The road to Nunavut
As a consequence of the Calder case, groups within the Inuit communities of the, then, Northern Territories began to get together and created Inuit organisations such as the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada and Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut.
The Inuit Tapirisat of Canada put together the first proposal for a devolved Inuit region in 1976 with "Nunavut: a proposal for the settlement of Inuit lands in the Northwest Territories" (Inuit Tapirisat of Canada 1976, p1). which presented the idea of creating a "territory, the vast majority of people within which, will be Inuit. As such, this territory and its institutions will better reflect Inuit values and perspectives than with the Northwest Territories" (Inuit Tapirisat of Canada 1976, p15). The Inuit Tapirisat of Canada put forward further draft proposals to the Canadian government in both 1977 and 1979 (Légaré 1998, p274).
Between 1976 and 1991 Inuit negotiators and negotiators from the Canadian government. Inuit negotiators insisted that two issues must be debated in tandem, "Negotiations over land claim settlements , (the Inuit negotiators) insisted, could only proceed if provision was made for the creation of their own distinct territory" (Pelly 1994).
At the beginning of the 1980's the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut took charge of all negotiations on behalf of the Inuit people and after ten years of intense negotiations between the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut and the Canadian government agreed a land claims agreement-in-principle , in April 1990 (Légaré 1998, p275). The finalised "Nunavut Land Claims Agreement" was signed by the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut and the Canadian government in December 1991 (Légaré 1998, p275). This agreement setted both the land claim and also made it clear that there was a "need to establish a new territorial government in the central and eastern Arctic" (Légaré 1998, p275).
The agreement, signed by both parties, was taken to referendum in the area which would become Nunavut to be voted on in November 1992 (Légaré 2008, p345). Each home in the area which would become Nunavut was provided with a 230 page volume which described in detail the agreement in both English and Inuktitut (Pelly 1994). The outcome of the referendum was a 69% vote in favour of the creation of Nunavut (Légaré 2008, p345).
From there, with a referendum voted for, the process of enacting the Nunavut Land claims agreement began and was completed in 1999. Nunavut gained full political autonomy under Ottawa on 1st of April 1999 (Légaré 2008, p356). After the political autonomy of Nunavut was granted the elected government began a round of consultation with the population regarding what they wanted from Nunavut, which we shall look at in the section "The Bathurst Mandate", click the button below to go to this section.