This dissertation considers the incommensurable interests of people, fossil capital, federal energy politics, and place in Northern Canada during the 1970s. By the late 1960s, the insatiable North American appetite for fossil fuels had turned its attention toward the Arctic region. After the discovery of rich deposits in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in 1968, largescale energy projects were proposed to access and exploit these Arctic natural resources. Canada participated in this northern oil rush; an exploration of oil and gas in the Arctic regions was accelerated in the early 1970s. The next challenge involved transporting the oil and gas to southern markets. In 1974, the Canadian federal government initiated the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry to investigate the social, environmental, and economic effects of the pipeline routes proposed by a consortium of American and Canadian oil companies through the Mackenzie River Valley in the Northwest Territories where it would connect with existing pipeline infrastructure in northern Alberta. The Inquiry’s report recommended against immediate construction, encouraging instead a ten-year moratorium. Inquiry commissioner Thomas Berger’s report rationalized the delay to make time for settling Indigenous land claims in the region and for taking conservation measures to protect some key areas in the Mackenzie River Valley. In this dissertation, I examine how the discussion around pipeline construction shaped the meaning of the North, self-determination, and cultural recognition. In this dissertation, I particularly focus on how Indigenous peoples asserted their claims by rejecting state-driven policies and the interests of fossil-fuel capitalism in the North. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Through the close reading of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry hearings, I examine how the discussion around energy development shaped the 1970s’ contentious Canadian politics of nation and North. Central to this debate, I focus on how Indigenous peoples asserted their land claims by challenging and refusing the settler state policies and the interests of fossil-fuel capitalism in the western Northwest Territories in the 1970s. By using the Inquiry process, northern Indigenous peoples challenged the idea that the state had a legitimate authority to decide and control the future or destiny of a territory or peoples in its defined borders.

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In recent decades, the truth commission has become a mechanism used by states to address historical injustices. However, truth commissions are rarely used in established democracies, where the commission of inquiry model is favoured. I argue that established democracies may be more amenable to addressing historical injustices that continue to divide their populations if they see the truth commission mechanism not as a unique mechanism particular to the transitional justice setting, but as a specialized form of a familiar mechanism, the commission of inquiry. In this framework, truth commissions are distinguished from other commissions of inquiry by their symbolic acknowledgement of historical injustices, and their explicit “social function” to educate the public about those injustices in order to prevent their recurrence. Given that Canada has established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on the Indian Residential Schools legacy, I consider the TRC’s mandate, structure and ability to fulfill its social function, particularly the daunting challenge of engaging the non-indigenous public in its work. I also provide a legal history of a landmark Canadian public inquiry, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, run by Tom Berger. As his Inquiry demonstrated, with visionary leadership and an effective process, a public inquiry can be a pedagogical tool that promotes social accountability for historical injustices. Conceiving of the truth commission as a form of public inquiry provides a way to consider the transitional justice literature on truth commissions internationally along with the experiences of domestic commissions of inquiry to assemble strategies that may assist the current TRC in its journey.

In recent decades, the truth commission has become a mechanism used by states to address historical injustices. However, truth commissions are rarely used in established democracies, where the commission of inquiry model is favoured. I argue that established democracies may be more amenable to addressing historical injustices that continue to divide their populations if they see the truth commission mechanism not as a unique mechanism particular to the transitional justice setting, but as a specialized form of a familiar mechanism, the commission of inquiry. In this framework, truth commissions are distinguished from other commissions of inquiry by their symbolic acknowledgement of historical injustices, and their explicit “social function” to educate the public about those injustices in order to prevent their recurrence. Given that Canada has established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on the Indian Residential Schools legacy, I consider the TRC’s mandate, structure and ability to fulfill its social function, particularly the daunting challenge of engaging the non-indigenous public in its work. I also provide a legal history of a landmark Canadian public inquiry, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, run by Tom Berger. As his Inquiry demonstrated, with visionary leadership and an effective process, a public inquiry can be a pedagogical tool that promotes social accountability for historical injustices. Conceiving of the truth commission as a form of public inquiry provides a way to consider the transitional justice literature on truth commissions internationally along with the experiences of domestic commissions of inquiry to assemble strategies that may assist the current TRC in its journey.