Sound familiar?

A well-respected writer on Northern affairs points out the reason why the two sides haven't been able to negotiate an agreement on funding. And it's a huge checkmark in the "PMPM hypocrisy" column:

Mr. Berger accuses the federal government of using technicalities to impose its will. He points out an arbitration board established by the land claim has never met because Ottawa refuses to be bound by it.

“The Inuit can be forgiven for seeing the refusal to arbitrate the issue of adequate funding as a mechanism for simply imposing Canada's determination as to appropriate funding levels,” Mr. Berger wrote.

What's left are talks where one side seeks as much as it can and the other tries to get away as lightly as possible. What's lost is what Nunavut's land claim was supposed to be.

Nunavut may be easy to ignore based on its seat count...but sometimes, things line up perfectly to apply pressure on Ottawa, and the timing couldn't be better for Nunavut now. Ottawa's actions toward its newest territory are stunningly similar to the U.S.' softwood lumber position that Martin considers to be "nonsense"...and if any meaningful public attention gets directed to the contradiction, Nunavut may soon be one of the few groups to manage to force PMPM to keep a promise.