Made in Nunavut

On April 1, 1999, after decades of dreams and negotiations and years of planning, the Inuit-dominated territory of Nunavut came into being in Canada’s Eastern and Central Arctic. This was a momentous occasion, signifying not only the first change to the map of Canada in over half a century but also a remarkable achievement in terms of creating a new government from the ground up.

Made in Nunavut provides the first behind-the-scenes account of how the Government of Nunavut was designed and implemented. Written by leading authorities on governance in the Canadian Arctic, this book pays particular attention to the most distinctive and innovative organizational design feature of the new government – the decentralization of offices and functions that would normally be located in the capital to small communities spread out across the vast territory. It also critically assesses whether decentralization has delivered “better” government for the people of Nunavut.

Jack Hicks is a social research consultant and a university and college lecturer. He has worked in a range of senior positions in Nunavut, and has written and presented widely about public policies across the circumpolar Arctic (especially Greenland and Nunavut). His primary research interests are the social determinants of mental health and suicide behaviour among Indigenous children and youth, the negotiation and implementation of Indigenous rights agreements, the political economy of the governments and other institutions arising from such agreements, and the comparative analysis of the political economy of non-renewable resource development across the circumpolar Arctic.

Graham White is a professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. He has written widely on Canadian politics, mostly about governmental institutions such as legislatures and cabinets at the provincial/territorial level. He has been writing about the politics of the Canadian Arctic since the late 1980s. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including Cycling into Saigon: The Conservative Transition in Ontario (co-authored with David R. Cameron) and Cabinets and First Ministers. He is a former president of the Canadian Political Science Association and is currently English co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Political Science.