Thank you. [Indigenous language spoken] good morning. My name is Adeline Salomonie. I am the Director, Marine and Wildlife with the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, which oversees the work related to Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area. We are currently located in Iqaluit. However, we have five affected communities within Tallurutiup Imanga and 25 employees within that section.

Our 25 employees within Tallurutiup Imanga provide food security for the affected communities they live in as well as research and monitoring, community engagement activities and search and rescue. Our department is currently — I would say — 99% Inuit employment. We’re very proud of that and very proud of the work and the food security that our [Indigenous language spoken] programs have been able to provide within Tallurutiup Imanga.

Thank you very much.

Sure. Thank you for that question. Before the Tallurutiup Imanga agreement was signed, of course there were consultations, especially around what Inuit wanted within that region and what the boundary would look like for Tallurutiup Imanga. Since then, more community consultations are occurring within the Tallurutiup Imanga communities, in regards to either research and monitoring, consultations around small craft and community harbours. They are currently ongoing. It is a very busy time for our department. I think we are currently about to start more consultations for Tallurutiup Imanga and Tuktoyaktuk as well.

Thank you for your question.

Starting in the 1960s, Inuit have been advocating for the protection of Tallurutiup Imanga, or Lancaster Sound, from oil and gas development. Inuit are connected to the waters and the wildlife very closely, so the importance of protecting this area was very near and dear to our hearts. It is within the High Arctic and North Baffin region of our area. The five affected communities — as I had mentioned — are Grise Fiord, Resolute Bay, Arctic Bay, Pond Inlet and Clyde River. The protection of it was very important but also what that could mean for Inuit within the area.

Right now within Tallurutiup Imanga, we have 25 employees decentralized. That’s 25 people who are benefiting from economic opportunities and are able to have full-time jobs within their communities. Also, it allows our Inuit employees to be paid as full-time hunters, researchers and providers. Having employment where they can use the skills they have known all their lives — hunting, being on the land and knowing the environment — is the real tangible benefit that Tallurutiup Imanga has been able to provide for the communities. Also, some communities will be getting small craft and community harbours. We are a coastal region, so having these kinds of infrastructure in place is very important for us. There are also plans to build multi-use facilities within Tallurutiup Imanga. These facilities will be workstations for our employees to be able to process country food, have workspaces and provide community engagement activities.

One of the things employees do when they do community engagement activities is to engage elders and youth to practise our traditional skills like making [Indigenous language spoken] — or sleds as they are called in English — as well as learning to repair skidoos and their boats. Tallurutiup Imanga has also provided equipment for our employees to be able to harvest and do research and monitoring in our area. We are able to provide them with resources they need to be able to do their jobs, like snowmobiles, boats and equipment for them to be out on the land.

They also receive training that they may not have been able to easily get. Having certifications for firearms or search and rescue are tangible benefits they’ve been able to receive. We call them transferable skills. If they don’t want to be in Tallurutiup Imanga forever, then they can go on to other types of employment. We provide those kinds of certifications as well. That’s what the Tallurutiup Imanga has been able to provide for us.

I wouldn’t say there would be nothing —

Oil and gas development started happening within the area in the 1960s, and Inuit became very concerned about what that would mean for our region and our people. Of course, we wanted to protect our waters and wildlife from any harm that could cause.

Right now with Tallurutiup Imanga, research and exploration could maybe happen in the future, but it has to go through a process in which an application has to be submitted to the [Indigenous language spoken] board, which is the board that governs the Tallurutiup Imanga. As you may or may not know, the Tallurutiup Imanga is a co-management system with the federal government. Therefore, any kind of activities that are happening within our region will have to go through an application process.

I can try my best, yes, thank you. I think it is a step in the right direction. Tallurutiup Imanga is a co-management system, so Inuit are at the table when it comes to the management of the area. It really takes our traditional values, our Inuit values, into account when it comes to the path for conservation, food security and just having Inuit at the table to be able to express their opinions and where we should be going in that direction. It’s gotten a lot better with respecting Inuit rights and our knowledge. I think it is going in the right direction.

Just to clarify, you are asking about what migratory animals are within our area?

The migratory animals that we have within our area, of course, are the whales, beluga, seals, narwhal, polar bear. Many species within Nunavut are located around Tallurutiup Imanga, and with some increased activities, especially around shipping, Inuit have noticed maybe a decrease in some of the migratory animals that are coming through certain parts of Tallurutiup Imanga. With the establishment of Tallurutiup Imanga, we can start regulating some of the activities going on in our area, but this is what Inuit wanted, and that’s why we advocated so passionately for the protection of the waters around Tallurutiup Imanga.

Yes, we already have. The full-time hunter employees we have report on what they are seeing in real time. They report it back to our office, but also we work very closely with the local hunters and trappers associations within the communities, and just local community members in general, about what they are seeing, what they are observing, what they have noticed, ice conditions, for example. They report those things back to the communities because the ice conditions are very important to know because it’s also about the safety of our hunters and community members.

We are collecting this data within our office, and the Tallurutiup Imanga is fairly new, and so we’re learning sort of as we go and what other research and monitoring methods we can use to improve the resources that our people have in the communities.