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The CWG is concerned that progress to date on substantive agendas and procedures for the Council is insufficient; activity proceeds at a "glacial pace". While there are significant hurdles, even roadblocks, along the route, the view of the CWG was that insufficient levels of political will, administrative interest, and financial and human resources have been made available for development of the Arctic Council by the Government of Canada during its tenure as Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials (SAOs) Committee. The challenge of animating the implementation process is considerable. In part this is due, some think, to the notion that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) is not an entirely hospitable habitat for Canada's efforts to build the Arctic Council. While years of experience in other regions have created understanding and capacity, the Arctic is not a region in which officials possess a great deal of experience, knowledge and know-how. The Arctic must become more central to the overall foreign policy objectives of the Government of Canada.
• Earlier enthusiasm for Arctic Council seems to have been replaced by drift, in part because officials of the United States have held up the development of an agenda for Council. The view of the CWG is that too little effort is currently going into the discussions, and that which is, is not adequately supported with administrative, technical, legal, and policy acumen. Dissatisfaction amongst some of our circumpolar partners over Canada's handling of the discussions and negotiations to date has surfaced.
• But the "disconnectedness" of the South from the North in Canada, and elsewhere, also contributes to slow progress. Discussions to date are not addressing the hopes and concerns of Northerners. This country lacks "made in Canada" northern policies, both foreign and domestic. One suggestion would have a national body in Canada modeled after the Arctic Council to provide a forum for a truly "civil society" from which Canada could then responsibly argue for a circumpolar counterpart.
• There is a growing awareness in the European Union of its Northern Dimension. this awareness is being emphasized by the fact that there are now three EU states in the Arctic Council, implicitly giving the EU the opportunity to become a more active force in it. Although this is still a largely dormant potential, Finland, for one, is actively pursuing a policy of awakening the EU to this eventuality.
• Mixed views in the CWG characterized some of the discussion on Council membership. For some, the reality of northern organizations with legislated mandates, does not appear to have been adequately taken into account, and Aboriginal, regional, and sub-regional organizations should be formally included within the various designations of Council membership. For others, international Aboriginal organizations should be at the table, but not their respective individual members. While Inuit societies are represented by Inuit Circumpolar Conference, Indian and Metis people in the North have no such corresponding international structure. Aboriginal governments, northern public governments, and the Northern Forum were identified as key parties to a sustainable future and should therefore be integrated into the Council.
• The Calgary discussions suggested a number of matters for the Council's agenda, including:
- setting environmental rules across the circumpolar Arctic;
- establishing and promoting communication links and cooperative institutions amongst Aboriginal, economic, scientific, technical, environmental, and academic interests;
- identifying and encouraging comparative research and exchanges; e.g. a program of comparative research on the Barents, Beaufort, and Bering Seas regions; linked perhaps to such groups as LOICZ, CAMMLR and the NSF project in Alaska, Yukon and NWT;
- Council to act as a policy umbrella over environmental, technological, and scientific initiatives;
- providing a linkage point for several cooperative and collaborative scientific associations
- promoting interdisciplinary research;
- using its entrees to international forums to ensure that the Arctic is put on the global agenda;
- focusing the political, scientific, technology, and environmental communities on nuclear wastes in the Arctic;
- promoting a circumpolar-wide, pollution-from-land-use program of research mitigation and remediation;
- encouraging the documentation and use of traditional knowledge in policy making, planning management and monitoring;
- establishing Internet web sites for traditional knowledge, and scientific information;
• The CWG believes it will be essential for the Arctic Council to develop a communication strategy that will ensure it's concerns are made apparent in key international and national decision making centres. The CWG believes the Council should also have an extensive outreach program that brings the circumpolar Arctic to the rest of the world.
• The CWG applauds the creation of the Office of the Arctic Ambassador, the appointment of the Ambassador, and the efforts of her office to date. What is clear to the CWG, and others, is that Canada's initiatives to lead the Arctic Council have been hampered by a lack of resources. If Canada is to take leadership on circumpolar issues, the Government of Canada must immediately commit the necessary resources to do the job well. The Ambassador's Office must be able to reach out consistently over time to our own Northern people and to others across the circumpolar Arctic. The Ambassador must have the resources to be able to engage highly capable personnel, and enough of them, to make Canada's leadership effective.
Conclusions
Taken together these several comments suggest that the Arctic Council should have as one of its most important objectives the creation of an "Arctic consciousness" that builds solidarity across the circumpolar North, connects with "Souths", and insists that the rest of the world consider its effects on the Arctic as matters of human and environmental rights. It is essential that the Council becomes the vehicle of circumpolar Arctic consciousness and an articulate voice for the region.
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