Published 2:20 pm Tuesday, December 9, 2025 By William Koblensky Varela, Local Journalism Initiative Northern News Services Former Nunavut premier Paul Quassa says he helped negotiate the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement to give the next generation of Inuit more prosperity, and he’s working for Baffinland Iron Mines for the same reason. Quassa became a senior advisor to the CEO of the company in 2021. It’s his role to inform five Baffin Island communities about the Mary River iron mine’s operations and to field any concerns in Inuktitut. “Baffinland was the best place to work for me because I believed in it — that this is one way for a vision that we had when we were negotiating the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement as to how we can become more self-sufficient, and certainly, mining is one of the developments that certainly can give us that,” he said. Community engagement in Arctic Bay, Iglulik, Pond Inlet, Clyde River and Sanirajak has been fulfilling for Quassa. He said residents are relieved to hear an explanation in Inuktitut of what’s happening at the mine site. Concerns about wildlife and environmental impact mitigation are often raised to his team. “We have Inuit knowledge-holders, we have community resources guides, we got the liaison officers, we got interpreters, we got cultural advisors,” Quassa said of the staff dedicated to the task. At Baffinland, he has led an Inuit leadership development program. The initiative helps Inuit reach senior positions in the company by removing cultural barriers that may stand in their way. “Certainly our language, our way of understanding is quite different than a lot of a non-Inuit that come to work. So how can we harmonize the working environment? We have two different cultures working side by side and we want to make sure that the working atmosphere has an understanding of Inuit culture is well,” he explained. Now 73, Quassa was born in an iglu to parents who practised the traditional nomadic Inuit culture, near Iglulik. In 1959, he was placed in a residential school and became one of the first Grade 12 graduates in the territory, he said. Fast forward to today, Quassa said his current goal is supporting Inuit in the modern wage economy. “We go to the communities of those people working and they have snowmobiles, they have four-wheelers, they have hunting equipment because they have income working with Baffinland,” he said. His political life has helped him with community engagement, he suggested. Working in land claims going back to the 1970s, Quassa served as mayor of Iglulik, negotiated the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement in the 1990s, became MLA for Aggu in 2013, served as premier for seven months, was Speaker of the Legislative Assembly for a year and a half, and ended his career in politics as an Iqaluit city councillor in 2023. “I love talking, especially in Inuktitut,” he said. ‘Seeing positive things’ Helping Inuit get a clearer picture of what’s happening at the Mary River mine allows community members to better understand what the future holds, according to Quassa. Having just returned from the 40th anniversary of Nunavut Sivuniksavut, an Inuit college program in Ottawa, Quassa reflected on how much Inuit have accomplished. “I’m so proud of how young people are now so much more proud of who they are,” he said. “A lot of these things that came out of our land claims agreement, our vision, it’s now a reality, and we’re seeing positive things coming out,” he said. Baffinland is headquartered in Oakville, Ont., and is jointly owned by The Energy and Minerals Group and ArcelorMittal. The Energy & Minerals Group is a Houston, Texas-based investment firm while ArcelorMittal is a publicly traded company, whose controlling stake is owned by UK-based Lakshmi Mittal. For more stories from NWT & Nunavut Mining, click here.
We can become more self sufficient: Paul Quassa on why he works for Baffinland
