Jack Danylchuk
Northern News Services
Published Friday, August 17, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - There was no lingering death for the NWT Aboriginal Summit.

Just seven months after key leaders walked out and the territorial government pulled its funding, the organization that represented First Nations and Metis for the past decade at devolution and resource revenue talks closed its office in Yellowknife and cancelled the phone.

"The last day was July 31," said Gary Black, the Summit's executive director for the past four years.

Down to just two member organizations, the North Slave Metis Alliance and the Tlicho government, the Summit didn't really have a choice, he said.

The first blow fell last December when the Inuvialuit Regional Corp. and the Gwich'in Tribal Council withdrew. The Summit lost $1.5 million a year in funding from Ottawa and the territorial government. In March, the Sahtu Dene Council withdrew. The Akaitcho and Deh Cho were never more than observers.

Dene Nation chief Bill Erasmus said the Summit started as a gathering of leaders to discuss issues, "but once it incorporated, it lost touch with the majority of people in the communities.

"It didn't answer to anyone and its mandate wasn't clear, so there was no political support," Erasmus said.

Black said the Summit funded the work of researchers and negotiators and had three employees in its Yellowknife office when he asked the NWT registrar to dissolve the organization.

Most Summit members accepted the territorial government as negotiator on devolution and resource revenue sharing, he said.

The Summit's demise leaves the North Slave Metis Alliance outside devolution negotiations.

"I was of the view that the Summit could have accomplished its goal," said Alliance president Bill Enge. "Unfortunately that view wasn't shared. When the Summit lost its collective voice, it lost its mandate. This is at the expense of our political interests since we're not a party to the territorial government's devolution talks."