Nakurmiik.

Good morning, and thank you so much for having me here to discuss such an important topic to Inuit.

As introduced, my name is Natan Obed.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami represents the 70,000 Inuit in Canada. Our homeland is called Inuit Nunangat, and there are four geopolitical regions in our jurisdiction: Nunatsiavut in northern Labrador, Nunavik in northern Quebec, Nunavut as a whole—the public government was created by the land claim, but there is an Inuit treaty organization called Nunavut Tunngavik that represents the rights of Inuit within Nunavut—and the Inuvialuit region, which is represented by the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation.

At ITK, one of our biggest priorities is combatting climate change, as well as ongoing adaptation and mitigation efforts regarding a changing Arctic. We created a national Inuit climate change strategy, which was released in 2019. Also, in the research and science field, we created the national Inuit strategy on research, which was launched in 2018. We've tried to use these tools to interact with all of our partners—government included—regarding our research priorities and climate change priorities.

As I'm sure you've heard, the Arctic is warming at a rate of up to four times faster than the global average. Inuit living within Inuit Nunangat have a wide range of socio-economic challenges that are further exacerbated by climate change, especially things like food security and health and safety.

The ability to travel within our homeland the way we always have, and to use our knowledge to navigate within our homeland, is jeopardized by a changing Arctic. We've lost over 40% of our sea ice cover in the last two decades. That is a massive challenge for us when it comes to general travel, considering that sea ice is our highway, especially from—usually—November until June. There is a significant part of the year now when we don't have access to hunting and fishing as we did before or are able to travel among communities. There are only two communities that have road access between southern Canada and the Arctic, and there are very few, if any, road networks among Inuit communities. Therefore, the sea ice—and winter in general, in a terrestrial sense—creates opportunities for us to travel and connect in ways that are now jeopardized.

If we continue to emit greenhouse gases at this rate, we could see a temperature increase in our Inuit Nunangat area of well over 10°C from the 1951 to 1990 averages, which would have catastrophic effects on our biodiversity and communities. We've tried to work in partnership with the Government of Canada and, as best we can, with the research community, but significant barriers remain, and I look forward to chatting with you about these today.

At the very heart of this is the challenge that the Government of Canada and provinces and territories have in recognizing Inuit as a specific level of government with specific rights and specific partnership opportunities beyond the traditional ones the Government of Canada understands, whether they be nation-state to nation-state or the federal government versus provinces and territories. That extends to the way Parliament does its business, the way legislation is crafted and the way orders in council are adjudicated or administered. This ends up leading to the exclusion of Inuit or the individualization of Inuit, instead of working with Inuit as collectives.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to this conversation.