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Politics on the Last Frontier: Consociationalism in the Northwest Territories*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Gurston Dacks
Gurston Dacks
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Abstract

It is widely held in the Northwest Territories that consensus rather than partisanship may be the most appropriate principle to guide the anticipated restructuring of the Territories' government. This note argues to the contrary that the social basis for consensus politics is absent in the NWT and that present practice in the Legislative Assembly of the NWT owes more to nonpartisanship than to consensus and does not predict a consensual future. However, this practice also does not necessarily point to a parliamentary system in the future; this study identifies four alternative systems as possibilities. It argues that, whatever the format of the Assembly, consociationalism, including significant devolution of power to local governments, represents the most promising direction to explore because it reflects the Territories' social structure and addresses the fundamental concerns of the cultural communities of the NWT.

Résumé

On croit généralement que c'est le consensus et non l'esprit de parti qui devrait servir de principe de base à l'éventuelle restructuration du gouvernement des Territoires du Nord-Ouest. Dans cette texte, l'auteur soutient au contraire que, dans les Territoires, la base sociale nécessaire à la politique de consensus est absente et que la pratique actuelle à l'Assemblée législative ne semble pas présager un avenir consensuel. Toutefois, cette pratique ne semble pas non plus indiquer nécessairement un avenir parlementaire. On identifie done quatre systèmes possibles. L'auteur y soutient que, quelque soit le format de l'Assemblée, les voies les plus prometteuses semblent être la dévolution du pouvoir au gouvernement local et le consociationalisme, parce qu'elles reflètent la structure sociale des Territoires et qu'elles s'adressent aux intérêts fondamentaux de ses communautés.

Type
Notes
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 345 - 361
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1986

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References

1 This study assumes that division will occur, because it enjoys broad support among the Inuit, whose leaders have pursued it most effectively to date. However, as the costs and problems of division have not been well publicised among the Inuit. their enthusiasm for division may well wane as they gain a fuller appreciation of its implications. It may also be that terms of division satisfactory to residents of the western NWT cannot be negotiated. This study neither predicts the outcome of the division debate nor passes judgment on the merits of division.

2 The Dene Nation and the Métis Association of the NWT, Public Government for the People of the North (revised: Yellowknife: Dene Nation and MANWT, 1982), 5.Google Scholar

3 Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, In All Fairness: A Native Claims Policy (Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1981), 19.Google Scholar

4 The approximate ethnic composition of the NWT is Inuit 34 per cent: Dene 18 per cent; Metis 10 per cent, and non-aboriginal 38 percent. Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Canada's North—The Reference Manual (Ottawa: Supply and Service Canada, 1983), 3–4.Google Scholar

5 Shils, Edward, “Consensus,” in Sills, David (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 3 (New York: Macmillan and the Free Press, 1968), 260.Google Scholar

6 Malloch, Lesley, Dene Government Past and Future (Yellowknife: Western Constitutional Forum, 1984). 11–15.Google Scholar

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8 Ibid.,138.

9 In this sense, traditional Dene politics resembled the forms usually found among North American Indians. See, for example, Boldt, Menno and Long, J. Anthony, “Tribal Traditions and European-Western Political Ideologies: The Dilemma of Canada's Native Indians,” this JOURNAL 17 (1984), 541–44.Google Scholar

10 Ninth Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories. Debates, Fourth Session, February 17. 1981, 446-48.

11 Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories. Rules of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories (Yellowknife: n.d.).

12 Baldwin, Susan, “A Procedural Clerk Goes North,” Canadian Parliamentary Review (Autumn, 1983). 28.Google Scholar

13 Peter Allen, “Political Development in the Northwest Territories,” paper presented to the Institute of Public Administration of Canada Conference, Regina, Saskatchewan, August 1983, 13.

14 The absence of parties makes balanced regional representation on the Executive Council easier to obtain in that it makes all MLAs eligible to serve. However, it does not guarantee balance. For example, at the time of writing, five of the members of the Council represent either the Mackenzie delta or the Keewatin while the entire rest of the Territories is only represented by three members, and Yellowknife by none at all.

15 Allen, “Political Development in the Northwest Territories,” 12.

16 News/North(Yellowknife), March I, 1985.

17 Tenth Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, Debates, First Session, February 17, 1984. 396.

18 I am indebted for this thought to Ned Franks of Queens University.

19 Expositions of the concept are to be found in McRae, Kenneth (ed.), Consociational Democracy: Political Accommodation in Segmented Societies (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lijphart, Arend, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Lijphart, Arend, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Milne, R. S., Politics in Ethnically Bipolar States (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1981). chap. 8.Google Scholar

20 This was one of the recommendations of the Special Representative for Constitutional Development in the Northwest Territories. See his Report (Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1979), 34–48.Google Scholar

21 Lijphart, , Democracy in Plural Societies, 25.Google Scholar

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24 Asch, Michael and Dacks, Gurston. “The Relevance of Consociationalism for the Western NWT” (Yellowknife: Western Constitutional Forum, 1985).Google Scholar

25 Public Government for the People of the North, 9–10.

26 Milne, , Politics in Ethnically Bipolar States, 159.Google Scholar

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