Staples Theory, Oil, and Indigenous Alternative Development in the Northwest Territories by Donna Bush B.A., Carleton University, 1990 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Political Science Donna Bush, 2017 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Staples Theory, Oil, and Indigenous Alternative Development in the Northwest Territories by Donna Bush B.A., Carleton University, 1990 Supervisory Committee Dr. James Lawson, Supervisor Department of Political Science Dr. Michael Asch, Departmental Member Department of Anthropology and Political Science iii Abstract Staples theory has been used as a framework to explain the historical establishment and political economy of Canada and other “new” countries, based on the concept that Canada has been and continues to be built on an economy of resource extraction. The theory has been applied on both a macro and a micro scale to regions of Canada that have specialized in the extraction of cod, wheat, fur, and oil and gas. Two foundational academics of staples theory, Harold A. Innis and Mel Watkins, spent time in the northern region of Canada now known as the Northwest Territories (NWT) and, among other researchers, applied a staples approach to various periods of the region’s economic development. The application of staples theory in northern Canada, however, is problematic, particularly in view of the territory’s predominantly Indigenous, Inuit, and Métis population. A staples framework tends to ignore, or underplay, a fundamental reality in the NWT: the original political economy of the region was based on Indigenous values of communal trading and sharing in a subsistence economy. Most importantly, the Indigenous economy was controlled and distributed by the Indigenous people as they lived on, and carefully managed, the land and resources of the North. A theoretical approach that centers on the extraction and commodification of resources in the North by white traders and settlers who take over the land, obscures the critical questions of who owns and cares for the land and how it is ‘developed’. iv Table of Contents Supervisory Committee ......................................................................................................... ii Abstract ............................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ................................................................................................................. iv Dedication ............................................................................................................................ vi Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 .............................................................................................................................. 7 Economic Theory - Classical Economics ...............................................................................7 Origins of Staples Theory ................................................................................................. 15 Innis ................................................................................................................................17 Mackintosh ...................................................................................................................... 22 Economics and Staples Theory 1950s ................................................................................ 26 Baldwin ........................................................................................................................... 29 Hirschman ....................................................................................................................... 32 Easterbrook and Aitken, and Gordon ................................................................................ 34 Watkins ........................................................................................................................... 35 Neo-Colonialism and Internal Colonialism ........................................................................ 39 Other Neo-Innisians ......................................................................................................... 41 Levitt ...............................................................................................................................42 The Naylor-Clement Thesis ............................................................................................... 43 Watkins and the Dene Nation .......................................................................................... 47 Fiscal Linkages ................................................................................................................. 49 McNally ........................................................................................................................... 53 Free Trade ....................................................................................................................... 56 A Mature Staples Economy or a Post-Staples Economy? .................................................... 56 Kellogg ............................................................................................................................ 58 The Critique of White-Settler Theory ................................................................................ 60 A Carbon Trap and the Unsustainability of Staples ............................................................ 64 Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................................ 66 Aboriginal Title ................................................................................................................ 66 Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................................ 73 History of the Northwest Territories ................................................................................. 73 The Fur Trade .................................................................................................................. 74 The Arrival of Settlers ...................................................................................................... 77 Canadian Government in the NWT, 1920-1950 ................................................................. 83 The CANOL Road .............................................................................................................. 86 NWT Governance ............................................................................................................. 88 Settlement in the 1950s ................................................................................................... 89 Indigenous resistance ...................................................................................................... 90 v The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline ......................................................................................... 92 The 1980s Pipeline ......................................................................................................... 101 Land-Claim Agreements ................................................................................................. 103 Chapter 4 .......................................................................................................................... 109 Staples Theory in the NWT ............................................................................................. 109 Innis’s staples approach ................................................................................................. 109 Berger and Asch ............................................................................................................. 113 Watkins ......................................................................................................................... 123 Abele and Stasiulis ......................................................................................................... 127 Chapter 5 .......................................................................................................................... 132 Capitalism, staples theory and the environment ............................................................. 132 Accumulation by dispossession ...................................................................................... 138 Dene mode of life .......................................................................................................... 144 Chapter 6 .......................................................................................................................... 152 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 152 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................... 156 vi Dedication To my Dad, Dave Bush, One of the good guys. The hardest-working and smartest man I’ve ever known. Rest in Peace. Introduction The black, tar-like substance that oozed along the banks of the Deh Cho River in the Sahtu region of what is now known as Canada’s Northwest Territories was known