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Arctic Yearbook 2014
In practice, nation building in the Canadian North has meant building a durable system of shared
governance with aboriginal peoples – in the NWT, the Gwich’in, Inuvialuit, NWT Métis and
Akaitcho, Dehcho, Sahtu and Tlicho Dene. This contrasts with the constitutional development
of much of southern Canada, which long preceded Supreme Court decisions confirming
aboriginal rights and title. For this reason, NWT devolution can be fully understood only against
a backdrop of decades of modern treaty making, by which aboriginal peoples have been
recognised as co-governors of their traditional lands.
Through their treaties, the NWT’s aboriginal governments are guaranteed a share of the
regulatory powers that the ‘public government’ of the NWT (GNWT) now exercises through
devolution. The GNWT and aboriginal governments have also agreed to share some resource
revenues. In this context, devolution will fulfil its nation-building promise only if it fosters
collaborative partnership between aboriginal and public government.
But there is already cause for concern, on three counts. First, the Akaitcho and Dehcho have not
finished negotiating treaties. With devolution, the GNWT now sits across the table in Ottawa’s
place. Moreover, the GNWT now derives political and fiscal power from the very land and
resources the Akaitcho and Dehcho claim. The GNWT may well prove more able than Ottawa
at sharing governance, but treaty making is complex and sensitive. The Akaitcho and Dehcho
worry about the risk, and they have so far refused to accept a share of resource revenues from
the GNWT lest it prejudice negotiations.
Second, after the devolution agreement-in-principle was unveiled in 2011, the Gwich’in loudly
criticised the GNWT for selling the territory’s natural wealth too cheaply. The GNWT had
accepted not only a 50-50 split of resource royalties with Ottawa, but also a cap on the total take.
The Gwich’in complained that both split and cap were too low – and that large excess royalties
would flow to Ottawa were the resource industry to grow strongly.
As I have argued elsewhere, the cap does seem particularly unfair, and sets an unwelcome
precedent for resource-revenue sharing in the Canadian North. Defined as a small percentage of
a hypothetical and dubious figure that Ottawa uses to represent the GNWT’s budgetary need,
and lacking any connection to a clear vision or fiscal plan for the territory’s future development,
the cap appears to reflect nothing more than Ottawa’s interest in limiting its own costs.
Indeed, the GNWT responded to its critics that, after several years of negotiating, no better deal
could be had. Reluctant to reopen its hard-won agreement, the GNWT insisted that aboriginal
governments would have to take or leave it. In the end, the Inuvialuit, NWT Métis, Sahtu, Tlicho
and – after electing new leadership – even the Gwich’in had decided it would be better to be
counted in than left out. But if in coming years Ottawa siphons off comparatively large royalties
from the territory, aboriginal discontent will surely rekindle.
Third - and perhaps most serious – the NWT devolution bill presented to Parliament introduced
an unpleasant surprise. Expected were the legalities necessary to transfer Ottawa’s control of
lands and resources to the GNWT. Unexpected was a proposal for sweeping changes to the
regulatory system the GNWT would inherit, and which gave practical effect to the shared
governance enshrined in aboriginal treaties.
Concerned that the NWT’s regulatory system was too complex to attract investment, Ottawa
proposed to abolish most treaty-based local land-management boards in favour of a centralised
Devolution in the Northwest Territories