SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - First Nations groups are offended by a recent report classifying them as a risk to oil sands developments.

Dene National Chief Bill Erasmus, a member of the Treaty 8 Akaitcho territory, said Flanagan's report is "potentially dangerous" to the reputation of aboriginal people across Canada. - NNSL file photo

The report, Resource Industries and Security Issues in Northern Alberta, was written by University of Calgary political science professor Tom Flanagan and published by the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute in June. In the report, Flanagan identified five possible threats to natural resource development in Alberta and Saskatchewan: "individual saboteurs, eco-terrorists, mainstream environmentalists, First Nations, and the Metis people."

He wrote that the Metis are a low risk threat to obstructing development and labelled the Treaty 8 First Nations as medium risk, to which the Dene Nation objects.

Dene National Chief Bill Erasmus, a member of the Treaty 8 Akaitcho territory, said Flanagan's report is "potentially dangerous" to the reputation of aboriginal people across Canada, even though the report focused mainly on northern Alberta.

"When we think of treaties, we don't talk just about one section of the country – it extends to all. And if Tom Flanagan doesn't understand that, then he needs to know what kind of impact that he's having on our people," Erasmus said.

"If that's what he's teaching our children then it's misinformation and it's bordered on what may be called a whole number of things. I don't want to use any particular language, but if it's not entirely true, you can't let him get away with it."

Flanagan, also the author of the book First Nations? Second Thoughts, wrote in the report that it is unlikely northern Alberta environmentalists would be able to affect oil sands development on their own, but that they could have more impact if they teamed up with First Nations groups. "Probably the best defence against such disruptions," he wrote, "is to make sure that local First Nations receive significant economic benefits from any development."

Calls to Flanagan's office at the University of Calgary were not returned before press time.

The report concludes that "resource industries in northern Alberta will undoubtedly face both violent and non-violent obstruction in the future, as they have in the past."

Erasmus said the Dene Nation plans to invite Flanagan to Yellowknife to find out more about his report.

"We're being branded," he said. "Especially when we have never been consulted on the matter, there needs to be room for correction and that's why we're here to make sure that something is done about it."

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, which Flanagan mentioned as reportedly taking part in a past blockade, issued a release

Monday condemning the report as an example of "fear-mongering" and an "unnecessary distraction from the real issues with the oil sands industry."