Is Valcourt serious about Nunavut devolution? – Nunatsiaq News
“Until this past Oct. 3, the federal government’s approach to Nunavut devolution was simple: rag the puck and keep stalling.”
Do Ottawa officials now believe that Nunavut has recovered from the underfunded, understaffed mess that emerged in the years that followed the territory’s creation on April 1, 1999?
That’s one way to interpret Bernard Valcourt’s apparent conversion to the belief that it’s now desirable to transfer big new powers over Crown lands and natural resources from Ottawa to Nunavut, through devolution.
The word “devolution” has a long history in northern Canada, dating to the 1970s. It means the transfer of any power from the federal government to a territory. For the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, the last big one was for hospitals, nursing stations and health care, completed in 1988. Another, completed in 1995, put Arctic airports under territorial government control.
Read More: http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674is_valcourt_serious_about_nunavut_devolution/
