Article
Project Surname
In 1970, the federal government undertook a program, known as Project Surname, to assign last names to Inuit in northern Canada. These surnames were to replace the personal disc numbers (see Inuit Disc Numbers) that Inuit had been given by the Canadian government in the 1940s. Some Inuit and non-Inuit viewed Project Surname as a more effective and politically correct system of identification. Others saw it as another instrument of paternalism.