With the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and contractual rights in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, the Canadian government has faced increasing demands across the country for changes to its overall rights policy, and in particular to demand the surrender or removal of Aboriginal rights. In 1985, the federal government established a task force to conduct national consultations and recommend revisions to its claims policy. In late 1986, the federal Cabinet adopted a revised Comprehensive Demand Policy, which included a number of changes in favour of negotiations with the Inuit. In 1973, the Tapirisat Inuit of Canada (ITC) began researching the use and occupation of Inuit lands in the Arctic. Three years later, in 1976, the ITC proposed the creation of a territory of Nunavut and the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission, which recommended dividing the Northwest Territories into two electoral districts: the Western Arctic (now the Northwest Territories) and Nunatsiaq (now Nunavut). The Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut (TFN) negotiated the Land Claims Agreement with the federal government in 1982. Voting in the Northwest Territories determined the establishment of Nunavut with a majority of 56%. TFN and federal and state government representatives signed the Basic Land Claims Agreement in 1990. In 1992, the TFN and federal negotiators agreed on the essential elements of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.
On the 25th. In May 1993, Paul Quassa, then President of the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut, Brian Mulroney, then Prime Minister of Canada, and Tom Siddon, then Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, signed the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. On July 9, 1993, the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the Nunavut Act were passed by the Parliament of Canada and received Royal Assent. In 1998, amendments to the Nunavut Act were passed by Parliament and received the Royal Grant. On April 1, 1999, Nunavut became a reality with an independent government. [5] In the spring of 1980, ICT and Canada agreed to resume negotiations on the Nunavut land claim, with the dimension that the Inuit proposal to create the territory of Nunavut would be dealt with as part of a political development process in the NWT, separate from land claim negotiations, but along with those. When land claim negotiations began in 1980, there was no framework agreement with the Inuit setting out the elements and scope of a potential settlement of the claims. there was no formal inter-departmental mandate process for Confederation; and there was no consideration of how the creation of a Nunavut territory might affect the form and content of a land claims agreement.
For Inuit, the land claims path and the political development path were designed to shift the levers of political control from Ottawa and Yellowknife to Nunavut. The 42 articles and nearly 300 pages of the Nunavut Agreement, which is a comprehensive land claims agreement or a modern treaty, define the terms of a trade. In return for the rights and benefits set out in the Agreement, the Inuit agreed to assign, release and assign all their claims, rights, title and interest in the lands and waters in the settlement area to the Crown of Rights of Canada and undertook never to bring legal proceedings based on such claims, rights, title and interest […].
