Another Victory For Innuit

I don't know if it just my imagination but the Innuit seem to be on another planet when it comes to successfully resolving issues that impact their people and they do so without a Warrior Society, blockades, etc. Congratulations and much success.

Quebec Inuit to sign historic self-governance agreement

BILL CURRY

From Monday's Globe and Mail

August 13, 2007 at 1:48 AM EDT

OTTAWA — A giant swath of mineral-rich land covering one-third of Quebec is on track to become a self-governing region for the province's 10,000 Inuit.

To be called the Regional Government of Nunavik, it will have its own elected assembly representing Quebec's 14 remote Inuit communities and a public service responsible for services normally delivered by provinces, such as education and health.

The Globe and Mail has obtained a copy of the agreement-in-principle between the Inuit, Quebec and Ottawa, which was initialled by the three sides last week, meaning it should be ready for a formal signing ceremony within weeks. A final agreement would then follow and the Inuit hope the new government will be in place by 2009.

The Nunavik government would be unlike any other resolved aboriginal land claim in Canada, both because of the region's massive size and because the system of government so closely resembles the British-inspired parliamentary systems found in Ottawa and provincial capitals.

The Regional Government of Nunavik will have an elected assembly representing Inuit communities. (Dean Tweed/The Globe and Mail)

Also, unlike native self-governments such as B.C.'s Nisga'a, the agreement is not based on ethnicity, even though the vast majority of the region's residents are Inuit.

Jean-François Arteau, the head legal adviser for the Quebec Inuit, said he would expect all future maps of Canada to include the Nunavik region, which uses the 55th parallel as a southern border and makes up one-third of Quebec.

“This is going to be a special territory that I think we should see on any map of Canada,” he said. “It's something new. A regional government. That doesn't exist anywhere.”