Devolution sees Inuvialuit receive $1.5M in N.W.T. resource royalties

The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation's cut of 2014-15 resource revenues came to about $1.5 million.

The corporation is the second group to disclose how much it received from the N.W.T. government as part of the first resource revenue payout to aboriginal groups since devolution. The Tlicho Government received nearly $1 million this year.

The money is generated from the profits of mining and oil and gas companies operating in the territory, and will fluctuate every year, says Cournoyea.

"If the exploration and the mineral development are not paying in any royalty payments, then it goes down," she said. "Right now the oil and gas industry here has pushed themselves down out of the picture. So for a number of years there won't be anything happening there."

Cournoyea says this year's money will go to training and a program to assist harvesters.

Government won't share how much it made

Every year the territorial government will share up to 25 per cent of the N.W.T.'s resource revenues with aboriginal groups. The money is split based on population and the cost of living in each group's region.

Cournoyea says the Inuvialuit cut amounted to about 26 per cent of the total amount the government shared with the nine aboriginal groups signed on to devolution. The Tlicho Government has said its cut came to $912,000.

The N.W.T. government won't tell CBC how much it kept in resource revenues after its payments to aboriginal groups, but that the amount will be disclosed in the interim public accounts tabled in the legislature this fall.