Nunavut Inuit Organizations and the Challenges of a Post-Land Claims World

The Prime Minister signs the Nunavut Agreement.

From Political Goal to Legislative Reality

On 9 July 1993, federal legislation came into force, thereby completing the ratification process for the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. Most provisions of the Land Claims Agreement came into operation on that date, including the "surrender" provisions, which bar Inuit from legally seeking aboriginal rights to the lands and waters which are different from the rights set out in the Nunavut Agreement.

One major commitment did not come into force on July 9th. While the Nunavut Implementation Commission preparing for a new Nunavut Territory and Government will begin its work as soon as its commissioners are appointed through federal order-in-council, the new Government will not be formally constituted until April, 1999.

The complexity of the Nunavut project may well dwarf all provisions that come into immediate operation on July 9th. Nonetheless, for the Inuit of Nunavut, 1993 marked the consummation of many years of struggle on the twin tracks of land rights and political development. In the 20-year push for a Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and a new Nunavut Territory, Inuit confronted a great many risks: two territorial-wide plebiscites (in April 1982 and May 1992) on the issue of division of the NWT, and a ratification vote among Inuit (in November 1992) on the contents of the negotiated Land Claims Agreement. Over the long course of negotiations, other formidable obstacles regularly threatened progress: the frustration of slow progress in working out detailed sub-agreements, the wear-and-tear associated with negotiations conducted in a succession of northern communities, the distraction of competing events and agendas (ranging from reform of the Canadian Constitution to major development proposals such as the Arctic Pilot Project and various mining projects), and the problems of co-ordinating goals, strategies and tactics among various Nunavut Inuit organizations and leaders. These challenges have been met. With the enactment of the two federal statutes ratifying the Land Claims Agreement and defining a new Nunavut Territory and Government, a longheld political goal became a legislative realite.

Focusing on the Future

After the celebration, the Inuit of Nunavut will need to re-focus their energies to tackle the challenges of success—and there will be many. Inuit must oversee the effective implementation of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, and hold government to the legislated timetable for the creation of a Nunavut Territory and Government. Not all of the challenges confront Inuit alone. The Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories must "hold up their ends". Government ministers and officials will have a particular responsibility to respect the commitments made in the Nunavut Political Accord, and—even at a time of ongoing financial restraint—maintain standards of public sector services following division of the NWT into two new territories. Without minimizing the responsibilities of government actors, however, a further key question emerges:

How can Nunavut Inuit organizations best position themselves to ensure that the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, and the legislation to create the new Nunavut Territory and Government, are implemented in a way that maximizes their benefit to the Inuit of Nunavut?

Defining Success

It is not, of course, terribly profound to suggest that Inuit should aim to maximize the benefits of the Nunavut Agreement. Nor is it terribly contentious to hope that they succeed in doing so. On the other hand, it would be very easy for Nunavut Inuit organizations to busy themselves with the inevitable crises of day-to-day management. Organizations administering Inuit rights will be beset with all sorts of competing demands for attention and commitment; this has been the experience of modern aboriginal land claims settlements elsewhere. In addition to the demands generated by legally-binding documents (for example, the obligation for Inuit and government to establish management boards), Inuit will have to deal with all sorts of unsolicited proposals from credible and not-so-credible people, concerning the investment and use of compensation moneys.

Accordingly, however plausible and shrill the arguments for concentrating on all the minutiae of implementation, Inuit will have to focus on fundamental policy: what will be the measures of success, judged in ten, twenty, or fifty years-time? It will be very important that the Nunavut Inuit organizations— particularly when gathered in meetings involving media and large numbers of the public—devote adequate time and energy to debating the "big picture": where are we now? where do we want to go? how do we get there?

Sharing Implementation Responsibilities

It is presumptuous to anticipate how such questions will ultimately be debated and decided by the Nunavut Inuit. For the sake of provoking discussion, however, goals like the following might be set for the ten-year period following the 9 July 1993 coming into force of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.

• enactment of all legislation necessary to give full effect to the land and resource management regime contemplated by the Land Claims Agreement, and commencement of operation of all joint land and resource management boards;

• fulfilment of other mutually-agreed-upon obligations in substantive conformity with the budgets, timetables, and other details set out in the implementation contract signed on 9 July 1993 by the federal government, the territorial government and Tungavik Federation of Nunavut (now the Nunavut Tunngavik);

• re-negotiation of the next ten-year cycle of funding for joint management boards and other ongoing implementation items;

• organization of the first Nunavut Legislative Assembly elections, and the assumption of responsibilities by the new Nunavut Government;

• acquisition by the new Nunavut Government of core administrative capacity for carrying out its responsibilities, and—for the delivery of government services —a workable combination of intergovernmental agreements (particularly with Ottawa and Yellowknife). These agreements would provide for both continuity in service delivery and, in areas where the Nunavut Government has jurisdiction, build Nunavut's capacity for "hands on" service delivery;

• "gearing up" of Inuit organizations located in Nunavut, to build technical and administrative strengths;

• achievement of an acceptable minimum level of Inuit employees within Nunavut Inuit organizations and the new Nunavut Government, and steady progress towards the objective for public sector employment set out in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (that is, a public sector work force that reflects in its make-up the proportion of Inuit residents in the non-transient population of Nunavut);

• development (by Nunavut Inuit organizations charged with responsibility for managing lands owned directly by Inuit) of guidelines and methods of land administration that promote sustainable economic development and recover the costs of administration;

• maintenance of the inflation-adjusted value of the compensation moneys payable to Inuit (this objective would probably not apply to capital transfers made in the first two or three years following the coming into force of the Agreement);

• securing of "overhead" costs associated with the administration of compensation moneys (the position of Nunavut Inuit is broadly comparable to that of other non-profit organizations which are charged with the long-term investment and use of substantial capital pools); and, with overhead controlled, the funneling of the bulk of revenues from compensation money into projects and programs of tangible benefit to all Inuit (the Nunavut Tunngavik has made commitments for the early establishment and operation of both a hunters' income support program and an elders' pension plan);

To realize all these goals—or a comparable list—in the first ten years will not be easy. The identification and pursuit of concrete goals, however, will be essential to the attainment and assessment of success.

Predicting the Future

Only a dwindling band of devotees who believe in the joys of centrally-planned economies would argue that the future can be predicted with iron-clad confidence. Certainly, anyone who has enjoyed the bewildering, but energizing and seductive unpredictabilities of major land rights negotiations, would be reluctant to say that the post-land-claims-agreement world can be mapped out with linear precision.

However—the whims and amusements of the gods notwithstanding—Nunavut Inuit organizations are taking significant steps to prepare for the future. The Nunavut Tunngavik and the three Nunavut regional Inult associations, both alone and in concert with the federal and territorial governments, are preparing for a coherent and flexible distribution of responsibilities in the years to come. These measures include the following:

• A separate, independent body, the Nunavut Implementation Commission, will oversee the organization of the new Nunavut Government by 1999. This body, established under federal legislation and made up of nominees of the federal government, the GNWT, and the Nunavut Tunngavik, will have the mandate and budget to tackle the task of designing and creating a new government. Accordingly, Nunavut Inuit organizations will be able to concentrate on the formidable challenge of implementing the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement without major day-to-day responsibilities on the political development front.

• Timetables for the initial implementation of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and for the coming into existence of the Nunavut Government have been synchronized, but they are not contemporaneous. Quite apart from the potential problems of overloading particular organizations, Inuit are concerned about overloading the entire Nunavut social fabric, if too much change occurs simultaneously: hence, the delay until 1999 in the establishment of the Nunavut Government. The delay provides a five-or-six-year breathing space between the re-organization of the public adminstration landscape of Nunavut, and the birth of the new government.

• Responsibilities for land claims implementation are being flexibly assigned to various Inuit organizations. In negotiating the text of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, Inuit were deliberatly general. To avoid carving up powers and benefits among specific Inuit organizations, they referred only to "Designated Inuit Organizations", thereby allowing Inuit to designate and re-designate different organizations to serve particular corporate functions. Thus, Inuit can modify the institutional power-sharing as circumstances dictate. (Other aboriginal land claims agreements have since adopted this approach).

• The new Nunavut Inuit organization, the Nunavut Tunngavik, is developing by-laws which emphasize accountability. For example, key of ficers are elected on a Nunavut-wide franchise; all communities will have elected representation; all important financial matters (including annual budgets) must be approved by members; and meetings of members are open to the press and public. Nunavut Tunngavik also acknowledges regional identities and loyalties: crucial decisions made by the Tunngavik must have the support of members from each of the three regional caucuses of members.

• Major responsibilities for land claims implementatlon and administration are being allocated to established organizations with developed constituencies and experience. For example, hunters and trappers organizations will administer Inuit hunting rights, and regional Inuit associations will take surface title to Inuit owned lands in their respective regions. Inuit do not want to create a multiplicity of new special purpose organizations: there will, for example, be no community corporations or land-holding corporations set up from the outset.

• A Nunavut Trust will oversee the long-term investment and preservation of compensation moneys, separate and apart from the issues related to the distribution of income.

Such measures as these, taken in advance of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement coming into force, may mitigate some of the organizational strains and competition that inevitably follow from the acquisition of substantial jurisdictional and proprietary powers. There can be no doubt, however, that the next few years will test the ability of Inuit organizations and leaders to work together, adapting and adjusting where necessary, in order to draw maximum gains for all Inuit.

Avoiding Banana Peels

The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the parallel commitment to create the Nunavut Territory and Government, took almost two decades to secure. In consequence, the Inuit of Nunavut have had more of a chance than some aboriginal peoples to consider their options, in advance of a major transformation in the legal order around them. As already indicated Inuit have taken a number of organizational steps to enhance the possibilities of success but those measures can not "guarantee" smooth sailing. Among the potential problems of internal organization are the following:

• diffusion of responsibilities among too many organizations, with confusions in accountability and unresponsiveness to events;

• over-devolution of responsibilities resulting in costly inefficiencies;

• reliance on the tenets of corporate law to operate organizations that must provide, in part, political representation;

• excessive competition for highly qualified Inuit personnel and a misallocation of human resources.

None of these potential problems are, of course, pre-ordained: the consumption of bananas does not necessitate the slipping on peels.

Final Note

With the conclusion and commg into force of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the imminence of a new Nunavut Territory and Government, the Inuit of Nunavut are embarked on an exciting journey. The course of that journey will no doubt be indirectly influenced by the global challenges that increasingly impinge on us all. More directly, Inuit will be affected by the willingness of the Canadian populace and its representatives to insist on effective fulfilment of the far-ranging promises made to the Inuit of Nunavut in 1993. Perhaps most importantly, however, success will turn on the farsightedness, sense of purpose, and tenacity of the Inuit of Nunavut themselves. Inuit must ensure that organizations accountable to them, and them alone, operate efficiently and effectively. All Canadians stand to gain by Inuit success in that regard.

John Merritt is an Ottawa-based consultant and member of CARC. John has for many years advised Inuit organizations on political and constitutional issues.