Nunavut Trust is a taxable, irrevocable, Canadian Trust established in 1990

• to receive advances from the Government of Canada prior to the signing of the land claim agreement known as the Nunavut Agreement and the net Settlement Payments flowing from the Nunavut Agreement (combined $1,117,870,554) and
• to forever manage the investment and preservation of those assets on behalf of the Inuit of Nunavut.

While most of the Nunavut Agreement addresses matters that fall under the mandates of other Nunavut organizations, Articles 25, 29 and 31 specifically address matters related to the establishment of the Trust and the payments to be made into the Trust. The Settlement Payments were received over a period of fifteen years. The Trust did not receive the full amount of the Settlement Payments laid out in Schedule 29-2 of the Agreement as the Government of Canada retained a portion of each year’s Settlement Payment to repay a portion of the accumulated Negotiating Loan that had been built up during the land claim agreement negotiation period by the Inuit negotiating organization, Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut (Schedule 29-3). The Settlement Payments net of the Negotiating Loan Repayments is the amount which forms the Capital of the Trust

No further Capital was received by the Trust after the last Settlement Payment was received in May 2007. This means that the Trust must accomplish its mandate through the results of its investment activity.

The Trust’s settlor, a person who legally establishes a trust, was a lawyer working on behalf of the Inuit to create and file all the necessary documentation to establish Nunavut Trust. Upon completion of the set-up of the Trust, the settlor played no further role in the operations of the Trust.

All trusts have beneficiaries on whose behalf trust assets are managed and who receive distributions from the relevant trust. In the territory of Nunavut, the term beneficiary usually refers to the individual beneficiaries of the Nunavut Agreement and this can lead to some confusion when the term is used in relation to Nunavut Trust. The Trust’s beneficiaries under the terms of its constituting document, its Trust Deed, can only be one or more corporations or trusts, established for the benefit of the Inuit of Nunavut. Individuals are not beneficiaries of the Trust. Beneficiaries of Nunavut Trust are legally designated as such either under its Trust Deed, or by subsequent Nunavut Trust Trustee resolution and are commonly referred to as the Trust’s beneficiary organizations. Currently the Trust has two beneficiaries:

• Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated
• Nunavut Elders’ Pension Trust

Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated is an independent, Canadian, not for profit, no-share corporation whose mandate is to coordinate and manage Inuit responsibilities set out in the Nunavut Agreement and to ensure that the Canadian and Nunavut governments fulfill their obligations under the Nunavut Agreement. Nunavut Elders’ Pension Trust is a Canadian registered charity whose purpose is to provide financial support through periodic payments to eligible individuals when they reach 55 years of age.

Beneficiary organizations receive distributions of income declared by the Trustees of Nunavut Trust but have no access to or control over the assets or operations of the Trust. The Trustees have the overall fiduciary responsibility for the management of the Trust and the allocation of income available for distribution between its beneficiary organizations.

All of Nunavut Trust’s income available for distribution each year must be distributed to its named beneficiary organizations under the terms of its Trust Deed. It is the responsibility of these beneficiary organizations to decide how best to spend the income they receive to benefit the Inuit of Nunavut.