NUNAVUT - While land holdings generate royalties and Inuit have access to the jobs and contracting opportunities Kitikmeot Inuit Association president Charlie Evalik said they deserve, Inuit still depend on others to make development decisions and investments.

Kitikmeot Inuit Association President Charlie Evalik (left) is the new chairman of the Nunavut Resources Corporation. He is standing with Peter Lougheed and Paul Emingak, the acting executive director for KIA. - photo courtesy of Ron Wallace/Nunavut Resources Corporation

Evalik will act as chairman of NRC, which is owned by Inuit organizations, including the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, the Kivalliq Inuit Association and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, headquarted in Cambridge Bay.

"We need to look at another way of going after benefits, plus Inuit need to start looking at investment opportunities and resource development in the North," said Evalik, who is also the president of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association.

"We're looking at the direct participation in the first instance - the mining activities that is always happening in Nunavut and the negotiating on infrastructure government, maybe equity participation and some of those activities."

By equity participation, he said he means investing its own money to the mining activities at first, oil and gas later.

Slightly more than $1 million was spent last year doing research to establish the corporation, said Evalik, money that came from the federal government through Indian and Northern Affairs, the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated and the Nunavut government. This year, he added, it expects to spend $1 to $2 million setting up the corporation's budgets and examining outside source funding for investment purposes, an amount that will be determined by project.

About half a dozen to 10 jobs are expected to be created this year, said Evalik.

"It will be creating some jobs in terms of organization and capacity building in terms of project management, chief operating officer and some finance people in regards to that. We are involved in other activities, possibly create more jobs," he said.

The greater Rankin Inlet area is home to the Meadowbank Mine and the Meliadine gold deposit, recently acquired by Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited in a $650 million transaction.

"It's good news, real good news and it's positive in the context of ourselves, the Inuit people, in getting involved in that kind of venture, in those kinds of probabilities," Rankin Inlet mayor John Hickes said.

Only the future will tell how effective the new corporation will be in its endeavours, he added, but there are no reasons not to get involved in the future of the lands.

"We certainly want the opportunity to be involved," he said. "We're here to create jobs for our people, growth potential for our youths. Our hamlet is not that wealthy so we may not be able to generate any investments directly with them but we sure look forward to doing business with them."

A board drawn from business leaders with expertise in corporate finance and mineral development will advise the corporation. Evalik will act as chair while other board members will be appointed in the upcoming months.