by Glenn Taylor
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 05/97) - The Gwich'in Tribal Council is taking the federal government to court.

The council is claiming $2 million in damages for Ottawa's failure to establish land and water co-management boards under the terms of the 1992 Gwich'in land claim agreement.

The agreement calls for the establishment of the boards no later than Dec. 22, 1994. Now, two and a half years later, the "delays have forced the Gwich'in Tribal Council ... to take legal action against Canada," said council president Richard Nerysoo.

"From a constitutional point of view, the government has a legal and moral responsibility to live up to its agreements," he said last week.

The legal action seeks a declaration that Canada is in breach of the agreement, and calls for Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Ron Irwin to renegotiate the implementation plan and comply with the agreement.

The Federal Court action also asks for $2 million in damages and legal costs.

The government and Gwich'in and Sahtu claim groups have been working to develop the boards since 1992.

The agreement sets out land use planning boards for the Gwich'in and Sahtu settlement areas, a land and water board and an environmental impact assessment and review board. The boards, co-managed by government and claim group members, were to determine what kind of activities, such as mining, could take place within the settlement areas.

To bring the boards into existence, however, Parliament must first pass the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act.

The proposed act made it to the House of Commons last December. But the federal election call killed all acts still before Parliament and put creation of the boards on hold indefinitely.

The Gwich'in filed its case April 17, but have heard nothing from the federal government since then, Nerysoo said.

Officials from Indian and Northern Affairs were available for comment.

Western Arctic MP Ethel Blondin-Andrew's campaign manager, Lynda Sorensen, referred all questions to Irwin's office.

She said Blondin-Andrew could not discuss the act because the issue is before the courts, and is not prepared to comment on why the act failed to pass before the election call.

Sorensen, however, did say that Nerysoo had "shot himself in the foot" by launching the challenge during the election campaign.

Nerysoo said Blondin-Andrew had made efforts to raise the issue with Irwin, but evidently, they weren't sufficient to convince cabinet to push the legislation through in time.

He also pointed that the Nunavut land claim, though signed two years after the Gwich'in agreement, already has its environmental boards in place.

Until the issue is settled, land use management within the Gwich'in settlement area is shared among a number of bodies, including community-based renewable resource councils, the Gwich'in Land Administration, and a number of regional co-management boards.