Special of the week; Issue 43-70 "Developing Canada's Near North Region"

The. NBER the national educational radio network presents special of the Week this week from Canada from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Today a panel discussion concerning the development of kind of those near North region. Panelists include Peter Young director of coordination Melor University in New Finland William as Ziggler chairman of the board inland cement Industries Limited Edmonton Alberta Gifford wines an architect from retrying this is Katherine and John Hawkins a

former National Resources Development Officer for the federal government. The panel was moderated by John Ramsey. For almost a year now gentlemen you've been traveling in Canada's mid north as it's called. Investigate looking around talking to people and trying to determine whether or not we should number one develop northern Canada. And it appears that. Canada's mid-north will be developed anyway. And also how it should be done. Should we go. Helter skelter like we developed our own Canadian wester should be sure to be a progressive and sane approach to development. John Hopkins I'll ask you first your opinion in the past. 10 or 11 months. I feel it certainly the Canadian north is going to be developed. But I am or agree with you that we do not do it in a helter skelter manner. To me the prerequisite listed at the moment is going to be a rather complete resource inventory so we know

exactly what we're doing and we're about to do it. There's a great lack of information at the present time. I do think that there are some areas where information has been accumulated but we just haven't heard him one opinion. Similarly I think we should be proud of the work of the foundation and. To its limit some of the information and distribute it put ourselves in a much better position to make a decision. Do all of you agree with enjoying this particular aspect of. Peter. You know so what should we really just learn to cure me of the problems. The world finds in them leave mid north of Canada. The first problem that I think we were all for was a recognition that it is not our land. Snow on ice. Many of us have lived in some parts of the mid north or have visited. And yet we found a general ignorance. As to the State of the land and the capability for supporting wind capability.

Just recreation in this area. Because this ignorance on the part of and the Canadians were living there in our ignorance on the part of our community. I think definitely ignorance on the part of Canadians who live in what we now call Canada south. Bill Ziegler any comments well I entirely agree with Jordan of the North is going to be due to develop whether we like it or not but I think we must exert every effort we can to ensure that it is developed in the men are acceptable to us and I think perhaps the key word is an orderly development of that word orderly couldn't play only to the proper adherence to ecological factors which of course is paramount. But two factors affecting the indigenous people to thank you's affecting the final ownership of the industries that are to. Result from the development then all the way through the BS.

Richard we was speaking to that subject of development. I mean one of the major concerns that has come out of this conference is for about the ecological balance of the north a lot of people including Canadians apparently did not realise just how delicate the ecological balance was in that area. Use common meaning that. Resources are very readily renewable. But it treats for instance take a hundred years to grow in this area the ground is. So delicate that you can running bulldozer over an attraction for me there a hundred years from now. So that is the concern and that has come out of me and is what has been one of housekeeping in a sense holding operation because to retain this asset we cannot allow indiscriminate development. I one of the things that I didn't notice in my travels with him and with a group of people up there. Are. Independent to a degree and I have. I want

to use a mild word here. And say I want to say disregard but they object to Canadian suddenly coming into the area and telling them how they should be living in the north and this been an impediment to your travels. John I wouldn't say that it's actually an impediment but you asked the question here where we go whether the Northern Canadians are completely aware of the area in which they live I would say no. But having been a long time resident in the north we find a tremendous number of people there have really no idea of the extent of the resources. Some of them even live in the mill you would share addresses them to the proposition that there's a Pandora's box up there somewhere full of wildlife full of waterfowl of this kind of thing and it just not there. It's a very fragile thing it was good for scene I think development has to be defined what do we mean by development. Do we mean the minds of pop operations or do we mean and develop and situation so don't go there as well. I think that we don't necessarily have to have an

industry operating someplace to say that they laid it out. Former head of the National Research Council in Canada spoke to a year ago August and in discussion with him afterwards and we were discussing population relation explosion and. The. People pollution. And he felt that at the present time with 21 million people in Canada we were at our optimum size as far as Mark Nation was concerned this was not taking into account any of the people who would be moving into the north and future. Do you feel that Canada has reached this optimum size or are we really going to go into the north. And have a tape. And be able to accept many many more immigrants from other countries who can lend their town. It's in there that you students can keep. What we've heard. Even in the last few days. Some comments that said we should be very careful about population growth a little and I have to agree with John here. I have seen

myself occasionally where in the north. People will will. Move into an area will go fishing and they will totally. Indiscriminately fish out Lakes and you know by a clearing term of 15 years time. And the fish population has not. Come back. I think this is a good indication that we have to be careful. But on the other hand we as yet do not have sufficient information service. We have sufficient population and we cannot absorb any more population. I think the obvious. QUESTION We all have to ask is here's what questions do we have asked next. So we can we can start some affected research projects. In this area. Those igloo you're an industrialist and you been hearing about the.

Possibility of disturbing an environment around here in the last few moments how do you feel industry will accept this. They quite willing to listen to the ecologist and abide by the rules that they would like to lay down. Oh yes I think so or I think there are. Glad you asked that question I think there are some misconceptions with respect to the spirit to industry. A lot of people think. To do this should be good corporate citizens by. And hearing will to any pollution procedures and so on. I would make this point that industries are prepared to abide by the rules of the game. You can expect an industry to be a good corporate citizen and spend millions of dollars putting in any pollution devices unless it's mandatory for industry's competitors to do so because the other way is that particular company would put itself at a

competitive disadvantage and therefore feel that the onus really rests with the government to design the anti pollution and limitations that are permissible and to publish them and to ensure that all industry and use to them and under those circumstances I don't think you get any bleed whatever from industry. We will end here. Glenn. Has there been general agreement on that as far as the industrialists or members of this. Difference of concern I couldn't say that because it isn't the men that are the new particular forum has been established to permit such agreement but only you would think that if there were there would be agreement industries will always adhere to the regular. Travelling throughout the mid-north. Record will use. Being an architect is there anything that you observe that perhaps. You would well have the opportunity.

Well I have lived in Canada you might say or not in my line. Middle of the schedule on Alberta Manitoba for instance employment. And isolation is quite equivalent to Illinois so I'm very familiar with the lifestyle of people that I've visited in this foundation excursion. But I was struck with. The. Watered down version of you might say of urbanization is taking place you know. You would you might hope that these new cities in Newtown are going up there would be the best example of 20th century technology and understanding of city by. Storm. You find just the reverse. And this seems to be coupled to the. Irresponsibility that comes with mobility. And I think this is a worldwide problem and certainly a problem all over America. And if we. Treat him in Canada as the playground as it were in terms of recreation for all of North America. I'm very concerned about his

mobility which takes inters Dravot takes in people who are living there on a temporary basis. Who have the attitude that they don't even want to plant a tree because they're not going to be there next year. But the true measure of a civilized man is a non-compliant tree knowing that he isn't going to sit in the shade of that tree. And this. Whole irresponsibility of mobility angers them. It's a crushing problem because here we have been dealing with how we were going to superimpose technology in the north but we haven't really addressed ourselves yet to go how we're going to improve the quality of people. So far I am I think I have to disagree with you. There are some communities in the north where. People have been irresponsible. But we're good at least two or three communities. And I'm thinking particularly you know of Labrador City which is on the borders of Quebec and Labrador.

Where. Good planning in an early stage in the development of a real sense of community. Has completely reversed this process and this is where I think it becomes more essential. That we do plan in the world because in every case where a city or or a community or a hamlet happened. We have the condition that you describe. But where the opportunity is being given to plan this. And to plan the development of a community in the sense that people are involved and the people themselves feel part of the community. This whole attitude to life changes. Well I would like to speak to that in one sense that even in cities further south which are. Kind of an outpost nature. Are training grounds for corporate crime for corporations their training grounds for banks and you have a very mobile executive class of people who are moving through with no real commitment to the city that they're living. In. We have a can in the situation you're speaking on where

people are more currently being used than this kind of mature involvement with the town with the town people in the results. But even so if we have all kinds of examples of cities I'm talking with the infill I'm not talking applying because we've been good plans laid down for most cities in North America. It's been the infill it has been so dreadful. And this entailed as a result of mobility in the responsibility. No I don't think you can blame mobility unless I think it's fairly well recognized in North America today that the executive on the average moves closer every four years when this is a figure that's quoted frequently and it's not the things you were concerned with the executive in this particular sense because many of these northern communities in this type of situation have a large number of professionals there. And it's very interesting to observe how. These people can become involved in the community can really become part of the community

and feel personal involvement. And this can occur in a small community that in a way that can possibly occur in a big city. In a big city you're just another person you hardly know your labors. You never speak to the people there on the street. Your car can break down and have a flat and 100 cars over and drive right past you. This is the sort of situation doesn't occur in the mid-north in the mid-north you you get to know your neighbors. You visit with them. You couldn't possibly have a flat tire without somebody started. And. If you can control it so that this type of community development occurs. You're speaking of a very small scale in development. Where most of the cities are in the north going to see large regional areas. We're not not large in the sense of a big city in. Two or three hundred thousand people.

I would very much doubt. That the largest cities in the hidden in the north today. No more than 10 to 15 thousand people. Well I still feel very strongly about this in Vale as an architect because the expression. Architecture. Is extremely important and we have known Waddles. Not even the sun. And the people are going to the north are from the south and the kind of image you have a big brain to get into in the north is one to be experienced in So. You know when you take a look at the early history if you can in cities you find it's Europeans who come over here when fairly clear idea on the order of urban light and they have it superimposed that order and the early qualities of cities in Cannes that were better than they are now. Because the people who came here had a sense of order. The people are not drifting up into the north from. The city that have grown indiscriminately over the last 20 years do not have a cent.. We have no patterns no

models. I don't know because. One of the characteristics all of these northern communities is the the the wide range of people that you find there. I mean I personally came to Canada north to this Labrador Quebec area from so little Africa. Other people have come to this community from almost every nation on earth. It's hard to find a nation that is not represented in the world. It's a valid point and I think all of these people together. Build on a rather peculiar type of community. Can I interject here and sort of change the subject a little and not too much but to use in all of these people together pretty young. And this. Has. Led to something that concerns me greatly. And one of the prime responsibilities. Of the Canadian people as a whole.

When the mid-north is developed is how the indigenous peoples of this country are going to be incorporated into an overall plan. I see one man wants to speak. How is this going to be achieved without the discrimination that has gone on in the past. The recriminations are coming out through the nose here but I just wish I could answer that but I believe you are a much wiser man than I really am of I could. All I can do is to throw the question back at you I think that's one of the fundamental questions we're going to have to solve in the carrying of the northerly development the north. We've got a frightful anomaly in the north today in that we have side by side a frightful shortage of labor on the one hand. And a frightful unemployment situation on the other had a shortage of labor in the industries that are established there. And unemployment amongst our indigenous people. In other words we need developers I think

fail to properly learn. Will. To take advantage of the indigenous people who live there people who know far more about in order for me to be blue learned how to handle themselves than they are. So it becomes. Primarily a matter of education not just a matter of the education of those indigenous people. That's the simple solution but a matter of us educating ourselves now that Emilie's indigenous people. I don't know the solution but at least they can define the problem which is the first step toward solving the problem. I'd like to hear from John Hopkins on this because he's lived with these peoples for a number of years. I think what we have to accept is the in many areas the unwillingness of these people to become involved. They have a lifestyle which they many of them would like to maintain. Those of them who have become involved in this kind of social structure have done very very well. I can think of many

northern settlements where that Native Indian people from a variety of tribal or ethnic backgrounds have become leaders in the community. Recently I lived in the town of muso I create the local fire department made was up there was made of I love and lucre Indians and three non Indian people one of whom came from the Caribbean I think. As well as being members of the fire department one of the man in the book remained was also the true officer. One of them was the maintenance superintendent of the hospital. Another one ran a hunting lodge of his own. So there is this thing of belonging in a community and I think once that we can evolve the kind of feeling when a community will accept these people as people. I don't think my feeling of saying Indians are special. I don't agree with that. Indians are people and as long as they're treated like people please react that way. You're advocating then that they be permitted to do the wrong things. The jargon goes these days

within the community yet is there in a very familiar with trying to find out what their own thing is at this point. Don't you think that so often we turn to look for a general solution to this problem when in actual fact we are dealing with individuals and each one of them is going to need his own solution. Not an imposed a solution demands and this is entirely it. So often times because I've been involved in while I've managed minister because people would say to me Well why don't all these Indians go clapping when you begin that and I had to come back. Perhaps with a which way so I can see just enter all of these Indians are not trappers. All of these Indians are not necessarily men who even like the Bush and by the same token also got marred by great players will go back again. As an architect again I'm going to bring up a subject that is sometimes are broken in Canada but you did travel to me and I was on a trip to New Northwestern and there are has been

concern for a number of years now about housing situation particularly what is called a discriminatory and discriminatory attitude. Toward the native peoples of that area as the whites are living in first class. The Saudis were an he indigenous peoples are left to sort of family for themselves and in the area that I'm sure all were sitting around the table would not join but I knew it is an interesting example of work and planning with concern for only certain criteria and that for those who haven't seen this particular example in here we have a small development based on research that just sprang up overnight. Pre-planned but the only consideration of keeping sewage warm. And because he couldn't build in the ground the sewage Turman doors there called a large tunnel Dabangg around he didn't center. Run across this town site and become physical obstacles between buildings. And there were human beings were not considered at all. It's a classic example of North Americans being considered

being concerned with sewage. The Indians on the other hand when a lot of plug into the system but curiously enough their way of life is preferable to me I think they're nice or not I wouldn't call the white man settlement there first but. I grew up without sewage on a farm and I didn't consider it a handgun. I didn't consider it a measure of mistaking the problem. For the simple reason that it hadn't occurred to me. And I'm not too sure the decrees to be any were the native people that existing. You gotta talk yucca and you see it a fishing village of Aeschines. Where I can't see any sample of you and the Eskimos mean involved in the planning of that particular term. There is their own fishing boat right in the middle of the town. With houses scattered around it and I just don't understand how it in like this could happen. And so as an architect I would like to see that mortgage banks got into this area and work with models with people not only Indian people you know

people with Indigenous people in North America have lived there for many many years. And when ball. Meet a user you know actually placing. Their habitat. In a train and striking up a dialog. So that. The input of the people who live there all these years will still be expressed in the same line. And there are examples like looking accounts not just below the know a lot of age that you cant see the whales playing with me. You know these kind of things are done arbitrarily in the sun. There are many many ugly tones I can think of many a one that comes to mind right away is a town with a situated online and a very very beautiful river and for some strange reason all of the houses were built. Well back from the river not because of floods. It had nothing to do with this and all of the cool poles and all of the services and the water treatment plants all that sort of thing replug right in front of the houses instead of the houses being turned the other way around so the

police you could look out of the river. When you look at is all of these service buildings and call part of this kind of. And this doesn't make people happy we have a very beautiful country there up there and we can see a sunset because of the smoke coming out of the immigrant. And I ask a question you might say. Like a bit of heresy after what you two gentlemen doing here do we really need. As a country to develop. I mean. Don't we have enough going for us down south right or is this just an industrial green. Here are the resources in the north and the must be extracted from the earth. Shiny should we go ahead with it or will do your crack at that. We knew Louis Rishi Oh you're a nerd we happen to be sitting on. Probably the was. A valuable piece of resource relisted as yet undeveloped that exists in the whole world. It's just tremendous in its

potential. To move from a point of view of the human benefit and the material and financial benefit. And. It just inconceivable that we can go on sitting on these indefinitely and develop. And I think is was rather wrote in her first conference at Lake of the Year of you know. If we should seems weird not to develop this recent years. Over the indefinite future when somebody else surely will. So I think that abusers to development. But in doing this and I think we should do so. In a manner which is of the greatest possible benefit. To us as can any of these in a manner which is orderly as opposed to some of the manners which we've been hearing about here tonight. And that's my answer to you. I'm going to ask questions supplementary to that because this is what I've heard all along if we don't do it someone else will do it. Is this a question of sovereignty.

Well it could very well be a question a servant to you when we've heard this suit going free today and previous going to do something about the world population explosion. And it's a very real thing. I think it's an international problem mind you war assuming the Canadian government but nevertheless it going to think does and we just can't go on sitting on this tremendous tract of land. And think you're good from the world with 20 million people. When we've got the butt beautician explosion. She's going to do double in the next 30 years from the first three and a half billion to seven million. It therefore becomes not just a minute or so for you but a matter of the common sense in the world. I don't think we can isolators there. I was going to say look there's no way that Canada can sit on its resources because there is just this problem of people and there's no way that we can say we're going to be insular and

protect us or protect or prevent the other. We accept the fact that because of population pressure this does this development whatever that really means is going to go on but my own feeling as an ecologist is when we go into the north press we're going to just take over her head on her shoes and walk just a little more something with them. Peter anything you want. Very definitely. I agree with Joe I agree with these ecologists but we cannot. Try the new or their way of speaking trample roughshod over the war. There are certain areas of when all of that just won't stand us and will not recover from it. But there are vast tracts of Island in Canada where you got me will undoubtedly take notice and it can be done in a number of ways. And our problem is to make sure it is done in a well-planned ministry that we were all agreed on that last word complicit perhaps. No no one. You're in complete agreement with only complete agreement but I'm also very concerned. About this

mobility question because these people are coming into the north are going to move on. They're not going to be can. Begin. And what happens in an interim. I still I still think we better start both there and we're going to start educating. Our children in the values. Of ecology and survival. Don't you think some of our children particularly want a university are starting to educate us. Not entirely some of the great exponents of the anti establishment. That. Are the biggest polluters that we've got. Yes maybe but it's the first time that they've shown a distinct interest. In ecology. The interest as it is from within. When I was a very little boy I was walking across the ferry one morning with my uncle one of those beautiful spring mornings when there was snow on the fence rows and a few crows. And Michael picked up some were saying that he put it in my hand. He said love that and be

gentle I think this is the way that all mankind has a purpose by Spirit. And that not really any RS special of the week. Thanks to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the recording of this program. This is any arm of the National Education already or not work.