Financing Aboriginal Government: The Case of Canada's Eastern Arctic

INTRODUCTION The development of sound financial strategies that both guarantee native autonomy and assure continued program financing is one of the most complex yet vital components to aboriginal self-government. Unfortunately, history has demonstrated that the failures in this area tend to overshadow any successful inroads made in aboriginal people’s efforts to attain self-determination. In fact, many native groups operate in an environment that can best be described as continual financial exigency. This phenomenon is not unique to the United States. The aboriginal population in Canada has also experienced difficulty in acquiring the resources needed to govern themselves. Examples include the financial difficulties that arose out of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), the 1978 James Bay and Northern Quebec agreements, and the 1984 agreement signed with the Inuvialuit of the western Northwest Territories. All of these examples explicitly demonstrate that, for those groups in the process of negotiating claims settlements, the development of a sound financial strategy is inextricably linked to the successful negotiation of aboriginal claims settlements. In Alaska, the creation of a series of corporate structures that were antithetical to native culture, the lack of investment opportunities, the cost of capital-intensive projects in the North, the high cost of venture capital, and the lack of training programs for natives charged with managing their new public administration infrastructure all contributed to the expenditure of the nearly one billion dollars in compensation received under ANCSA. Now that the money is gone, Alaska Natives fear the loss of their lands as well. The financial woes of the Inuvialuit and the Cree and Naskapi of northern Quebec continue. On an annual basis, the latter are required to negotiate program funding for current fiscal year operations with no less than nine separate federal and Quebec government agencies