Ottawa was at the centre of a covert surveillance operation targeting Inuit political leaders throughout the 1970s, newly declassified documents have revealed — a troubling chapter in the history of Canada's security apparatus that unfolded just as Indigenous peoples were beginning to assert their land rights in earnest.
The RCMP Security Service compiled a three-volume intelligence dossier on the national Inuit organization between 1972 and 1980, monitoring figures like John Amagoalik — the man who would later be called the "Father of Nunavut" — under a program internally labelled "Native extremism."
Watching an Organization Built in Ottawa
Amagoalik was working with the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (now Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami), the national Inuit advocacy organization that was headquartered in Ottawa and used the capital as its base for developing a formal proposal for Inuit self-governance and land rights across Canada's Arctic. Much of this work — meetings, negotiations, political organizing — was carried out openly and democratically, right here in Ottawa's committee rooms and offices.
Despite this, Mounties were watching and filing reports.
The Alliance That Spooked the RCMP
Among the specific fears that triggered the surveillance was the possibility of a coordinated political alliance between Inuit and Dene leaders. Security Service documents suggest the RCMP viewed joint Indigenous political action as a potential threat — a framing that now reads as deeply revealing about the era's security mindset.
The label "Native extremism" placed on peaceful advocacy work conducted through established democratic channels says less about the Inuit leaders being surveilled and far more about the institutional biases baked into the RCMP at the time.
A Pattern of Surveillance
The revelations are not entirely surprising. Decades of access-to-information disclosures have exposed a pattern of RCMP monitoring of Indigenous leaders, labour organizers, civil rights advocates, and anti-war groups throughout the 20th century. For many Indigenous communities, this history of surveillance reinforces longstanding distrust of federal institutions — a distrust that reconciliation efforts are still working to repair.
Built Anyway
Despite the watching eyes, the movement succeeded. The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement — the largest Indigenous land settlement in Canadian history — was signed in 1993, and on April 1, 1999, Nunavut officially became Canada's newest territory.
That this historic achievement was built, in large part, through years of work in Ottawa, while the RCMP quietly assembled intelligence files on its architects, is a reminder of how far the country still had to travel — and how much further it still needs to go.
Indigenous rights advocates say disclosures like these underscore the continued importance of transparency and accountability from Canadian security agencies as the country navigates its ongoing reconciliation commitments.
Source: CBC News
