In Search of an Identity Canada Looks North

This article argues that through the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), and Canadian federal and local policy, the Inuit and the Canadian government (encouraged domestically by ITK to live up to its rhetoric of being an archetypal liberal democracy) have constructed and successfully exported a vision of the Arctic based on a symbiotic relationship. At the Arctic level, they have successfully created a particular "northern" identity. This particular Arctic construction has contributed to Canada's privileged place in Arctic governance regionally, as well as its legitimacy over its Arctic waters internationally. Similarly, the ICC (as a member of the Economic and Social Council [ECOSOC] of the United Nations) and Canada have, at times, worked together at varying UN conferences to promote the significance of Canada's Arctic Inuit and, consequently, Arctic sovereignty.3 For the Inuit in particular, this relationship has become the overarching means to secure, validate, and maintain Inuit "self-determination" at home. Most explicitly, the success of this process has been through the convergence of certain Inuit and Canadian policies which strive to present the indigenous Inuit as an embodiment of sustainable development policy and governance. Through the discourse of sustainable development, Canada and the Inuit are reshaping Arctic politics and expanding the role of the Arctic in the overall framework of global development. When the House of Commons completed their discussions in 1986 the International Relations Committee devoted an entire chapter of its final report to a "northern dimension" for Canada's foreign policy.47 These recommendations diverged significantly from the original military suggestions put forth by the government. The International Relations Committee-a "special joint committee"-instead focused on "the critical importance of the Arctic to the direction Canadian foreign policy should take...[T]he government should give priority to Inuit interests, notably in the conclusion of an acceptable land claims agreement, the promotion of self-government in the Arctic, and support to Inuit renewable resource industries."48 The committee also recommended a northern policy aimed at improving relations with Canada's Arctic neighbors as well as the initiation of joint scientific work and developing environmental standards for the Arctic. Further, the committee demonstrated the need to enhance Canadian presence in Greenla