Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 29/02) - The territory's most powerful organization is starting to stir after a decade of political slumber.

After three days of meetings at the Explorer Hotel in Yellowknife and 10 fractured years, the Dene Nation leadership decided to recalibrate their organization by this summer and push it to the fore of territorial politics.

Aklavik Chief Charlie Furlong said it's time for the Dene Nation to stand toe-to-toe with Canada.

"I want to get to the place where this leadership is making decisions, not the legislative assembly," said Furlong in a spirited speech on the last day of meetings.

Last February in Yellowknife, Dogrib Grand Chief Joe Rabesca brought the Dogrib back to the Dene Nation with an open handed slam of the meeting table. The gesture signalled the first time the Dene Nation met in the full force of its 26 communities in eight years.

At that meeting, held in the same meeting room, modernizing the constitution and drafting a new mandate topped the agenda. Much talk and research followed but planned community consultations and requests for funding never happened. A year later, Akaitcho Chief Richard Edjericon opened the meeting with strong words questioning the credibility of the Dene Nation and its direction. He warned the Akaitcho Nation would reconsider its membership if nothing was done on the issue.

His speech seemed to tap into the resolve of the assembled chiefs and they unanimously directed Dene Nation National Chief Bill Erasmus to seek funding and finish community consultations for final talks on the constitution and mandate by this summer.

"I am happy to hear the people want to work as a nation," said Sahtu Grand Chief Frank Andrew during the meeting.

"The elders speak of how the Dene Nation should do the work because the territorial government does not represent Dene people."

National Chief Bill Erasmus said getting the money for the community consultations won't be a problem.

But don't tell Erasmus that the Dene Nation is regaining its strength. The Dene Nation is the Dene people, he said.

"I never thought we were stronger before," said Erasmus in a separate interview.

"If we think we are not strong then we aren't. If we think we are then we are."

In an interview during the meeting, Mackenzie Delta MLA David Krutko said the Dene Nation's move to exert more control over the territory's future is partly a product of a territorial government that "is not working".

"(The government) says they want to work with aboriginals but their policies diminish their rights in things like health and social services," said Krutko. "Call it colonial control and the white man's government always control. Now you see it in the structures of the legislative assembly."

The importance of Dene chiefs' support is not lost on the ruling powers of the government. Premier Stephen Kakfwi and deputy premier Jim Antoine spent five hours Tuesday answering questions in the meeting.

Kakfwi and Erasmus have a history. The two butted heads in the early 1990s over the Charlottetown Accord and the failed Dene-Metis land claim. Then minister of aboriginal affairs, Kakfwi publicly criticized Erasmus for lack of leadership.

Kakfwi lead the Dene Nation for part of the 1980s and relinquished his post to Erasmus who was voted into office in 1987. He held the position ever since.

Erasmus lead the organization through its highest and lowest points in the past two decades.

In 1990 the Dene Nation led the massive Dene-Metis land claim that fell apart when the federal government refused to negotiate treaty entitlement.

From that point, one by one, three regions pulled away from the table to pursue their own land claims, beginning with the Gwich'in, the Sahtu and then the Dogrib, leaving the Deh Cho and Akaitcho nations at the table.

One by one the nations returned and after a decade of uncertainty, revived a political body that once stopped the construction of a pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley in the face of intense business and government pressure in the 1970's.