With the economic update and the Auditor General's report all coming out on the same day, one chapter of Sheila Fraser's work will probably go unnoticed.

There is a full chapter on the Inuvialuit Land Claim that was signed 23 years ago on one bright spring day in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories.

Then Indian Affairs Minister John Munroe donned traditional clothing and danced with Inuvialuit leaders in the community to celebrate.

People in the small northern communities were overjoyed and proud of the deal.

This was a crucial land claim. It was the first land claim north of the 60th parallel and only one of three comprehensive claims at the time that provided both land and money to native people in Canada.

It affects the Inuvialuit, the western Arctic Inuit, who live in the MacKenzie Delta and the Arctic islands to the north.

The agreement transferred 91,000 square kilometres of land and $170 million dollars to the Inuvialuit. That land now contains much of the gas that will go into the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline.

This claim has formed the basis for many of the 18 land agreements signed across Canada since then.

But Sheila Fraser found the federal government had done a very bad job in holding to its side of the bargain. It hasn't transferred all the land to the Inuvialuit that it's supposed to.

In fact in some cases the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs (INAC) transferred some of the wrong land and has done nothing in the last 23 years to fix it.

And in all that time INAC has never made a list of its obligations under the constitutionally protected land claim and lived up to them.

Auditor General Sheila Fraser simply shook her head when asked about this.

"I wish I could answer that question as to why 23 years after the government made a committment to these people it has still to live up to its obligations ... it has not worked in partnership with Inuvialuit towards the goals of this agreement."

Makes you wonder if the Inuvialuit of the Mackenzie Delta would have been so quick to dance with joy if they knew just what kind of partner they were stuck with.