An international youth conference for Arctic issues held in Ottawa next month has a Powell River connection.
Graham May, who grew up in Powell River and attends Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, is a director of the Youth Arctic Coalition, an independent international forum for youth to discuss the social, environmental and economic challenges facing the Arctic and work to influence the course of Arctic governance.
The inaugural conference is called Breaking the Ice and will be held February 1 and 2 at the Canadian Museum of Nature, with regional hubs including Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Iqaluit and across Scandinavia and Russia.
May received the Killam Fellowship from Fulbright Canada and is currently spending a semester at American University in Washington, DC.
“I’m also interning with an environmental law group while I’m here,” he said.
Last year he worked with Canadian politicians on resource management and how politicians interact with their communities. “That was to test the waters of politics,” he said, “so now I’m testing the waters of environmental law to see if that’s for me.”
May said that youth from the North are being brought to Ottawa for the conference and many more are joining the conversation over the Internet by using a hub.
The conference will include presentations from Geoff Green, founder of Students on Ice, a Canadian non-profit that takes expeditions of international youth to the polar regions for educational experiences; Martin von Mirback, director of the World Wildlife Federation Canada Arctic program; and Johnny Issaluk, a traditional Inuit athlete and cultural mentor.
In 2008 May went to the Arctic with Students on Ice and was inspired by the Inuit youth he met there. He attended the United Nations’ Rio Summit on Sustainable Development in 2012 where he represented the polar regions and lobbied for sustainable development. “I was amazed by how little agency youth had to enact change within the international system,” he said, adding that the region is going through intense change currently which will affect the lives of Arctic and non-Arctic youth.
May said a number of issues that will be discussed are more focused on northern concerns such as food security and an increase in the numbers of youth suicide and cases of tuberculosis. He added there are also issues that concern all youth, like resource use, climate policy, Arctic sovereignty, “all issues pertinent to Canada’s foreign policy,” he added.
Youth from Powell River interested in participating can join the conference by setting up a digital hub locally and connecting to the discussion through the Internet.
“If a group from Powell River wanted to join they would be Skyping with youth in Archangel and Iqaluit and they would be talking about the issues facing Inuit, Aleut and Saami youth around the world,” said May. “When you to get this kind of discussion going between people of the North and South you get some real magic.”
May said that already more than 150 youth have signed up for the free conference.
The coalition has been working on eight position papers on Arctic issues for the governments of Arctic states and discussion at the conference will help inform them, said May.
For more information readers can contact May by email at [email protected] or Brenna Owen at [email protected].
