, at a mining industry symposium in Iqaluit, Nunavut Senator Dennis Patterson gave a speech on navigating the regulatory regime in the territory and spared no words for those he saw interfering with that process. Calling the media "ignorant," he pointed to recent media reports "fuelling the hysteria over caribou calving grounds" as a good example of that.

Then, just days after the Nunavut Planning Commission released its final draft Nunavut Land Use Plan for comment June 24, the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines called out the commission for implying caribou decline is related to industry activity.

"What has been presented in the latest version of the Nunavut Land Use Plan depicts questionable protection measures on top of questionable boundaries," stated chamber president Gary Vivian.

Ehaloak says every meeting video and every document submitted to the commission is available on its website, calling the process transparent.

"The commission strives for that," she said.

As the commission noted when it released the draft plan, it "is a product of extensive consultations that included visiting all 25 Nunavut communities at least twice."

While the Nunavut-wide land-use plan and the public hearing are requirements under the Nunavut Agreement, the process has not been without stumbling blocks, caribou aside.

The previous Conservative government appeared to have a difficult relationship with the planning commission, refusing the funding for the hearing, circumventing a planning commission non-conformity decision on Baffinland's Mary River project and simultaneously launching an audit of the commission's use of federal funds.

The commission passed the federal financial review, conducted by auditing firm KPMG.

"In general, KPMG found that management controls have improved over the period of the review (2012-2015), appear adequate, and that costs reviewed were incurred in support of NPC objectives," states the report, acquired by Nunavut News/North Nov. 30.

"We asked for $4.8 million. This government is very supportive of this land-use plan, getting it in place. It's very refreshing working with this government. Our relationship is very positive," said Ehaloak.

Written submission for the draft plan must be in to the commission by Jan. 13.

Nunavut's independent member of parliament Hunter Tootoo reminded his colleagues of the looming deadline on Nov. 18 in a member's statement.

"Last April, the planning partners, including Canada, were informed of and agreed upon an extended Jan. 13 deadline to submit their final written input on this draft. However, not all federal departments have made their submission a priority," said Tootoo.

As well as reviewing all the documents collated by staff, at the public hearing "the commissioners will hear all the evidence at the hearing and at the end of the day it will be the commissioners making decisions on the content of the land-use plan," said Ehaloak.

After the public hearing, written arguments must be submitted by April 21. The commission will then submit the completed plan in the fall. The three signatories to the plan are the Government of Canada, the GN and NTI, with NTI having veto powers.

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