Arctic Yearbook 2014 | Page 484

484 Arctic Yearbook 2014 ‘superboard’. With fewer local members, the superboard potentially implied diminished aboriginal powers. Unaware that this proposal would be bundled with devolution until the bill was read in Parliament in January, most of the NWT’s aboriginal governments were incensed by what they saw as Ottawa’s last-minute and unilateral move. Ottawa responded coolly, claiming simply to be acting on a long-standing recommendation to rationalise the NWT’s regulatory system. For its part, the GNWT disavowed the superboard but perhaps tellingly it also disavowed responsibility for informing its aboriginal partners that Ottawa would link the