Managing Canada's North: Challenges and Opportunities: 16th National Seminar

Nora T. Corley is a librarian in Ottawa.

This offprint from Canadian Public Administration (vol. 27, no. 2, summer 1984, pp. 148-252) constitutes the papers specially prepared for the sixteenth National Seminar of the Institute of Public Administration in Canada. The topic, “Managing Canada’s North,” has been relevant since administrative structures were first put in place, and covers highly complex subjects. The first paper, the rapporteur’s summary and comments, by L.-E. Hamelin, a northern expert and the author of Canadian Nordicity (Montreal, 1979), covers the “geographic traits affecting the management of the North,” the “political administrative structures of the North,” “ideological predicaments,” “management modes,” “management in New Quebec,” and “home rule in Greenland,” which was covered in an off-the-agenda presentation. “Northern Problems on Canadian Opportunities,” by Mike Moore and Gary Vanderhaden, is written from the point of view of civil servants in the government of the Northwest Territories. E.M.R. Cotterill writes, in “The Territorial North,” of the numerous differences between the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories, many of which are not recognized when decisions covering their future are made; three common issues, however, are addressed: the evolution of government, aboriginal rights and Native self-determination, and resource control and management. In “Managing Canada’s North: The Case of the Provincial North,” Geoffrey R. Weller discusses the problems of managing the northern regions of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Newfoundland, all of which are quite different. “The Public Service in the North,” by C.E.S. Franks, discusses federal, territorial, and provincial public services, and the problems of hiring Native peoples for government employment. The final paper is “Territorial Bureaucracy: Trends in Public Administration in the N.W.T.,” by M.S. Wittington, and it lists four themes: decentralization, indigenization (a dreadful new buzz-word meaning, one presumes, recruiting Native people for public service), departmentalization, and professionalization, all discussed at length. The Foreword and the Summary and Comments are in both English and French, the papers are in English only. At the end are listed the co-chairmen and participants in the seminar, and a complete list of seminars sponsored by the Institute.