The socio-economic impact of the inuvialuit final agreement

Comprehensive Land Claim Agreements (CLCAs) are currently being used as a means to achieve Aboriginal socio-economic development. My dissertation compares the performance of the James Bay and Inuvialuit communities with those of neighbouring communities in the Northwest Territories. Several agreements have been signed including the James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA), The Northeastern Quebec Agreement (NEQA) and the Inuvialuit Final Agreement (IFA). These agreements involve cash payment, land compensation for the surrendering of Aboriginal Rights, control over resources, and the establishment of institutions responsible for economic development. As a bottom-up approach to development, CLCAs emphasize local control and mobilization of both human and natural resources. Some analysts believe that CLCAs form the basis for the socio-economic and demographic transformation of Aboriginal communities. Others disagree, arguing that the financial spin-offs are insufficient for such a transformation. The question is, what are the impacts of CLCAs? This study looks for economic, demographic and social changes following the Inuvialuit and James Bay agreements. Data for the analysis were obtained from the 1981, 1986 and 1991 Censuses. Two statistical techniques, namely, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) are used in the analysis. The performance of the Inuvialuit and James Bay communities are compared with those of neighbouring communities in the Northwest Territories (NWT). Following The Scone Report's (1989) classification, the neighbouring communities are grouped into Fully Integrated Wage Economies (FIWE) and Less Integrated Wage Economies (LIWE). The analysis reveals statistically significant differences between the James Bay, the Inuvialuit, FIWE and LIWE. The mean scores from the ANOVA indicate that while the FIWE of NWT are the most developed communities, the Inuvialuit communities are second. Statistically, the Inuvialuit communities scored higher than the James Bay and LIWE of Northwest Territories in all economic variables and several social and demographic variables. Nevertheless, the James Bay communities scored higher than the Inuvialuit communities in two social variables and one demographic variable. The results of the PCA show that, overtime, the Inuvialuit maintained a rapid increase in development while the James Bay communities maintained a modest increase. These results support the hypothesis that the CLCAs have encouraged economic, demographic and social development