Watkins, the Dene, and Northern political economy

Abstract

In the mid-1970s, Mel Watkins was recruited by the Dene of the Northwest Territories in their opposition to the construction of a natural gas pipeline system in their homeland. The experience led him to a major breakthrough in the staple analysis as applied to Canada as he revised the analysis to take Indigenous land rights into account. Watkins’ time in Yellowknife was also the beginning of his lifelong commitment to redress injustices experienced by Indigenous people.

Keywords:

• Berger inquiry
• Indigenous
• Mel Watkins
• political economy
• staple theory

Notes

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Kelly Crichton, Glen Bell, and Peter Russell for sharing their recollections and understanding of Mel’s northern work, and to Ed Broadbent and Donald Swartz for very helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Canada, Privy Council Office, “Foreign Ownership.”

2 On the Berger inquiry and Dene politics, see Abele, “The Immediate and Lasting Impact.”

3 A good overview of the genealogy and contemporary elaboration of the staple theory appears in Watkins, “The Staple Theory Revisited” 2006 (1977).

4 Watkins, “A Staple Theory of Economic Growth.”

5 See Cox, “Civilizations.”

6 For example, Indian mobilization had prompted a Special Committee of the House of Commons to address their concerns in 1946, leading to major revisions to the Indian Act in 1951. The Indian-Eskimo Association, involving a number of Canadian academics, was founded in 1960.

7 Rea, The Political Economy of the Canadian North.

8 Watkins, “From Underdevelopment to Development.”

9 Canada, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland, 117.

10 Although the Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic also used the Berger Inquiry to assert their land rights, their approach and strategy in doing so differed. See Usher, “Northern Development.”

11 The evidence of the first four, who testified on behalf of Dene Nation, is reproduced in Watkins, 1977; the evidence of Hugh Brody and Peter Usher is in the Inquiry Transcripts (20 & 21 July 1976).

12 Puxley, A Tribute.

13 Watkins, 1977a.; Canada, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland.

14 Watkins, 1977b, “The Staple Theory Revisited,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12, no. 5, 83–95.

15 Watkins 1977a, 55–9.

16 Mel Watkins, 1977a.; Canada, Northern Frontier.

17 For example, Stanford, ed. The Staple Theory at 50; W. Clement, ed. Understanding Canada.

18 See Watkins, “Canadian Capitalism in Transition.” The reason for this lies outside the scope of this paper, but it might be related to the general difficulty the majority society has in coming to terms with Indigenous land rights and the realities of Indigenous experience of Canadian history. See Abele and Stasiulis, “Canada as a ‘White Settler Colony.’”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Frances Abele

Frances Abele teaches in the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Peter Usher

Peter Usher was an advisor to the Committee for Original Peoples’ Entitlement in Inuvik during the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, which was commissioned by the Government of Canada in 1974.