Negotiation key for candidate
Deh Cho's future tied to land claims process, says Lyle Fabian
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Thursday, November 12, 2015
DEH GAH GOT'IE KOE/FORT PROVIDENCE
Having grown up in Fort Providence, Hay River and the Hay River Reserve, MLA candidate Lyle Fabian says he got a front-row seat to the decades-long Dehcho Process.
Lyle Fabian: Resident running for MLA in the Deh Cho electoral district. Election day is Nov. 23.
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He recalls listening at the annual Dehcho Assembly when he was young. Later, he became involved with the comprehensive claims process at K'atlodeeche First Nation as a negotiator.
Those experiences, he said, are what eventually led him to put his name in for the race to represent the Deh Cho region in the legislative assembly.
"Since devolution, and even prior to that, the territorial government has been making land claims negotiations difficult," he said.
"Our people who have been elected in MLA positions need to beg the question, now the territorial government has provincial-like powers, do they have the right to exercise those powers and hinder settled and unsettled land claims in the territories?"
The priority of the new government needs to be calling a halt to the infighting between the government and its people and being proactive on land claim settlements, according to Fabian.
"We need to take a look at the policies and procedures we are currently using and if they're going to hinder settled and unsettled land claims," he said. "In my experience, we signed a treaty with the Crown, not with the territorial government. If negotiations do not move forward in a proactive way, Fabian said, the Deh Cho will continue to be held in limbo and communities will be unable to move forward economically.
"We're looking to negotiate. We need to move our communities and these land claims forward in a positive way, and we need to have the territorial government on our side," he said.
Fabian sat on K'atlodeeche's council from 2009 to 2012 and more recently has been working in the private sector as a project manager for CasCom.
He said he also wants to see the government look at broadband Internet as a possible economic driver for communities in the North.
"Why are we in this situation we're in? Our government is flatlining in regard to income and (strength)," he said.
"We need to look at other ways of building a strong, viable economic plan to move the whole NWT forward."
Fabian is up against three other candidates for the Deh Cho, including incumbent Michael Nadli, Greg Nyuli and Ron Bonnetrouge.
The election is set to take place Nov. 23.
