The Drury Report: Constitutional Development for Whom?

Abstract

In August of 1977, the Honourable C.M. Drury was appointed the Prime Minister's Special Representative for Constitutional Development in the Northwest Territories. He was instructed to try to gain a consensus in the Territories on institutional changes which would address the frustrations associated with a colonial, hence jurisdictionally weak, non-democratic and only minimally legitimate territorial government; hamstrung local governments; the overbearing political presence of the federal government; and stalemated native claims. Mr. Drury's Report,' issued in March of 1980, commands attention in that its faithfulness to the assumptions of his original instructions is sure to recommend it very strongly to the authors of those instructions, the Liberals who have recently returned to power in Ottawa. In this way, the wave of the future is very likely to run with the tide of the past decade. This prospect suggests an administrative rationalization and a gradual devolution of authority to the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT), but not a resolution of the basic conflicts of northern politics.