This was the first territory-wide plebiscite conducted in Northwest Territories history.

The question was a culmination of nearly twenty-five years of debate at the federal and territorial level of government.

A bill was tabled in the House of Commons that would have divided the territory in 1963, but it died on the order paper.

In the late 1970s and in the 1980s a number of proposals were made on how to divide up the territory, and the question was finally put to the voters.

This would happen seventeen years later when Nunavut was carved out of the Northwest Territories.