Spring 2020 13 O Splitting Canada’S nor thern Stra tegy: iS it polar poliCy Mania? By C. Mark Macneill * n July 15, 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s legislation splitting Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) into two new departments and dissolving INAC came into effect. 1 The same legislation also formally established the mandates of the two new departments, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs (CIRNAC) 2 and Indigenous Services Canada (ISC). 3 The Government of Canada passed the legislation to develop deeper relations and higher levels of collaboration with Canada’s Indigenous people to build stronger and healthier northern communities. 4 Dovetailing with the splitting of INC, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announce the Arctic Policy Framework (APF). The APF was co-developed with indigenous, territorial, and provincial partners. 5 This new framework effectively replaced Canada’s Northern Strategy (2009) and the Statement on Canada’s Arctic Foreign Policy (2010). 6 The APF was developed through a series of consultations and forums in 2017 and 2018 and applies to the Yukon, Northwest Territory, Nunavut, and Canada’s other Inuit Nunangut communities 7 representing the Inuit and Indigenous homelands of the Nunatsiavut region in Labrador, Nunavik (QC) and Northern Manitoba (including Churchill). 8 The consultation process flowed from commitments made in the U.S./Canada Joint Arctic Leaders Statement, 9 under which Canada committed to work collaboratively with its Indigenous Northern Communities to “build a long term vision to 2030 for the Canadian and Circumpolar Arctic.” 10 CIRNAC and ISC were partitioned from INAC to develop deeper relations and higher levels of collaboration with indigenous people. However, many core challenges remain largely unresolved. For instance, critical health care 11 and housing issues 12 continue to prevail in the Arctic. Furthermore, demographic data shows that while Canada’s North is experiencing a rapidly growing population, it is plagued with a plethora of social-economic issues not being adequately funded and administered by the federal government. For instance, with close to half the Nunavut population under the age of twenty- five 13 with a stretched capacity need and accompanying shortage for employment, 14 education, training, housing, and health care. 15 Furthermore, facilitation for easier entry into the growing economic sectors in the north to meet Inuit employment quota goals per Article 23 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement 16 (e.g. resource extraction based industries) and a growing government and service support base are alternatively filling employment voids for expertise and skilled labor from southern communities in Canada. However, the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement 1999, Article 23 expressly calls for a preference to be given to Inuit people for federal and territorial government positions 17 and per Article 24 with government contracts. 18 Thus, an employment policy priority exists within both the public and private sectors to get indigenous people trained across all occupations and into ever increasing higher levels of leadership, management, and skilled technical and trade positions. 19 In many instances, skilled positions are not being filled or left vacant while Inuit are being trained and/or recruited, leading to government departments and agencies with staffing deficiencies and productivity lapses. 20 Furthermore under the APF, the Canadian government maintains that it is improving governance structures and capacity building for its northern communities and people. 21 Yet those who believe in less government and or in a devolution of power to the local and regional levels are bound to disagree with the APF’s effectiveness and efficiency. Arguably, the APF’s co-development and implementation adds additional layers of bureaucratic process. While consultation is used to gather community input by Ottawa, power is still centrally retained by the federal government in a vertical chain of decision making. Under devolution, the power and decision making are decentralized via self-governance agreements to local and regional governments on specific sets of identified areas of responsibility. Furthermore, the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and many other land claims agreements across Canada’s north have placed resource stewardship responsibility in the hands of indigenous people directly for the lands to which they hold title. The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement uses a collaboration mechanism for all the remaining lands in the north. 22 The process of devolution and its many variate forms has provided much of the requisite transfer of power and control from the federal government to territorial and self-governing entities and is aimed at furthering self-fulfillment and self-determination for * C. Mark Macneill is the Executive Director of the Kivalliq Business Development Centre, Rankin Inlet, Nunavut Territory, Canada. He is also a part- time law student with the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Civil Law, National Program (LL.L. degree). His prior degrees include: an LL.M., University of Denver (Envir & Nat. Res. Law & Policy); LL.M., University of Miami (Foreign Lawyers Program – US & Comparative Legal Systems); LL.B., University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.; M.P.A., Carleton University, Ottawa, CA; and M.B.A., St. Mary’s University. He was one of five winners selected in 2007 for the annual national law student writing competition hosted by the American Bar Association’s Section on Energy, Environment & Resources for his paper entitled “Gaining Command & Control of the Northwest Passage: Strait Talk on Sovereignty.” Macneill is a dual US and Canadian citizen and hails from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. He wishes to thank Adam Fraser L.L.B./B.C.L., Kim Dalgleish, J.D. and Kristof Karcza, M.B.A., for their encouragement to research and write.