Centre for the North

About this Centre

The main purpose of the Centre for the North is to work with Aboriginal leaders, businesses, governments, communities, educational institutions, and other organizations to achieve a shared vision of sustainable prosperity in the North. Most important, the Centre will help define the actions required to realize that vision. Sustainable prosperity will require economic and social development that benefits current and future generations while protecting the North’s fragile ecosystems. It demands that everyone—Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, government and business—share in the benefits from economic development, while minimizing the impacts on the environment.

The Conference Board is uniquely suited to provide the Centre with the skills and expertise required to conduct balanced and rigorous analysis based on multi-stakeholder participation. The Board draws on its multi-disciplinary team of experts, as well as on external—especially Northern—expertise, to carry out in-depth research that takes all stakeholders’ perspectives into account.

Over the course of this five-year project, the Conference Board will provide the Centre with economic forecasts for Northern regions (including for each of the territories and for the Greater North as a whole), and will carry out economic-impact assessments of various policy and strategy options emerging from research and dialogue. It will develop a typology, case studies, and analysis for thriving communities, and conduct research on sovereignty and security. All these items will be action-oriented, resulting in recommendations for strategy and policy changes. The Conference Board has a long tradition of conducting such analysis and communicating results to leaders.

Our goal is that within five years the Centre will have built a common vision of sustainable prosperity among key Northern stakeholders and helped them establish and implement policies, strategies, and practices capable of transforming that vision into reality. The Centre will provide a forum for these groups to collaborate with one another. We expect to produce as many as 50 studies in the course of this five-year program. At the conclusion, we will publish a final report detailing the various themes, challenges, and solutions.