Northern reforms need special consideration

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The federal social services review should not be considered a means to off-load responsibilities for Aboriginal people to Canada's lower governments, said Rosemarie Kuptana, president of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada.

Changes to the system of transfer payments are being suggested in the Human Resources Department's discussion paper on social services reform. Transfer payments are money from the federal government to the provinces or territorial government that help fund programs such as welfare and social services.

Kuptana said these transfer payments have to recognize the "special relationship" and the "fiduciary responsibility" of the Government of Canada toward Inuit, especially in the areas of education, health care and housing. To ensure Canada lives up to these responsibilities, it's important Inuit have input into the reforms, she said.

Reforms will have to take into account the distinct lifestyle of Canada's northern people, particularly in the area of job creation, said Kuptana.

"Inuit are a northern people depending upon hunting, trapping, fishing and other renewable and non-renewable resource activities for employment, food and our identity as a people. As such, job creation is dependent upon these areas, employment within government, with land settlement organizations and a service sector that provides the support necessary to the three sectors.

Kuptana criticized the federal government for not protecting the traditional Inuit economy of harvesting wildlife. Canada's lack of willingness to take the United States to task over the economic and trade restriction imposed by the Marine Mammal Protection Act has added to the social cost in terms of a high suicide rate, family violence and alcoholism in the Inuit community. The erosion of a meaningful economic system based on renewable resources has also resulted.

She said job creation in the north would be limited, so some form of income supplement would have to be considered for hunters, trappers, and those in the Inuit fishery.

"The Arctic is a difficult place to create southern-type jobs."