On Behalf Of The Western Arctic
Interview by Linda Driedger
Ethel Blondin was born in Fort Norman, Northwest Territories, and is fluent in two languages: English and Slavey. She has been a teacher, a teachers’ instructor, a language program specialist, a manager and acting director for the Public Service Commission of Canada, Assistant Deputy Minister of Culture and Communications for the Territorial Government, and is presently Member-of-Parliament for the Western Arctic. Ms Blondin is one of only three aboriginal members-of-parliament in Ottawa. She is also a single mother of three now—grown children.
Since becoming a member—of—parliament, Ethel Blondin has sponsored a new bill for the establishment of a Foundation of Aboriginal Languages, and she has travelled across the country in her role as the Official Opposition Critic for Aboriginal Affairs. Ms Blondin is in a unique position to discuss the Canadian North, as she is the elected spokesperson for the people residing in the Western half of the Northwest Territories. In this interview, from her office in Ottawa, she discusses issues of current concern to her constituency, issues of current concern to aboriginal peoples both in her constituency and in Canada, and how aborginal peoples are taking action to address their concerns.
Aurora: As a single mother with three children where do you get the energy to do all the things you do?
Blondin: I get my energy and my inspiration from my children. My children are not babies. My oldest son, who is twenty-one, is a political junkie. He is totally dedicated to the whole political process, and he’s very involved in what he calls nation building. My second is a daughter who works in Norman Wells. She’s planning to go to university, but she wants to take a European trip first. My youngest boy, I guess would be the Rhodes scholar of the family. He’s in grade eleven and goes to school in Alberta. They’ve been my companions through all of my trials and tribulations.
Aurora: You’ve said that being the MP for the Western Arctic is a golden opportunity for your people. How have you fulfilled that role?
Blondin: I have had the opportunity to speak in most provinces across Canada except in Quebec. When I do speak in Quebec, I’d like to be fluent in French, which I am studying right now. Having had the opportunity to travel across the country and speak on behalf of the North and on behalf of aboriginal people, I have been able to bring their concerns to national prominence. I’ve also had the opportunity in the House of Commons to rise on a number of issues because my staff, I think, are very progressive and very efficient. I’ve made myself available for almost every kind of debate, everything from the Valdez oil spill to the multicultural bill to the GST. I’ve taken on the issue of the environment very seriously, and I’ve spoken to a number of different audiences on the whole issue of the Alberta Pacific Pulp Mill project and the current issue of moves to have the whole herd of wood bison eliminated because of tuberculosis. I’ve also talked about CBC’s representation in the North and the fact that we’re the only region that doesn’t have a regional headquarters. Even as a rookie member-of-parliament, I have had many doors opened to me which I wouldn’t have had even as a very senior bureaucrat, which I was.
Aurora: What is the most common misconception southerners have about the Western Arctic?
Blondin: A lot of people feel that we are really backwards and primitive. But in Yellowknife, we have our own theatre where you can see “War of the Roses” and some of the latest movies. We have umpteen numbers of places to eat, and we have a lot of services and our own budding skyline. We have flights in and out every day. Another thing people don’t realize is just how politicized the North is.
Aurora: Many non-native people still do not understand the need for native self-government. How do you explain this?
Blondin: I can’t explain the attitude of many people who think that way. One thing that becomes very evident when there’s local control is that there may be an element of abuse, but this system is effective as long as people are given adequate resources to manage their own affairs. What government likes to do when it divides responsibility is to use ample resources to carry out their own mandate, but when they hand over the responsibility for programs like health or renewable resources, they hand it over with the least amount of resources. So, it becomes a real political problem for people to negotiate the transfer of programs.
Aurora: Is there any aspect of the Dene traditional style of governing that you would personally like to see preserved in any future agreements on self-government?
Blondin: I think the chiefs—of— councils have a very traditional mental set. There’s a strong link between the land and the animals on the land and between the way that their language, culture, education, and social programs are handled. This is where the worldview separates from the native view. And this creates a dilemma when we have negotiations for land claims or for programs and services, and that is why these negotiations get bogged down sometimes. The bureaucratic mind set is very pragmatic, an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of thinking; whereas the native people have a really intrinsic attitude and value for things such as the land, the language, the culture, and their traditional occupations such as hunting and trapping.
The Dene and Metis people whom I represent are a progressive people. They’re not burying their heads in the sand and saying that they want to run around with bows and arrows, which is a view that some people have. Some people view self-government as backwards. Well, the view that we have is to be progressive, and one way that the government can help us is to change the comprehensive claims policy to allow for the establishment of the infra-structure and the institutions that are needed once the claims are settled and once self-government is in place. The day that you achieve in concept, these two realities—the completion of land claims and the establishment of self-government—you already have to have in place training programs to help the people deliver and maintain the infrastructure of self-government. So that’s one way that the government can help.
Aurora: How would the present Meech Lake Accord affect eventual provincial status for the territories?
Blondin: I have never supported the Meech Lake Accord and the way that it has excluded the North and aboriginal peoples. Any document that puts fish before people is fundamentally flawed to begin with. But I am a very practical person—I may not agree with it, but right now it’s not our battle to fight. It’s in the hands of the premiers, and it’s certainly the leadership responsibility of the Prime Minister and Senator Murray. It’s not our battle to fight. It’s already had its run through the House of Commons, and the members who were sitting then had the chance to deal with that issue. It’s in the hands of some very prominent leaders in this country, and no amount of bellyaching about it is going to change that fact, not for me anyway.
Aurora: In November of 1989 you presented Bill C269 to the Parliament. What does this bill cover?
Blondin: This bill is an act to establish an aboriginal language foundation, to accommodate the fifty-three aboriginal languages across Canada. With a few minor exceptions, the aboriginal languages are indigenous to Canada. The Dene languages have a working relationship with the Navaho languages that go from the Northwest Territories through Alberta down into Navaho country. The Kutchin languages, which are the languages way up in the Delta, go across through the Yukon and into Alaska, but that’s as far they go. These languages are indigenous to North America. They have no other homeland.
The Heritage Language Bill includes aboriginal languages as heritage languages, and they’re not heritage languages. Heritage languages, by-and-large, have a homeland elsewhere. If those languages disappear in Canada, they don’t necessarily disappear from the face of the earth. With most of the aboriginal languages, if they disappear in Canada, they do disappear from the face of the earth. So, that’s what the Bill 269 is about.
Aurora: What is the Foundation for Native Language likely to spend its time doing?
Blondin: It’s supposed to have a board membership of twenty-one people, and it will represent all the aboriginal languages across Canada. It will not become an iconized institution that works from top down. Most of the work is not done in institutions of higher learning; it’s done at the grassroots level with projects at various regional and community levels. So we want input from the level where the languages are actually being utilized.
The foundation will be doing everything from developing curricular material to training people in medical terminology and as legal interpreters, to teaching aboriginal languages in child care institutions, to developing and documenting the historical legends of native people in the various languages. These are just examples of the many, many possibilities, some of which are already being undertaken. However, at this point it’s not being done cohesively, and the whole process is still very fragmented.
Aurora: You stated that the North is a leader in recognizing a peoples’ right to use their own language. Could you provide some concrete examples of where the North has been a leader in the past?
Blondin: As a trade-off for introducing French language services, in 1984 we were given 16 million dollars to work for the revitalization, preservation, and maintenance of the seven aboriginal languages in the Northwest Territories. We devised a work plan for five years and set up a number of projects. We trained people in the teaching area to teach the aboriginal languages, not only to schoolchildren but also to adults. We also set up two very special projects. One was a project to develop terminology to meet the challenge of current technical vocabulary in the area of medicine and health generally. And we trained a number of people to provide interpreting services in the courts to assist with the whole process of delivering legal services in the North.
Aurora: What are the concerns of the people of the Northwest Territories regarding the commission which is to look at the fate of the wood buffalo population?
Blondin: Wood Buffalo National Park is world-renowned. It’s the largest park with free-roaming bison in Canada, and it’s the second largest in the world. If that population of bison is annihilated so will go the attractiveness and the viability of tourism and conservation in that area. It would completely eliminate a way of life for some people in that area, and I guess the main complaint is this: Agriculture Canada has its own agenda, and that agenda is being pushed on to the North. Some northerners feel perhaps the grazing grounds for domestic cattle have been over exhausted or depleted in parts of Alberta, and this grazing area in the northern territory looks very promising. So, there’s a lot of suspicion.
There’s also the feeling that there was no intervenor funding available to battle against the legions of Agriculture Canada and the Department of the Environment. Without intervenor funding, there is no way that northern people can compete with these who have the resources to do research and come up with their own supporting information. What is needed and wanted is an extension to the hearings, which is going to deliver its report in May, to a later date so that once intervenor funding becomes available these people can participate. They just don’t feel that they’ve participated adequately.
Aurora: Presently the Province of Alberta is building and planning to build pulp mills along the Peace and Athabasca rivers. What kind of impacts concern the people of the Western Arctic?
Blondin: The people of the Western Arctic value the 1700 kilometre stretch of the Mackenzie River and in no way would like to have that jeopardized. It’s sort of the lifeline of the whole Mackenzie area. People do not want any effluent discharge into that river whatsoever. They find it completely objectionable that a federal environmental assessment was not invoked even though it was a transboundary issue which should have automatically brought forward a federal environmental assessment So, there’s a lot of suspicion, a lot of aggression, and a lot of animation on the part of northerners about the government giving the go-ahead for the expansion of those pulp mills. We’re dead set against having it go forward.
Also there’s the whole ethical question of our government allowing the Japanese to be involved in a deforestation project of this magnitude in one area when the Japanese have large preserves in their own country that they won’t touch, They will not go forward with deforestation projects of this magnitude in their own country, and they’re stockpiling forestry products for future use. That just seems so unethical. People are very worried about questions like that.
Aurora: Mahsicho. (Slavey for “thank you.”]
Article originally published Spring 1990
Since this article was published, Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew, was re-elected in 1993, appointed to Secretary of State for Training and Youth, making her the first Aboriginal woman to become a member of the Privy Council and Cabinet. Following re-election in June 1997, Ms. Blondin-Andrew was re-appointed as Secretary of State, Children and Youth. She was re-elected in the 2004, and was voted out of office in the 2006 election. Currently she is chairperson of the Sahtu Secretariat Inc. (SSI), an organization created by the Sahtu region’s seven land corporations to ensure the Sahtu land claim (signed in 1994) is properly implemented.
Updated March 2013
Aurora Online
Citation Format
Driedger, Linda (1990). On Behalf Of The Western Arctic: An Interview With Ethel Blondin. Aurora Online: