Officials deny Inuit suffered

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Inuit families relocated to the High Arctic islands in the early '50s suffered no hardships and have no basis for a claim of government compensation.

That's according to a group of retired federal officials responsible for the planning and implementation of the move.

"There was no hardship," shouted Bent Sivertz under questioning by commissioners on the conditions endured at Resolute Bay. Sivertz was the Executive Assistant to the Deputy Minister of the Department of Resources and Development at the time of the move.

"I am the person who carried out the plan," Sivertz said.

The former officials appeared as individual witnesses before the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples' second round of hearings into the Inuit relocation.

In two moves, in 1953 and 1955, the federal government moved 17 Inuit families from their homes in Inukjuak, northern Quebec and Pond Inlet, Northwest Territories to new settlements at Grise Fiord on the south end of Ellesmere Island and Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island.

The move's survivors say they were relocated to defend Canadian sovereignty. They are demanding the federal government make a formal apology and pay out $10 million in compensation.

Sivertz said he appeared before the commission because several of the statements made by Inuit witnesses were untrue.

To back up his claim that the people suffered no hardships, he quoted from five reports on the conditions of the people, two from government officials, one from a teacher, one from the Anglican bishop for the High Arctic and a report in the April 1955 issue of National Geographic. All told of a happy, healthy community.

"The experiment will be an unqualified success," one read.

Sivertz said the selection of the sites was not for sovereignty reasons, but because they were uninhabited and were easily accessible by ships of the Eastern Arctic Patrol. He did admit no wildlife studies had been done on the areas before the move.

"The Canadian Wildlife Service had almost no data."

Instead he and his officials relied on anecdotal evidence from 'old Arctic hands.'

The Inuit who testified at the first round of hearings in April told of being stranded in a land filled with nothing but rocks and gravel, with no game they were used to.

The group sent to Resolute Bay survived by scrounging at the dump, Inuit survivors said.

Sivertz told the commissioners the move had been an experiment to see if the people could live in the High Arctic. But, he added, the people had been told they could return to northern Quebec if they wanted to and he was prepared to make return arrangements. But the people running the project would not entertain a request to return from an individual; it had to come from the whole group.

The promise to return was only good for the first two or three years of the experiment.

"I do not think I'd want to hear about it in 10 years," Sivertz said.

Ross Gibson, an RCMP officer who helped in the selection process at Inukjuak and moved with the people to Resolute Bay, contradicted Sivertz' claim. Gibson told the commission, under repeated questioning by commissioner Bertha Wilson, that no promises to return were given to the people who were relocated. Sivertz told the commissioners that Gibson was not qualified to make such a statement as he was not involved in that part of the project.

Later in his testimony, Sivertz said that though sovereignty was not a reason for the move, he did have an idea to 'Canadianize' the Arctic in the back of his mind in the planning stage. The Atlantic was full of UnCanadian" people such as Oblate missionaries from France and Belgium, Anglican missionaries from the British Isles and Hudson's Bay Company employees from Scotland,. he said.

Gordon Robertson, Clerk of the Privy Council at the time of the relocation, said the move was within the department's mandate and they did not need to go to federal cabinet, he added.

Robertson, later to become the Commissioner of the Northwest erritories, said there were no threats to Canada's claim to the Arctic Islands, but Canada was incapable of acting like a sovereign state in the North. He gave the example of the construction of the Alaska Highway by the United States army as an example of Canada's inability to defend Arctic territory.

The officials contend the only reason to move the people was to give them a better life than they had at Inukjuak. Government reports said there was a danger of starvation in the district and that the people were too reliant on relief from the government and the Hudson's Bay Company.

There was no danger of starvation, said Reuben Ploughman. manager of the Hudson's Bay store at Inukjuak from 1953 to 1954. He also disagrees with the officials' position that the people were not moved for sovereignty.

"I think sovereignty played a part. It wasn't for lack of food (that the people were moved)," he said.

Ploughman was one of three witnesses whose evidence supported the Inuit claim. Armand Brousseau and Pierre Desmoyers were both in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1953 and were stationed at Resolute Bay.

Both witnessed the arrival of the Inuit in September 1953. They said personnel at the base were told to have no contact with the Inuit as they were being rehabilitated back to traditional ways after being on welfare.

"We were told not to give them anything," said Brousseau.

When Brousseau saw the people land at the beach, he could not believe how little equipment they had.

"I bring more equipment for a 10-day hunting trip than I saw there."

The former RCAF radio operator's voice broke with emotion as he described watching the people forage in the base dump.

"My heart went out to them," he said.

He added that personnel at the base did not suffer for anything, including 6,000 cases of beer and fresh eggs.

"There was plenty of food, enough for everything to be shared."

The Royal Commission decided to hold a second round of hearings after a report on the relocationrecommended hearing both sides of the story. The first round of hearings for Inuit witnesses was conducted in April. The commission will be making an interim report on the relocation this fall.