The incident occurred at a meeting of senior Arctic officials of the Arctic Council in Yellowknife, NWT in late March, but was revealed in detail in a separate report tabled Oct. 8 in the House of Commons.
Dennis Bevington, the NDP MP for Northwest Territories, had asked to speak to the meeting of senior officials, in his role as the vice chair of the Standing Committee of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region, a body made up of delegates from national parliaments of Arctic states. He was refused at the Canadian-controlled meeting.
“For the first time a representative of the Arctic parliamentary co-operation was not allowed to address the meeting,” reads a line from the Parliamentarians’ webpage on Mr. Bevington’s attendance.
The delegate report and Embassy interviews confirm that the Parliamentarians’ chair, who was then Greenlandic politician Sara Olsvig, wrote Arctic Council Minister Leona Aglukkaq to demand an explanation, saying she was “very disappointed” with the decision to block Mr. Bevington.
Ms. Aglukkaq, the report notes, in response blamed the “very large and time-consuming agenda” of the meeting, saying it could not allow for verbal statements. Another Canadian representative at a Parliamentarians' meeting warned Ms. Olsvig that her letter to Ms. Aglukkaq “might have been a bit strong.”
But the Parliamentarians group has since made its disappointment a matter of record, putting out a statement at its conference in Whitehorse in September that noted the importance of "active dialogue" between the Arctic Council and the Parliamentarians group. The former chair of the group says this asserts the right of the Parliamentarians to address the council.
Timing of agenda
Embassy asked Ms. Aglukkaq’s office for comment. The office handed the request to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, departmental spokesperson John Babcock confirmed.
In an emailed response, the department did not deny that the decision to block Mr. Bevington was unprecedented. The department stuck to Ms. Aglukkaq’s original defence that the meeting’s agenda was too packed to allow Mr. Bevington to speak.
“Due to the extent of the agenda for the [senior Arctic officials] meeting in Yellowknife last spring, a decision was taken by the chair of the SAO to offer observers the opportunity to provide a short written statement on their work in relation to the council,” wrote Mr. Babcock. “SCPAR chose not to submit a written statement.”
In a phone interview with Embassy on Oct. 9, Mr. Bevington said the official rationale about the agenda being too packed to allow him to speak "wasn't very convincing."
"They said there were time constraints, but having attended the meeting I know there were points when the meeting actually was shut down early," he said.
He said the Arctic Parliamentarians regularly work to help out and promote the Arctic Council, and expect dialogue in return.
“The advice that the Arctic Parliamentarians provide to the Arctic Council is kind of a two-way street," he said. “There isn’t that many formal organizations that are circumpolar in nature with politicians involved.”
The department also argued the meeting agenda timeline is only provided “as a guide” and is “subject to change,” and that the Arctic Council procedures in fact “do not provide for observers to speak at meetings of Senior Arctic Officials” although it has occurred in “exceptional circumstances.”
In general, however, “the role of observers at the council is to observe, and contributions are made primarily at the level of working groups,” Mr. Babcock wrote.
State vs. non-state
Reached by phone in Greenland, Ms. Olsvig, who has since left the Danish Parliament after being elected leader of her own party, said she could only speak personally. She believed the Arctic Council’s work has trended lately toward a stricter form of governance focused primarily on nation states, because it's states that must decide on the council's legal work.
That's a problem, she said, because those who represent Arctic peoples should still be able to speak to council meetings.
“My own personal opinion is that the Arctic Council must consider how to make sure that observers that have been an integrated part of Arctic Council work for centuries, and observers that directly represent Arctic peoples, still have an opportunity to speak—at least, speak—at senior Arctic official meetings, and Arctic Council meetings in general,” she said.
“The Arctic Council members are the eight Arctic nation states,” she reasoned, “but the reality is that there are a number of self-governing nations in the Arctic, there are a number of different peoples, and all of these nations and peoples also have rights.”
Besides the eight Arctic countries, the Arctic Council includes six permanent participants, which the council says have "full consultation rights in connection with the Council’s negotiations and decisions."
The next meeting of senior Arctic officials is to be held in Yellowknife from Oct. 21 to 23. Mr. Bevington said he would attend.
Original Article
Source: embassynews.ca/
Author: Carl Meyer
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