INQ Research Chair on Northern Sustainable Development

The INQ Research Chair on Northern Sustainable Development seeks to enhance knowledge of northern issues and reframe development models to inform decision making by the provincial and federal governments and northern institutions and communities with a view to sustainable development.

The North holds tremendous economic, cultural, and symbolic potential, and the development of its resources has been a driver of Canada’s economy since the 1950s. However, although northern resources have clearly benefitted southern Québec and Canada, the benefits have been more limited for northern inhabitants. Indigenous communities and newer, resource-based communities are still too often at the mercy of development models designed in large part with a short-term perspective. These communities share several key characteristics: a peripheral position with respect to decision making, limited control over resource development, and dependence on government transfers. The North lacks infrastructure and investment, and also faces important social challenges.

Annual reports of the Research Chair