By Nick Leeson, Justin Burt, Julian SpearChief-Morris & Mariana Gallegos Dupuis
In June 2023, following nearly two decades of consultation, revisions, and public processes, the Nunavut Planning Commission (NPC) completed and submitted the Recommended Nunavut Land Use Plan (RNLUP). Under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA)[1] and the Nunavut Planning and Project Assessment Act (NuPPAA), the Plan requires review and approval by three signatories: Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, the Government of Nunavut, and the Government of Canada (the Signatories). Yet nearly three years later, the Plan remains neither accepted nor rejected.
That delay is no longer neutral.
Every month of continued non-decision allows development and mineral interests to continue to accumulate, weakens the practical effect of the eventual plan, and increases the cost and difficulty of future implementation. What is at stake is not simply administrative delay. It is whether a treaty-and-statute-based planning regime, carefully negotiated and built to guide land use across Nunavut, will be allowed to operate before it is overtaken by the very development pressures it was meant to organize.
A Plan Built through Years of Work
The RNLUP did not appear overnight. Over roughly seventeen years, the Nunavut Planning Commission carried out community engagement, technical studies, public hearings, written consultation, and repeated rounds of revision. The resulting plan reflects priorities consistently identified by Nunavummiut, including food security, wildlife and habitat protection, the preservation of Inuit culture and traditional practices, sustainable economic development, and increasing employment opportunities.[2]
That long process matters. The issue is not that the plan may need more work. It is that the process has already reached the point where the Signatories are legally required to decide, and they have not done so.
The Treaty and the Law Require a Decision
Land use planning in Nunavut is not a policy luxury. It is built into the legal architecture of the NLCA and NuPPAA. Article 11 of the NLCA establishes a structured planning regime intended to result in an operative land use plan. It provides that, once a draft or revised plan is received, the Signatories “shall, as soon as practicable”[3] either accept the plan or return it with written reasons. NuPPAA carries that same structure into statute.[4]
That language matters. It means the legal framework contemplates movement toward decision and implementation—not indefinite suspension at the point when a decision is due. The issue is not whether the RNLUP must be approved exactly as drafted. It is whether, after the Commission has completed its work and submitted the plan for decision, the Signatories can lawfully leave the process unresolved. On a fair reading of the treaty and statute, they cannot.
Delay Changing the Landscape in Real Time and Real Consequences for Inuit
The practical consequences of delay are already visible. Land use planning is supposed to operate proactively: it is meant to provide up-front clarity about where development may proceed, where it should be limited, and how community priorities are to be respected. Without an approved plan in place, that sequence is reversed. Interests are asserted first and dealt with later.
That matters because the RNLUP designates certain areas for limited, conditional, and mixed use. Those designations were meant to help protect areas important to wildlife, harvesting, culture, and community priorities. While the plan remains unresolved, those protections remain inoperative and development continues apace. Public reporting has already highlighted a recent mining rush, including claims staked in areas that would be designated for limited use if the RNLUP were approved.[5] The overlap reportedly includes areas important to wildlife, harvesting, and cultural use. As those interests continue to accumulate in the absence of an operative plan, the practical ability to protect such areas is weakened, and the likelihood of later conflict, compensation demands, or other legal consequences increases.
The longer this continues, the harder the plan will be to implement in any meaningful way. Existing interests cannot simply be wished away. Later implementation may require accommodation, compensation, grandfathering, or other costly workarounds. Delay, in other words, does not preserve flexibility. It narrows options and raises costs for the community.
This is especially significant as devolution approaches. If authority over lands and resources shifts before the inaugural land use plan is in place, Nunavut may inherit a more encumbered, more contested, and more expensive implementation landscape than it otherwise would have. Delay today is therefore not just a missed procedural step. It is a way of making future governance harder, more contested and more costly.
Why the Issue is Especially Timely Now
This issue is also newly urgent in the current federal policy climate. Ottawa is now explicitly prioritizing major projects, critical minerals, Arctic infrastructure, and northern sovereignty, including through the Building Canada Act and the Major Projects Office[6]. In that environment, an approved land use plan would not hinder responsible northern development; it would help support it. It would provide the kind of up-front clarity, lawful structure, and community-grounded certainty that major projects and infrastructure investment increasingly require. In other words, bringing the RNLUP into operation would not be a brake on development. It would be one of the clearest ways to make future development in Nunavut more credible, more efficient, and more durable.
The timing of this issue also matters. With the NTI presidential byelection scheduled for May 27, 2026[7], Inuit are entitled to hear clearly from candidates whether they support bringing the RNLUP to decision without further delay. The issue is also timely federally. Nunavut MP Lori Idlout previously called on Ottawa to approve the Plan and raised concern that, in the absence of an approved land use framework, claims may continue to be staked before consultation obligations are triggered[8]. She has since said that joining the governing Liberals gives her a stronger voice with ministers[9]. These developments underscore that continued non-decision is now a live public-accountability issue in Nunavut.
Legal Consequences are Becoming Harder to Ignore
Where a legal regime requires a decision or action to be taken, an extended and unexplained failure to act can carry legal consequences, especially where the delay undermines the intent, effectiveness, or proper functioning of the regulatory framework. That is the concern here.
The delay is no longer occurring in the abstract. It is now weakening the effectiveness of the overall planning framework, increasing implementation costs, and allowing further conflict to accumulate. In those circumstances, prolonged non-performance of treaty and statutory obligations may give rise to legal remedies including declaratory relief,[10] mandamus-style relief, and, in an appropriate case, more serious remedial consequences where continued delay can be shown to have caused concrete harms—for example, impacts to harvesting, cultural or wildlife— or increased future implementation costs through later accommodation, tenure relinquishment compensation or other remedial measures.
A declaration would not require the Signatories to approve the RNLUP, but rather would clarify that the process cannot lawfully remain in a state of prolonged non-decision without justification. A grant of mandamus relief would compel performance of a legal duty where the conditions for that remedy are met, including where a public duty exists, the duty is owed to the applicant, and the duty has not been performed. The Supreme Court clarified in Law Society of Saskatchewan v Abrametz that delay becomes actionable where it is inordinate, unjustified and results in significant prejudice, especially where the prejudice undermines the fairness or purpose of the proceeding.[11] Similarly, in Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated v Canada (Attorney General), the Nunavut Court of Appeal emphasized that treaty obligations must have meaningful effect and may, in an appropriate case, support monetary relief.[12] Courts have also confirmed that mandamus relief may be available even where statutory discretion is involved, so long as the remedy compels a decision rather than dictating its outcome, as illustrated in Apotex Inc v Canada (Attorney General) and Prosper Petroleum Ltd v Alberta, where the Court ordered the Lieutenant Governor in Council to make a decision without prescribing its substance.[13]
The Signatories Need to Decide
The greater risk now is not acting too soon. It is continuing to wait while more interests accumulate, more conflict builds, and the practical value of the eventual plan is diminished. No land use plan is ever perfect at the moment of approval, and the legal framework already accounts for that concern through its many mechanisms for amendment, review, and variation after approval.[14]
The Signatories do not need to agree that the RNLUP is flawless. They need to make a decision. If they do not, delay will continue to harden interests on the ground, increase future implementation costs, and heighten legal and political risk—especially where harvesting, cultural, wildlife, and other protected interests are affected. The stronger risk is not moving too soon. It is waiting too long.
Woodward & Company Lawyers LLP has long supported Indigenous clients in advancing their inherent, Aboriginal, and Treaty rights—particularly in relation to land governance, consultation obligations, and resource development. We are actively engaged in legal and policy discussions around mining, resource development, and Indigenous consent, including the implications of land use planning regimes.
If you have questions about the RNLUP, the NLCA, the NuPPAA, or how these frameworks intersect with Indigenous rights and land use, we invite you to contact the authors of this article or connect with any member of our legal team.
Disclaimer: This article provides general information only. It is not meant for use as legal advice for specific legal issues or problems. We provide this for educational purposes only. For a more fulsome discussion on the above-noted issues, please refer to the paper commissioned by Friends of Land use Planning title “Too Important to Stall: Delay, Devolution and the Case for Moving Forward with the Recommended Nunavut Land Use Plan”, commissioned by Friends of Land Use Planning and published May 19, 2026. If you need legal help, please contact us at reception@woodwardandcompany.com or 250-383-2356.
[1] Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, SC 1993 c 29 [NLCA];
[2] Nunavut Planning Commission, Recommended Nunavut Land Use Plan (Iqaluit: Nunavut Planning Commission, June 2023) at 9.
[3] NLCA, art 11.5.6.
[4] Nunavut Planning and Project Assessment Act, SC 2013, c 14, s 54(3) (in force 2015).
[5] Samuel Wat, “The push to get the world’s largest land use plan in Nunavut signed amid mining rush” CBC News (23 March 2026), online: CBC News https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavut-land-use-plan-mining-rush-9.7136841; Chloe Williams, “For 19 years, Nunavut has been working on the largest land use plan in the world. Industry is moving faster” The Narwhal (14 August 2025), online: https://thenarwhal.ca/nunavut-land-use-plan-stalls/.
[6] Leeson, Nick, Patrick McCaugherty and Christa Croos, “Bill C-5 and the Building Canada Act: Deregulation in a ‘National Interest’ Costume?” Law360 Canada. Online: https://www.law360.ca/ca/articles/2358520
[7] Nunatsiaq News. “10 Candidates put their names forward for NTI presidential byelection” (April 21, 2026) online: https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/10-candidates-put-their-names-forwardfor-nti-presidential-byelection/
[8] Nunatsiaq News, “Idlout calls on Ottawa to sign land use plan protecting Inuit hunting grounds (Aug 15, 2026), online: https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/idlout-calls-on-ottawa-to-sign-land-use-plan-protecting-inuit-hunting-grounds/
[9] CBC News, “Here’s how Lori Idlout’s Nunavut constituents feel about her joining the Liberals” (March 16, 2026), online: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavummiut-lori-idlout-9.7130019
[10] Manitoba Métis Federation Inc v Canada (Attorney General), 2013 SCC 14.
[11] Law Society of Saskatchewan v Abrametz, 2022 SCC 29 at paras 38-44 on Blencoe v British Columbia (Human Rights Commission), 2000 SCC 44 at paras 101, 104.
[12] Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated v Canada (Attorney General), 2014 NUCA 2.
[13] Apotex Inc v Canada (Attorney General), [1994] 1 FC 742 (FCA).
[14] Nunavut Planning and Project Assessment Act, SC 2013, c 14, ss 48, 59–67.