Briefing Note
ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT,
INDIGENOUS
GOVERNANCE, & ARCTIC SOVEREIGNTY
Karen Everett & Heather Nicol
There have been differing visions for the future of Canada’s north and the role of resource development in Canada’s nationbuilding project. While for some, resource extraction is the ‘magic bullet’, for others there is also the fear that rather than
being the solution to economic development problems, resource extraction activities may prove detrimental to the economic
health of many northern communities. Beginning with the 1970s, indigenous leaders have urged the federal government to
increase cooperation with local populations, especially in terms of facilitating equitable benefits of economic development, social
services, education, and health, environmental protection. But there is a continuing resistance of government agencies to
facilitate northern indigenous populations’ control over their resources and a general failure of those who envision the future
for Canadianists more generally to engage with economic development strategies. This paper assesses recent attempts towards
co-management of resource development in the context of new rounds of development pressures on the Canadian North,
situating part of the problem in the degree to which a scholarship in general has failed to move beyond the convenient but
rather simplistic understanding of the North as ‘frontier/homeland’.
Introduction
In 2010, the Standing Committee on Arctic Defence released its statement on Canada’s Arctic
Sovereignty. The Committee stated that “[e]xercising Arctic sovereignty is a pillar of the
Northern Strategy and the number one priority set out in Statement on Canada’s Arctic foreign
policy. Canada’s Arctic sovereignty is long-standing, well-established and based on historic title.
Launched on August 20th 2010, the foreign policy statement is the international dimension of
the Northern Strategy, and it provides the international platform from which to project our
national interests in the world.” So the Northern Strategy is also key to understanding that there
Karen Everett is a PhD s