Chosen justice question particularly relevant for the regulatory/policy framework (in the light of JUSTNORTH research, aimed at supporting future justice-focused research on Arctic governance):

Weighting values: Does the framework promote certain values and interests at the expense of others? Whose interests are being promoted? Is the framework trying to strike a balance, promote certain interests or obscure the tensions within society, including individual vs group/community/global community interests?

General: What is the idealized vision of the future state that the framework is to achieve (e.g. as expressed in introduction to legal acts)?

Procedural justice: What are the opportunities for participation in decision-making and who is envisaged as a stakeholder? 

Inclusion and participation: Are all relevant stakeholders/rightsholders included in the governance/decision-making process and are there any important stakeholders who are excluded? 

Intergenerational justice: What implications does the framework have for future generations?

Intergenerational justice: Are the cumulative effects over time of projects/programmes/activities accounted for in the framework? 

Environmental justice and ethics: What are the anthro-, bio- or eco-centric elements of a given regulatory framework? What norms and ideologies lie behind this orientation? What are the efects of this orientation on different measures within the regulation/policy?

Humans and nature: Is the environment (or its components) treated as a value in itself?

Rights: Which rights and rights frameworks are expressly included in the governance framework, which are missing?

The Arctic and Northern Policy Framework is a profound change of direction for the Government of Canada. For too long, Canada's Arctic and northern residents, especially Indigenous people, have not had access to the same services, opportunities, and standards of living as those enjoyed by other Canadians. There are longstanding inequalities in transportation, energy, communications, employment, community infrastructure, health and education. While almost all past governments have put forward northern strategies, none closed these gaps for the people of the North, or created a lasting legacy of sustainable economic development.

In her 2016 Interim Report on the Shared Arctic Leadership Model, Minister's Special Representative Mary Simon said, "the simple fact is that Arctic strategies throughout my lifetime have rarely matched or addressed the magnitude of the basic gaps between what exists in the Arctic and what other Canadians take for granted."

Co-developing the new framework became a bold opportunity to shape and direct change in the region by collaborating with governments, northerners and Indigenous governments and organizations. Consultation was not enough to meet the challenges and harness emerging opportunities in the Arctic and North. In a significant shift, the federal government, Indigenous peoples, Inuit, First Nations and Métis, 6 territorial and provincial governments (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, and Manitoba) contributed to this framework together.