Kulchyski

M O D E R N T R E AT I E S , E X T R A C T I O N , A N D I M P E R I A L I S M I N C A N A D A ’ S I N D I G E N O U S N O R T H : T W O C A S E S T U D I E S Peter Kulchyski and Warren Bernauer Abstract Drawing on case studies from Nunavut and Denendeh (Northwest Territories), we argue that the institutions created by modern treaties are poorly positioned to repre- sent the interests of Indigenous hunters. These capital/land-holding institutions have objective interests in the opportunities for economic growth provided by extrac- tive projects. The debates around uranium mining in Nunavut and a natural gas pipeline in Denendeh demonstrate how land claims institutions work with extrac- tive capital to defuse dissent to unpopular and highly destructive “development” projects. These institutions are key mechanisms in contemporary processes of dispos- session and imperialism. Grassroots resistance remains the most effective tool for defending local food production systems. I n the 1970s, Canada’s Indigenous North was faced with a number of extractive “mega projects,” two of which generated national debate around issues of Indigenous life ways versus resource extraction-based economies: hydroelectric developments in Quebec and the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline proposal in the Northwest Territories (NWT). (Unlike these high-profile projects, hydro development in Northern Manitoba and a variety of other specific projects did not generate substantial national attention.) The debates that surrounded Quebec hydroelectric projects and the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline proposal helped define for a generation the notion that develop- ment/destruction could not take place as it had for the previous century, that Indigenous peoples were players in northern development who had to be Studies in Political Economy 93 SPRING 2014 3

4 Studies in Political Economy accommodated, and that new structures must be developed as vehicles for negotiating such accommodation—both to ensure a more equitable redis- tribution of benefits and to guarantee that Indigenous parties would have strong representation in planning and implementing agreements. This new social context for northern development projects had three key elements. First, a doctrine of Aboriginal rights and title evolved in Canadian (and other) courts, including in the last decade the still not clearly defined notion that States have a duty to consult with Indigenous peoples about developments on their traditional territories. Second, modern treaties, called “Comprehensive Land Claims” in the early 1970s, were negotiated by States to ensure surrender of Aboriginal title: Indigenous communities entered into negotiations, in part, to ensure that they had resources and other struc- tures that could be used to influence decisionmaking and negotiations surrounding extractive projects. Third, self-government agreements were discussed at the constitutional table and during the Charlottetown Accord meetings to ensure that Indigenous communities were working with a local governing structure that was effective and culturally appropriate. It must be acknowledged, however, that the Charlottetown Accord meetings failed and that these self-government agreements were not negotiated that often. This paper focuses on how modern treaties are vehicles that can either empower or disempower northern Indigenous communities. Modern treaties—agreements between the State and Indigenous groups that possessed previously unextinguished Aboriginal title to their territory—have a number of common characteristics. All attempt to resolve the “murky” issue of Indigenous sovereignty that burdens both the State and extractive capital. This is generally accomplished by “extinguishing” Aboriginal title or by exhaustively demarcating the rights Indigenous communities possess to their territory. In return for extinguishment/exhaustion, these treaties provide for a transfer of financial resources from the State to the Indigenous group. Surface and mineral rights to small portions of the territory in question are retained by the Indigenous group, while a variety of specific rights (many of which often concern hunting rights) are entrenched. Modern treaties also give rise to new institutions. The first is a new type of Aboriginal organization with a not-for-profit corporate structure, charged

6 Studies in Political Economy resolve Indigenous concerns and grievances. We then turn to each of the two case studies to explore how these historical experiences can inform contemporary assessments of the ultimate value of the comprehensive land claims approach. Due to the political economy of modern treaties and the spatial dynamics of capital accumulation, we argue that land claims corpo- rations are poorly positioned to represent the interests of Indigenous hunters. Grassroots Indigenous activism, operating outside of land claims structures and institutions, is thus necessary if Indigenous subsistence practices and local food production systems are to be maintained. Mining, Primitive Accumulation, and Modern Treaties As northern Indigenous peoples remain connected to a hunting way of life (or mode of production), resource extraction projects can have the impact, at one extreme, of destroying the basis of the hunting economy entirely. Destruction of and disturbance to wildlife habitat, as well as the threat of contamination, have the ability to undermine the resources upon which hunters depend; the best that can be hoped is that development/destruction will have a negligible environmental footprint. Of course, much of what actually happens takes place in the middle ground between these two extremes. Capitalist resource extraction projects of this kind can be seen as an instance of the larger historical process that Marx aptly called “primitive accumulation,” though the scope and scale of the displacement of pre- existing modes of production may vary. For Marx, primitive accumulation is a series of “moments when great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled onto the labour-market as free, unprotected and right-less proletarians.” 1 Primitive accumulation therefore creates the preconditions for capitalist accumulation: contact between one group of people who own the means of production and another group of people who have no choice but to sell their bodily capabilities in order to survive. Marx argues that primitive accumulation “assumes different aspects” and occurs at different times in different places. 2 Recently, scholars have drawn renewed attention to the fact that primitive accumulation is an ongoing phenomenon, with dispossession and the destruction of subsistence lifestyles

Kulchyski and Bernauer / T R E AT I E S 7 forming a fundamental aspect of recent waves of capitalist imperialism. 3 Further, it is important to note that primitive accumulation in a particular society is generally not an instantaneous process, but rather unfolds over “many generations” and involves numerous “intermediate steps.” 4 In Canada’s Indigenous North, primitive accumulation is an ongoing and colonial process. Some of the more prominent “moments” in the process thus far have involved the coerced centralization of Indigenous communi- ties, which created a dependency on manufactured transportation technology; the forced schooling of Indigenous children, which destroyed a great deal of the living knowledge upon which subsistence production depends; the expropriation of hunting grounds and the imposition of colonial game laws in the name of conservation; and the destruction by animal rights activists of markets for Indigenous simple commodity production of furs. 5 The destruction of land and wildlife brought about by mineral and energy extrac- tion—what Usher rightly called a “modern version of the enclosures”— represents yet another moment in this ongoing process. 6 The North, however, lacked the capacity for secondary production or subcontracting, a skilled labour force, and an institutional framework to collect full royalties and taxes from extractive projects. As a result, resources, profits, royalties, contracts, and technical job opportunities tended to flow elsewhere. 7 In the 1970s, Indigenous people and non-Indigenous allies were becoming increasingly concerned that the combined destruction of hunting economies and lack of retention of economic spinoffs would leave Northern Indigenous peoples “effectively separated from their traditional land base...and incorporated into the lowest levels of the national class structure.” 8 In other words, these authors saw primitive accumulation in the North as a form of capitalist imperialism: a process whereby “the wealth and wellbeing of partic- ular territories are augmented at the expense of others.” 9 From the perspective of many Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous allies, modern treaties were to be a mechanism to mitigate the impacts of capitalist imperialism. While specific proposals varied, common themes existed. Most suggested that a treaty should provide Indigenous peoples with control over their land, their resources, and their society. Many allies suggested that Indigenous groups should be allowed to collect royalties from resource

stipulates that the Indigenous society in question surrenders Aboriginal Title to its traditional territory. Since the initiation of modern treaty negotia- tions in the 1970s, extinguishment has served as the fundamental demand of the State and has been widely criticized by Indigenous peoples and their allies. 13 In most settled modern treaties in the territorial North, the State has won this fundamental demand. Therefore modern treaties can be charac- terized as tools of dispossession because they involve Indigenous societies forfeiting legal control over the vast majority of their territories. 14 The most striking, and perhaps the most pressing, implication of modern treaties is extinguishment because it signifies dispossession of Indigenous lands and resources. The legal words and the signatures that surround treaties provide the legal justification for an ongoing process of dispossession. However, a focus solely on the implications of the legal extinguishment of Aboriginal title can lead to a sort of legal fetishism. Indigenous peoples continue to use land, whether they hold title to it or not. Furthermore, Indigenous societies may employ other methods to exert control over their traditional lands that have nothing to do with legal title—direct action and grassroots campaigns to halt particularly destructive extractive proposals, for example. In other words, legal extinguishment and practical disposses- sion are distinct but closely related phenomena. There are also other important ways in which modern treaties facilitate dispossession beyond the implications of the surrender of title. As this paper demonstrates, the Canadian models have actually strongly tied First Nations and Inuit communities to nonrenewable and other destructive projects. The land/capital-holding institutions created by these agreements are organized as corporations. This gives them an objective interest in profit, indepen- dent of the needs Indigenous peoples may have for wage labour or financial support for harvesting ventures. 15 One of the most lucrative sources of profit is the extractive sector because royalties, investment partnerships, Impact and Benefit Agreements, and subcontracting opportunities all provide oppor- tunities for these corporations to generate revenue. The structures of these agreements also give rise to “regional elite[s] with a direct interest in collaborating with metropolitan forces.” 16 Indigenous Kulchyski and Bernauer / T R E AT I E S 9

peoples who occupy political and management positions in land claims organizations, along with those who use seed capital from land claims insti- tutions to launch subcontracting firms, have individual objective interests in extraction independent of community needs for wage labour and support for harvesting. These institutions and elites operate in the context of significant inter- regional competition. Different regions within the capitalist system must compete to “capture and contain the benefits to be had from flows of capital and labour power.” Grassroots struggles that threaten capital accumulation may prompt capital to flee a particular territory and relocate to a region with lower environmental standards, corporate tax rates, royalty rates, and degree of grassroots struggle. 17 Our contemporary historic condition— variously called “late capitalism,” “flexible accumulation,” “globalization,” and “neoliberalism”—has drastically increased the role of inter-regional competition in the dynamics of capital accumulation. Capital has become increasingly mobile because of reductions in communication and trans- portation costs, the deregulation of financial markets, the rise to predominance of the multinational corporate structure, and various inter- national trade agreements. As a result, states are under increased pressure to encourage a positive climate for capital investment. 18 Land claims institutions and Indigenous petty capitalists are subject to similar pressures because of their dependence on investment from multi- national capital to generate necessary revenue. The need to maintain an attractive investment environment for capital may compel them to moderate their demands for environmental regulation, protection of wildlife habitat, compensation, and royalties. These actors are also compelled to maintain what is regarded as a safe climate for investment, assuring capitalists that local opposition will not threaten their investments. Land claims institu- tions—and perhaps even Indigenous petty capitalists—thus have an objective interest in not formally opposing any proposals for extraction and in promoting this view among the local populace. To do otherwise would create an uncertain investment climate. Land claims corporations are therefore in a position in which it would run against their material interests to support socially useful and environmentally benign proposals while Studies in Political Economy 10

12 Studies in Political Economy Kiggavik proposal by critiquing the environmental impact statement issued by the company and by bringing a variety of people with experience in uranium mining to give public presentations regarding the kinds of impacts that they had experienced. It is important to note that all of the main existing Inuit organizations opposed the mine. At the time, a comprehensive land claim was nearing its final stage of negotiation but had not been settled. In Baker Lake itself, a Baker Lake Concerned Citizens Committee formed specifically to oppose the project. In 1990, after a local plebiscite showed strong local opposition to the project (more than 90 percent of eligible voters), the company suspended the project indefinitely. 20 In 1993 the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement was finalized. As a part of the finalization of the Agreement, the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut, a body that had been formed to negotiate the Agreement, was dissolved and a new body, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI), was formed to manage the land and capital that came with the claim. Additionally, three regional Inuit associations were created, which share the duties of repre- senting Inuit politically and managing Inuit lands and capital. NTI and the regional associations are organized as private, not-for-profit corporations. These organizations exert a great deal of influence and authority over mining activity in Nunavut through their management of Inuit-owned lands, appointments to management boards, and negotiation of Impact and Benefit Agreements. 21 The Kiggavik proposal remained dormant for a few years. In 1993, Urangesellschaft sold its rights to the project, which was eventually acquired by the French multinational nuclear company AREVA. After launching what was to become an intensive public relations campaign, in 2006 AREVA resumed exploration in the Kiggavik area and in 2008 submitted an official proposal to the Nunavut Impact Review Board. At the time of writing, AREVA’s proposal is mid-way through an environmental review by the Nunavut Impact Review Board. While the community response to AREVA’s proposal has been mixed and conflicted, many Inuit in Baker Lake continue to either oppose the Kiggavik proposal or at least be highly concerned by it. In February 2009, 84 residents of Baker Lake filled out comment forms for the Nunavut Impact

Review Board’s screening of AREVA’s proposal. Forty-four indicated that they did not support the proposal, 31 indicated that they support the proposal, and nine were undecided. During interviews in 2010 and 2011, numerous Elders, hunters, women, and youth from Baker Lake expressed their views about Kiggavik. Some participants indicated strong support for AREVA’s activities, primarily because of the potential employment oppor- tunities for local youth. Others expressed strong opposition to the proposal for a variety of reasons. Concerns raised included fears that an accident could result in the contamination of drinking water, fish, or wildlife; concerns that people could be contaminated by the mine through various mecha- nisms; worries that a mine in the middle of caribou migration routes could impede the ability of hunters to harvest caribou; anger about the destruc- tion of ancestral lands; and concerns that uranium from Nunavut could be used in nuclear weapons. Other participants indicated that they were inter- nally conflicted about potential uranium mining and had yet to adopt a firm position on the matter; at the same time, they acknowledged the need for employment opportunities and they continued to be concerned about environmental, health, and cultural impacts. Given substantial internal divisions within the community, it is striking that both NTI and the regional Kivalliq Inuit Association (KIA) took strong pro-uranium positions. In 2007 NTI passed a pro-uranium mining policy, which it shares with the KIA. Both began to work relatively closely with AREVA. Following a meeting in 2007, rather than voice critical concerns held by many Inuit in Baker Lake, the KIA instead proceeded to pass a resolution supporting AREVA’s proposal to enter the environmental review phase and present AREVA with a congratulatory plaque for its attempts at public consultations. 22 In 2009, NTI proceeded to enter into a number of business agreements with mining companies involving uranium ore bodies to which they held rights. 23 The KIA then began a series of open-house community consultation meetings to collect feedback from Inuit. Two meetings were held in Baker Lake in March 2010. Numerous scientists and other representatives from AREVA were invited to these meetings to answer questions. Significantly, Kulchyski and Bernauer / T R E AT I E S 13

Kulchyski and Bernauer / T R E AT I E S 15 the questions but also to change the subject, thereby derailling discussion and obstructing opposition. Some Inuit requested that critical information about uranium mining be made available and that critical and independent experts be present at future consultation meetings. Others requested that people with negative experiences with uranium mining come to speak in Baker Lake. In response to this situation, in 2009 a new nongovernmental organiza- tion (NGO) was formed with the goal of fostering public debate about uranium mining. The new NGO, Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit (Makita), included members from both Iqaluit and Baker Lake. Makita started to raise serious concerns, and Inuit criticisms of the project began to receive more public attention. Makita eventually tabled a petition calling on the Government of Nunavut (GN) to hold a public inquiry into the issue of uranium mining in the territory. The premier announced that, rather than launch a public inquiry, the GN would hold a series of consul- tation meetings in early 2011 in Baker Lake, Iqaluit, and Cambridge Bay on the topic of uranium mining, to help them formulate a more compre- hensive position on the issue. In February 2011, in the lead-up to these consultation meetings, the new leadership at NTI responded to mounting public opposition to Kiggavik by announcing to the media that NTI would revisit its pro-uranium stance. However, an official press release in March 2011 qualified this commit- ment to revisit the policy, stating that the leaders would revisit their uranium policy but would honour any legal obligations—a reference to contracts and agreements made with uranium mining and exploration firms by the previous leadership. NTI’s leadership further turned its back on NTI’s commitment to revisit the policy at the annual general meeting in November 2011. Here, President Cathy Towtongie announced that the organization no longer has plans to revise its uranium policy. This chain of events reveals that the various Inuit organizations have tended to act in ways that favour corporate interests rather than the inter- ests and aspirations of many Inuit. Despite obvious divisions among Inuit in Baker Lake, and without any serious attempt to accurately determine how the majority of the community felt about the issue, the organizations

16 Studies in Political Economy passed pro-uranium policies and entered into business agreements with the uranium industry. At later consultation meetings, critical and oppositional discussion was stifled by the over-representation of AREVA’s experts at these meetings. Surveys were administered at these meetings, which can hardly be considered a neutral context. The results of these questionable surveys are now being used by both AREVA and KIA as a justification for moving forward with the Kiggavik project. Subsequent promises to revisit pro- uranium policies were quickly abandoned with little concrete explanation. Fort Good Hope and the Mackenzie Valley Gas Project Fort Good Hope is a similar small, remote community in the NWT, occupied by Dene, or Kaschogotine , as the specific local culture is known. During the Berger Inquiry in the mid-1970s, the community was a critical locus of opposition to the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline project. A famous speech by Frank T’Seleie, who was then Chief, broke with the Dene tradition of not confronting opponents: T’Seleie accused Bob Blair, the spokesperson for the pipeline consortium, of being a “modern General Custer.” T’Seleie spoke powerfully of the inter- generational Dene peoples’ attachment to their land. Although there was support for the project from Métis in the NWT and from a few Dene leaders, the opposition among Dene was very strong and unyielding. It was in part his recognition of this that led Berger to recommend a moratorium. In 1993, Dene in the region settled a land claim or modern treaty called the Sahtu Treaty. Local corporations were set up as holders of land and capital; in Fort Good Hope the body was called Yamogha Incorporated, named after the Dene lawgiver of history or myth. Although the Dene had wanted the corporation to be under the aegis of the local community council, government had insisted it be a stand-alone body and not under the polit- ical control of the existing community organization. A few years later the pipeline project was renewed, this time as the Mackenzie Gas Project. As well as the major industry players, a consortium of local Indigenous land claim corporations, including Yamogha, formed an Aboriginal Pipeline Group (APG), which planned to take an ownership position in the project, investing directly in it and helping to ensure regional political support. National newspapers reported that Frank T’Seleie himself had been appointed a

18 Studies in Political Economy ratios (i.e., the price of natural gas in relation to the price of steel being a critical element) have made the pipeline economically unfeasible; the whole project is on hold for these reasons and not because of any position or action of the Dene leadership. Far from preparing the community to negotiate effectively with devel- opers, the Sahtu Treaty created a divided power structure that has not served Fort Good Hope well. In fact, the situation could hardly have been better for outside institutions that wanted to impose their agendas at as little cost as possible: they could choose with whom in the community they wished to negotiate, and they could find a local institution that was oriented towards an open-for-business climate and that needed the same kinds of opportu- nities that motivated the Inuit corporate bodies. That said, it should be noted that, in both cases, popular sentiment has been able to challenge the assumptions of the new class of bureaucratic, business-oriented technicians who entrenched themselves in corporate bodies created by the land claim settlements. The Inuit and Dene people appear to have maintained their priorities despite all the hats, mugs, t-shirts, trips on the land, laptop computers, and other goodies distributed by corporate inter- ests. The point, for our purposes, is that the corporate and governmental institutions created by the land claim settlements have not worked assidu- ously in the interests of their own member beneficiaries, but have become complicit with regimes of capital accumulation. That has made them poor negotiators for community benefits. After all, it is difficult to establish a strong negotiating position when you clearly require the outside party to be successful. Their complicity has made it almost impossible for them to say “no” to even the most egregious, environmentally destructive projects. Land Claims, Dispossession, and Capitalist Imperialism In both of the cases we document, there is substantial evidence that land claims corpora- tions have worked to defuse opposition to highly destructive extraction proposals. In both cases, the structural exigencies of these institutions provided them with objective interests in doing so. We are not suggesting that corporate structures and inter-regional competition alone explain this behaviour. The ideological disposition of certain Indigenous politicians and

Kulchyski and Bernauer / T R E AT I E S 19 their staff is certainly a part of the story, as are the ceaseless efforts of extrac- tive capital to court their support. Regardless, these economic structures provide a backdrop of objective interests upon which ideologies of progress and endless growth can take hold. We maintain, therefore, that modern treaties are fundamental mechanisms through which capitalist imperialism operates in Canada’s Indigenous North today. Accelerated primitive accumulation and dispossession, through energy extraction, are central to capitalist imperialism in Northern Indigenous communities. Mines and pipelines dispossess Indigenous peoples of their lands and mineral resources; associated environmental degradation wreaks havoc on subsistence economies; and resources and profits flow to capitalist centres. In the Indigenous North, this system presents itself as the racial reconfiguration and redistribution of wealth—a process that lies at the core of the project upon which Canada was founded. The racial reconfiguration of wealth in Canada involves transforming the very forms of wealth that have been the material bases of Indigenous peoples. Specifically, the land as a hunting territory, the intergenerational bonds of community, and the mode of temporality of hunting cultures (especially the extent of “leisure time” 27 ) all contradict the fundamental logic of capitalist modernity. Hunting territories have become natural resources to be capitalized on. Intergenerational communities are under pressure to “develop” into aggre- gates of self-maximizing individuals. Leisure time is eroded under a logic of increasing productivity—the capitalist work ethic. The full force of the State’s policy trajectory, every fibre of State-sponsored programs and services, works to install the logic of this reconfiguration. Paradoxically, the rewards of such drastic cultural change do not go to those who must undertake it, the Indigenous peoples. Rather, they are a step in a process that concludes with a racial redistribution of wealth, from North to South, from Indigenous peoples and land to large capital holders in the western world. Hence one of the oldest jokes in the North pertains to mines: the South gets most of the jobs, the South gets the profits, the South gets the valuable minerals, and the North is left with the shaft (and the cost of cleaning up). In broad strokes, this process reaches back to the period of British imperial control and has been extended and continued with the creation of Canada. It has

Kulchyski and Bernauer / T R E AT I E S 21 inter-regional competition put land claims institutions in a position from which they are unlikely to formally oppose any extraction proposal without a great deal of grassroots mobilization. They are also more than capable of trying to diffuse whatever grassroots opposition may exist. Further, these institutions have had their bargaining power seriously undermined by the extinguishment of Aboriginal Title to the majority of their people’s tradi- tional territory. Accordingly, they are poorly positioned to represent the interests of subsistence producers. That said, there are means by which the interests of hunters could be better represented in the face of extractive capital. Mechanisms can be put in place to increase local grassroots control over decisions related to extraction. Community plebiscites regarding extractive proposals could serve to ensure that grassroots consent—and not simply consultation—is necessary for land claims corporations to support particular extractive projects. It is worth noting that, in both of the cases that we document, grassroots activists campaigned to increase community control over decisions related to extraction. Second, grassroots organizing can be facilitated more broadly in Northern Indigenous communities. Organizing politically, outside of the structures and institutions of land claims agreements, can help communities obtain the information and resources required to make decisions that balance their needs for wage employment with the long-term viability of subsistence production. Again, in both of the cases that we document, this work has already begun. Notes 1. K. Marx, Capital Volume 1 (London: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 876. 2. Marx, Capital , p. 876. 3. D. Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); S. Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2004). 4. D. Harvey, The Limits to Capital (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982), p. 437. 5. For more on the mechanisms and implications of centralization, see F. Tester and P. Kulchyski, Tammarniit (Mistakes) (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1994); G. Wenzel, Animal Rights, Human Rights: Ecology, Economy and Ideology in the Canadian Arctic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991); P. Usher, “Staple Production and Ideology in Northern Canada,” in W.H. Melody, L. Salter, and P. Heyer, (eds.), Communications and Dependency (Norwood: Ablex Publishing, 1982). For more on conservation and dispossession, see P. Kulchyski and F. Tester, Kiumajut (Talking Back) (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007); J. Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin: Native People and Wildlife Conservation in the Northwest Territories (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007). For more on the antifur movement and the destruction of Indigenous simple commodity production, see Wenzel, Animal Rights, Human Rights.

22 Studies in Political Economy 6. Usher, “Staple Production and Ideology in Northern Canada.” 7. P. Usher, “The Class System, Metropolitan Dominance and Northern Development in Canada,” Antipode 8/3 (1976), pp. 28–32. See also H. Brody, The People’s Land: Inuit, Whites and the Eastern Arctic (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 1975); M. Watkins, (ed.), Dene Nation: The Colony Within (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977); T. Berger, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland: The Report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry (Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 1988). R. Bone, The Geography of the Canadian North (Toronto: Oxford University Press Canada, 2001). 8. Usher, “The Class System,” pp. 28–32. See also Brody, The People’s Land; Watkins, (ed.), Dene Nation: The Colony Within; Berger, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland. 9. Harvey, The New Imperialism , p. 32. 10. The issue of royalties and taxation of resource extraction also figures prominently in “devolu- tion” agreements in the Territorial North. These agreements “devolve” federal responsibilities over resources (management/regulation as well as royalties and taxation) to territorial govern- ments. To date, agreements have been concluded with the Yukon Government and the Government of the Northwest Territories. Nunavut is in the process of negotiating a devolu- tion agreement with the federal government. These agreements presumably help the territories capture monetary benefits from extraction. However, serious questions remain regarding whether or not territorial and Indigenous self-government’s natural resource revenues associ- ated with devolution will be offset by reductions in federal government transfer payments. See J. Feehan, “Natural Resource Devolution in the Territories: Current Status and Unresolved Issues,” in Abele, Courchene and Seidle, (eds.), Northern Exposure: Peoples, Powers and Prospects in Canada’s North (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2009); S. Irlbacher- Fox, Finding Dahshaa: Self-Government, Social Suffering, and Aboriginal Policy in Canada (Toronto/Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009). 11. Brody, The People’s Land ; Usher, “The Class System”; Watkins, Dene Nation: The Colony Within ; Berger, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland. 12. Berger, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland . 13. Coates, Aboriginal Land Claims in Canada (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman, 1992); Berger, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland ; Usher, “Staple Production and Ideology in Northern Canada.” 14. T. Gordon, Imperialist Canada (Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring, 2010). 15. T. Berger, Village Journey: The Report of the Alaska Native Review Commission (New York: Hill and Wang, 1985). 16. Usher, “Staple Production and Ideology in Northern Canada,” p. 185; See also M. Mitchell, From Talking Chiefs to a Native Corporate Elite: The Birth of Class and Nationalism Among Canadian Inuit (Montreal & Kingston, London, Buffalo: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996). 17. Harvey, The Limits to Capital, pp. 181–182. 18. D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry Into the Origins of Cultural Change (Walden, Oxford and Victoria: Blackwell, 1989); D. McNally, Another World is Possible: Globalization and Anti-Capitalism (Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 1996); S. Bunker and P. Ciccantell, Globalization and the Race for Resources (Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005); D. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 19. R. McPherson, New Owners in Their Own Lands: Minerals and Inuit Land Claims (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2003). 20. McPherson, New Owners in Their Own Lands . 21. J. Hicks and G. White, Nunavut: Inuit Self-determination through a Land Claim and Public Government? in J. Dahl, J. Hicks, and P. Jull, (eds.), Nunavut: Inuit Regain Control of Their Lands and Their Lives (Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, 2000). 22. “Proposed uranium mine wins KIA plaudits,” Nunatsiaq News (7 November 2008). 23. Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, “NTI grants uranium rights to Kaminak Gold , ” Press Release (7 February 2008).