LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON - Last week, Deh Cho Drum looked at what the Village of Fort Simpson was doing to recover back taxes.

Jonas Antoine did not appreciate a public notice posted around Fort Simpson, which announces he owes the village more than $70,000 in unpaid property taxes, since he said documentation does not exist to prove his lot is subject to taxation.

Antoine, a Dene elder and subsistence hunter who survives off the land and the furs he sells, is one of a handful of residents with a land dispute in the municipality.

In an open letter to the village, Antoine stated he inherited his lot from his father, who built a house on the property in 1963 - 10 years before the village was incorporated - because it had been designated at the time as "land reserved for Indian use." Tenants do not pay property taxes on this land, with the federal government instead making grant in lieu payments on their behalf to the municipality.

However, in 2001, Antoine received a property tax bill for $1,758.88, with penalties of $9,959.42. He travelled to Yellowknife to see if any documentation showed his lot to be on Commissioner's land - or land administered by the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) - which would subject it to taxation.

Antoine was given a document that referenced his lot and, he said it was stamped so many times, that he couldn't make sense of it.

"Even the people working there couldn't help me decipher it," he said, adding no certificate of title was issued for his lot.

"I kind of threw up my hands and let the chips fall where they may."

Beverly Chamberlain, director of land administration with MACA, said Antoine's lot was transferred from the federal government to Commissioner's land in 1984, but she did not know what the land had been classified as prior to that. She said Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) would have that record.

Multiple calls to INAC were not returned.

According to the village, six or seven disputed lots are included on the village's public tax arrears notice.

Dolly Cazon got a grant from the NWT Housing Corporation and built her home on a lot that she was told was going to be on band land. She assumed that was the case - she even had it in writing from the Liidlii Kue First Nation chief at the time - until she got a tax bill in 2003.

"I never knew anything about it," she said.

Cazon owes the village more than $35,000.

"I'm in a heck of a mess right now."

She said her situation is being looked at, but added the land issues are complicated and confusing and she has been left to wonder what went wrong with her land transfer.

"It's such a headache," she said. She is worried about the future of her children if she is saddled with this debt.

Mayor Sean Whelly said the village met with officials from INAC, the Liidlii Kue First Nation and MACA to discuss these issues in 2009. He said confusion stemmed from tenants believing their properties were on Crown land, which could then be classified as land reserved for Indian use and band land.

"We sort of found out that trying to go back 20 or 30 years on some of these claims, I guess, would be awfully difficult," said Whelly. "That was something that was way beyond the scope of the village of Fort Simpson."

Liidlii Kue First Nation Chief Jim Antoine said the land issue is a big dilemma.

"In Liidlii Kue, it's not really clear exactly how certain properties became designated the way they are today," he said. One of the problems, he said, is that ever since the housing corporation moved from being an independent entity to become a branch of the territorial government, it will not build homes on band land.

"There were some arrangements made in the past that turned some of the band lands into Commissioner's land so the housing corporation could build on them, but it's not really clear what happened there," Jim Antoine said.

He said one of the long-term initiatives the band has considered is to get funding to have someone go back into the land archives in Yellowknife and Ottawa to do an in-depth study about Fort Simpson's land situation to clarify how the disputed lots should have been categorized.

"We will do that, but that doesn't solve the current situation," he said.

Chamberlain was present at the meeting and she said MACA turned over its federal transfer records and historical documents to the band.

"We talked about a project that the band wanted to undertake to try and figure out or piece together all of the transfers of land that have happened over the years," she said.

Chamberlain said between 1970 to 1972, the federal government started turning over large tracts of land, including parcels within municipalities, to the territorial government as Commissioner's land.

She agreed that some of today's confusion may have come as a result of those land transfers and due to less detailed mapping tools that existed at the time.

The issue runs much deeper, though.

Jonas Antoine questioned who had the authority to transfer his lot. His family has been on this land for hundreds of years and he said the Dene have never ceded title to their land, which is the reason why the federal government is now negotiating a land claim with the Dehcho First Nations.

"It's a culture of oppression from the federal government through the municipalities to do this type of thing," he said.

"This is what you call colonialism at its peak."

Cazon sees the same element at play.

"Who is taking the land out from Dene people?" she asked.

Jonas Antoine said he would like to see a specific claims process proceed with the Canadian government.

Whelly said the village is constrained by its legislation and cannot forgive property taxes.

"We are forced to go ahead with the tax collections, as we are bound to do under the legislation," he said.

Whelly said even if INAC agreed to re-categorize the disputed lands as band land, the federal government could not forgive the back taxes, adding only the MACA minister has that authority.

Jonas Antoine said the tax issue is causing him emotional hardship.

"Your approach has caused me undue stress, unnecessary embarrassment, and a slander on my reputation as an elder among my own people," he wrote. "It is evident, that if I do not defend myself in this matter... that the village will seize my property and I will be left homeless."

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