Sheila Watt-Cloutier (born 2 December 1953) is a Canadian Inuk activist. She has been a political representative for Inuit at the regional, national and international levels, most recently as International Chair for the Inuit Circumpolar Council (formerly the Inuit Circumpolar Conference). Watt-Cloutier has worked on a range of social and environmental issues affecting Inuit, most recently, persistent organic pollutants and global warming. She has received numerous awards and honours for her work, and has been featured in a number of documentaries and profiled by journalists from all media. Watt-Cloutier sits as an adviser to Canada's Ecofiscal Commission. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Early life

Sheila Watt-Cloutier was born in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, Northern Quebec, Canada. Her mother was known as a skillful healer and interpreter throughout Nunavik, and her father was an officer for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. For the first ten years of her life, Sheila was raised traditionally, travelling on the land by dog sled, before she was sent away for school in Nova Scotia and Churchill, Manitoba in the Canadian Indian residential school system.

Early career

In the mid-1970s, she worked for the Ungava Hospital as an Inuktitut translator and strove to improve education and health conditions. From 1991 to 1995, she worked as a counsellor in the review process of the education system of Northern Quebec. This work led to the 1992 report on the educational system in Nunavik, Silaturnimut - The Pathway to Wisdom. Watt-Cloutier also contributed significantly to the youth awareness video Capturing Spirit: The Inuit Journey.

Political career

Watt-Cloutier has been a political representative for Inuit for over a decade. From 1995 to 1998, she was Corporate Secretary of Makivik Corporation, the Canadian Inuit land-claim organization established for Northern Quebec (Nunavik) under the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. In 1995, she was elected President of Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) Canada, and re-elected in 1998. ICC represents internationally the interests of Inuit in Russia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland. In this position, she served as the spokesperson for indigenous peoples in the Arctic during the negotiation of the Stockholm Convention banning the manufacture and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) or DDT. These substances pollute the Arctic food chain and accumulate in the bodies of Inuit, many of whom continue to subsist on local country food. In 2002, she was elected International Chair of ICC, a position she would hold until 2006. Most recently, her work has emphasised the human face of the impacts of global climate change in the Arctic. On 7 December 2005, based on the findings of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, which projects that Inuit hunting culture may not survive the loss of sea ice and other changes projected over the coming decades, she launched the world's first international legal action on climate change: a petition, along with 62 Inuit hunters and Elders from communities across Canada and Alaska, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleging that unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases from the United States have violated Inuit cultural and environmental human rights as guaranteed by the 1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. Although the IACHR decided against hearing her petition, the Commission invited Watt-Cloutier to testify with her international legal team (including lawyers from Earthjustice and the Center for International Environmental Law) at their first hearing on climate change and human rights on 1 March 2007.

Publications

Her book The Right to Be Cold, about the effects of climate change on Inuit communities, was published by Allen Lane - Penguin Random House in 2015. Her memoir The Right to Be Cold: One Woman's Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet (2015) was short-listed for Canada Reads, where it was championed by musician Chantal Kreviazuk. Activist Naomi Klein reviewed the books for the Globe and Mail, calling it "courageous and revelatory".

Awards and honours

All cities in Canada unless noted.

2002

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2015

Personal life

Watt-Cloutier has a daughter, a son, and a grandson. Prior to returning to Kuujjuaq, she resided in Iqaluit, Nunavut for 15 years.